[NFBOH-Cleveland] Attention Cleveland!

[smturner.234 at gmail.com]

Good Sunday, Cleveland Chapter and Friends,

 

On Today thru February 3rd, you can listen to the Presidential Release,
Chapter Version. However, on February 3rd, there will be announcement for
the next two weeks recorded after 7:00PM. Please share the information. 

 

Anyone is welcome to access the Cleveland Voice Box.

 

Also, for your convenience, below is the February 2026th Presidential
Release, Chapter Version transcript.

 

Call To Listen:

641-715-3900 and input

Code: 582705, again to listen.

 

Transcript is below!

 

Suzanne Turner, President

National Federation of the Blind of Cleveland

(216) 990-6199

 

///

Presidential Release #557, February 2026 (Chapter Transcript)

Announcer:

[Over music, 

Live the Life You Want]: The following message is brought to you by Mark
Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind. Live the life you
want.

 

Mark Riccobono:

 

Greetings Fellow Federationists, today is Wednesday, January 28th, 2026, and
this is Presidential Release 557. Very hopeful message for each and every
one of you that you are safe and warm and have been, as the United States
has experienced this record breaking winter storm named Fern.

Certainly many Federationists have experienced it. Many have fought through
the adversity of the storm to get to Washington, DC and are still in
Washington DC. I am recording this as Capitol Hill visits are still
happening as part of our Washington Seminar. I did return to Baltimore last
evening after our congressional reception.

I know that many more people wanted to be on Capitol Hill for our Washington
Seminar, and many of you even made heroic attempts to get here with what I
heard was a record number of flights canceled in the United States.

Almost impossible for some of you. So thank you for your efforts to get
here, to be in person, but know there's plenty to do back home to support
our legislative efforts if you could not make it and thank you to those who
were able to make it to DC in person.

I know almost every single member that we had in Washington DC took on some
extra responsibilities, had extra juggling to do, was ready to help wherever
needed. So I think this week we definitely showed the true power of the
Federation, but also the flexibility. A lot of people say the F stands for
flexible, and that definitely was true this week, so thank you for that.

The work does continue and for our affiliates who were not able to get all
of their meetings in either virtually or in person, please know that there
is plenty of time and it's really important that we follow up by completing
those meetings and reporting on them, but then also following up with the
offices we did meet with and making sure we get the commitment from them. I
can tell you that despite the adversity, we did have a great Washington
Seminar.

Our presidents and our Kenneth Jernigan In-Service participants were at our
headquarters over the weekend, and we had a plan to meet with them on the
Sunday before the Washington Seminar, and we moved that to the hotel in DC.

So we all went to DC a day early and had our meeting in DC great
conversations with our affiliate presidents doing planning for the work
ahead, considering how we build new opportunities in the organization and
strengthening the leadership network that we have.

So a lot of good work happened there. We had great trainings on Monday and
of course our Great Gathering-In which was very energetic in person and
great attendance on Zoom by all of you who could not be there. And even on
Monday night, the students had their annual auction. And I can tell you we
raised record number of dollars for the student division.

So thank you to those who turned out to continue to help our students do
what they need to do to advance opportunities for blind students. And then
many great meetings on the hill on Tuesday. Those still continuing Today I
had an opportunity to sit in with our affiliates on some of the Hill
meetings, and it's really fantastic to listen to our local members, talk to
their members of Congress and staff members about the legislative priorities
and articulate it in such an authentic and meaningful way to bring that
local flare to it.

And then we had a great congressional reception at the end of the day
yesterday. I think we actually had more members, Federation members on
Capitol Hill. Then there were members of Congress on Capitol Hill. But I can
tell you that that really made an impression and certainly made an
impression on the three senators who we had at our congressional reception.

One of them even was moved to say that he was taking a very hard look at
being the Senate sponsor for our Blind Americans Return to Work Act, and
that was also discussed in a hill meeting I was in. So I think coming out of
this Washington seminar, we'll have some really great momentum for all our
issues, but definitely for the Blind Americans Return to Work Act.

If you didn't get a chance to study the fact sheets and get caught up on our
issues because you weren't planning to come to Washington Seminar, you
should still do that. The fact sheets are still available at our website and
we still need your help to push members of Congress and remind them about
the work that we have to do, nfb.org/washington-seminar to find our
legislative fact sheets and keep up to date on how we can help.

Now, if you weren't able to tune into the Great Gathering-In or maybe want
to refresh, I'm going to put after this presidential release, after our
customary endings, in case you missed it, the opening presentation I gave at
the Great Gathering-In, you may want to try to work that into your chapter
meeting or if you're listening to this outside of the chapter meeting, I
offered that presentation for what it's worth because it might give you some
perspective on the important work we're trying to do in Washington DC.

Now, on the last presidential release, I let you know that I was planning to
go to India at the beginning of January, and that trip did happen. I
traveled to India to be part of the World Blind Union officers meeting in
New Delhi. We were hosted quite expertly by the world President SK Rungta
and the National Federation of the Blind of India.

Now, I didn't know much about the NFB of India. Of course, we share the
name. Well, I guess they share our name because we had National Federation
of the Blind first, and I was really pleased to learn how important the
National Federation of the Blind, the United States has been as an
inspiration for the development and continued work of the NFB of India.

We don't have a formal relationship with the NFB of India, but of course we
share the name National Federation of the Blind, and they have always taken
inspiration from what we do. Kenneth Jernigan was very supportive in their
development, and the NFB of India is still continuing to fight for rights in
India, even as it has made some great progress and has all of the challenges
of operating in a developing nation. So I'm looking forward to working more
closely with the President of the World Blind Union, who is a member of the
NFB of India and getting to know them better.

I hope to provide an opportunity for Federationists to get to know them
better. Now coincidentally, the NFB of India came about in 1973, is when it
really took hold, and 1973 is an important Federation year in many ways. And
as a matter of fact, it happens to be the highlighted year in this week's
episode of Walking Alone and Marching Together, episode 13.

So hopefully you all are tuning in and getting caught up on Walking Alone
and Marching Together. Thought it was quite fortuitous that it came up this
week. 1973 of course was the first Washington Seminar, which is highlighted
in this week's edition of Walking Alone and Marching Together, but also
highlighted in that episode is the 1973 banquet speech, Is History Against
Us.

And as I was coming to record this release, I thought this is a good thing
to lift up to our members because this speech, in particular by Dr. Jernigan
discusses how history has told the story of blind people and how that
differs from the reality of the story, especially when blind people have
written the story.

I call this banquet speech out to you as a great resource for a conversation
about philosophy, about our work for discussion at our chapter meetings, and
definitely to bring a connection to how we capture and tell our stories in
2026.

It is also a good opportunity for our chapters to generate some ideas,
discussion about our future Museum of the Blind People's Movement and
initiative that we now call the Blind Unbound Initiative. I would love for
you to use this speech to discuss what stories would you want to have in a
Museum of the Blind People's Movement? What stories would you want to be
featured and educational learnings would you want to be the focus of a
traveling exhibit that might come to your local community?

That could be curated by your local chapter, your ideas, thoughts,
reflections, inspiration from the work of the Federation, but also from Dr.
Jernigan 1973 banquet speech would be really powerful and I would add to
that include any questions that your chapter members might have about our
Blind Unbound Initiative, our effort to increase the storytelling and the
archiving of material in the organized blind movement.

Send your questions, your ideas to museum at nfb.org. Maybe we'll make them the
source of future presidential releases and or other conversations that we
might have in the organization. I think this is a great resource for you to
consider, and I think just the conversation and reflection on the 1973
banquet speech, which continues to be very, very relevant even today would
be fantastic. So I call that to your attention as long as we're talking
about getting information, staying plugged into the Federation.

One of the things that came up this week is that we learned that a recent
update to the Amazon devices might have made it more difficult for some
members to access our NFB skill on their Amazon devices. This happened when
some people had trouble tuning in on those devices to the Great Gathering-In
if you recently updated your Amazon device, you may now have to update what
you say to your device to initiate our Nation's Blind skill.

So you may need to say open Nation's Blind skill and that should work for
you before you didn't necessarily have to say skill, but we have found that
with some of the updates, some people are having trouble initiating the
skill unless they use specifically the words Nation's Blind skill. So try
that and I hope it works for you. N-F-B-R-N is still there and operating,
and of course our live events will also appear there.

If you do have trouble still accessing this skill or for that matter are
having trouble with any of our publications or access methods, please reach
out to our communications group that's communications with an s at nfb.org.
They would love to hear from you, they would love to help and especially
want your feedback to make sure we continue to deliver the latest
information to you.

Speaking of information, I also wanted to mention that recently we have
created a new email communication that we call the NFB Member Digest. And
this is a communication that we've put together based on feedback from
members wanting to batch some things together to be a quick snapshot of
what's happening in the organization and to put information in one place in
front of the membership.

Now, if you say, well, I haven't been getting the NFB Member Digest via
email, it might be because your membership record is not up to date in our
central database, and so if you haven't been getting the email you expect to
want to please talk to your affiliate or chapter membership coordinator,
make sure that your membership is listed as current in the NFB database.

Well, first I guess you should make sure your membership is actually current
at the chapter level, and then if you're not getting it, make sure that your
chapter has changed it in our database so you continue to get member driven
information like the Member Digest email and give us feedback, again,
communications at nfb.org on what you think.

Is this helpful? What else would you like to see in it? Again, it's not
meant to replace our publications, but to be an enhancement to make sure
that we're keeping our members up to date. If you are a president or a
membership coordinator and you still are having some struggles with our
member management tools, please reach out to membership at nfb.org. Happy to
support you and help you make sure all of our members are connected to the
right resources. This gives me an opportunity to preview that we will have a
presidential release live coming up on March 5th.

That's our current plan, so please put March 5th, the evening of March 5th
on your calendar for our next presidential release live. We haven't had one
in a while. Things have been very busy. So I'm looking forward to having
another live event.

And since that's coming up, just remind you that we'd love to hear your
ideas, topics you'd like to see and have us cover on the presidential
release, live questions, anything like that. And of course, that includes
these recorded releases. We'd love your feedback. You can send that to
communications. You can also write directly to me at Office of the
president at nfb.org.

Please help shape these monthly releases, but also our live events,
especially as we get into registration season for convention and into our
national convention in Austin, which I know we will be talking about at the
March presidential release, both the live and recorded versions, that's what
I have to present here for our February release.

We have spring conventions already starting in February. Lots of follow up
from our Washington Seminar, lots of great Federation activities on the
calendar. And so with that, I will leave you with some of the customary
endings for the February, 2026 release.

Now, we've had a great ice storm that has swept the nation, and I really
wanted to tell you an ice related joke for this release, but it did slip my
mind, but I do have one here, which is why did the snowman call a meeting?

Well, to break the ice of course, and if you believe that the endings on
this release feel a little bit repetitive, it's probably just because
Groundhog's Day is coming up.

Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.

The 2026 Washington Seminar of the National Federation of the Blind is now
in order. In January of 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense. What made
that pamphlet revolutionary was not simply its call for independence, but
the way it framed that call. Paine did not argue that independence was
heroic or dramatic. He argued that it was obvious.

He insisted that paternal rule had lost its legitimacy and that people long
treated as dependents were fully capable of governing themselves.
Reconciliation he said, was no longer rational. Independence was simply
common sense. In November of 1940, Jacobus tenBroek made a similar
declaration on behalf of Blind Americans. At the time, the National
Federation of the Blind was founded.

Blind people were treated much like the colonies once had been spoken for,
managed by others, and constrained by low expectations presented as
protection. Decisions about our lives were made without us justified by
charity rather than equality by control, rather than self-determination, our
Federation rejected that model outright.

We asserted that blind people are not wards, not clients and not objects of
care, but independent self-directing individuals capable of full
participation in society. We insisted that blind people must speak for
selves and shape the policies that govern our lives, reflecting the very
values upon which our nation was founded.

Like Paine, Dr. tenBroek and our founding Federationists did not ask for
special status. We claimed normalcy. We claimed agency, we claimed
independence. And just as in 1776, that claim was not radical. It was common
sense.

That is what brings us to our nation's capital today. Independence does not
sustain itself. It must be claimed, defended and advanced even as our nation
prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary. Our laws and policies continue
to be shaped by misconceptions, low expectations, and charity rather than
independence for the blind.

Blind Americans have come to Capitol Hill because we expect to do what
self-governing people must do, speak directly to those who craft the rules
that shape our lives. We do not come asking to be taken care of. We come
insisting on equal access, equal opportunity, and equal responsibility.

Our presence here proves the principle that we advance blind people know
what we need. We know how to build solutions. We know how to lead. Our
independence is not a theory or an aspiration. It is self-evident and it is
our daily experience. Advocating for its recognition is not radical. It is
common sense.

Congress needs our advice and guidance because our first branch of
government does not yet include enough blind experience for our solutions to
be obvious. But do not worry, America the blind are here to move beyond the
nonsense and contribute meaningfully to achieve this nation's ideals.

For nearly a century, programs in education, employment, and independent
living have been shaped through authentic advocacy by blind people
themselves. These efforts have enabled blind children to receive instruction
and materials in Braille so they could grow into fully contributing tax
paying adults across every sector of our economy.

These programs have supported newly blind individuals with meaningful
rehabilitation, allowing them to continue offering their talents to
employers rather than being forced into dependency. Independent living
programs, though dramatically underfunded, have allowed blind seniors to
remain in their homes, caring for grandchildren and living full lives
instead of relying on costly custodial care.

Yet after 250 years, some claim that eliminating these programs represents
progress. We the blind respond clearly encourage our greater independence,
and America will receive far more in return. That is common sense. In 2026,
technology touches nearly every aspect of life, yet accessibility has not
been built into all of the tools of modern progress.

If blind people are given control over purchasing the accessible technology
we need, we will unlock potential that benefits the entire nation.
Independence. Self-determination and equal opportunity are not lofty policy
aspirations for the blind.

They are common sense solutions. Nearly a century ago, our nation
established social security and since 1940, blind Americans have played a
significant role in making it meaningful. Yet one policy remains glaringly
illogical.

Our nation encourages blind people to work, but only up to an arbitrary and
inadequate earnings threshold. Beyond which independence is punished rather
than rewarded, we offer a better way. A solution that strengthens
independence, streamlines government oversight, increases tax contributions,
and encourages participation in the American dream. The Blind Americans
Return to Work Act is not radical policy. It is common sense.

We come to Congress not as partisans, but as Americans, we are not
Republicans or Democrats. First, not liberals, greens or independents. We
are citizens who happen to be blind. Our work is not about ideology, it is
about equality. We bring practical solutions, grounded in lived experience,
informed by responsibility, and aimed at strengthening the nation. We share
by advocating together across political lines, we affirm a fundamental
democratic truth.

Self-governed people solve problems best when they come as equals committed
not to politics, but to the ongoing work of forming a more perfect union.
This is how blind people come together. This is how independence is claimed,
protected and advanced. This is how Common Sense solutions become national
policy. We are the National Federation of the Blind, and this is the
significance of our Washington Seminar.

Announcer:

The preceding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President,
National Federation of the Blind, 410-659-9314.
Officeofthepresident at nfb.org. Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon. Just
search for @president at NFB.Social. Let's go build the National Federation of
the Blind.

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