[NFBV-Announce] Black History Month

[jackibruce6 at gmail.com]

Hey NFB Family and Friends,

 

Please read below for day 26 of Black History Month stories.

 

John T. McCraw, was President of the Free State Federation of the Blind, the
NFB affiliate in Maryland.]

John T. McCraw was  unique to recreation and he was   blind. He was  also a
professional musician and a dedicated and gifted professional recreation
leader.

He was  the only blind recreationist working in Baltimore City. Hundreds of
children knew "Mr. John" as the "big man" who plays the piano, conducts
physical exercise, teaches games and accompanies them on trips. Handicapped
adults look forward to talk sessions, card games and song fests with John;
retarded teens and adults looked to him for fun and counsel and sang and
danced to his music. Handicapped senior citizens related to his dignity,
gentleness and humor.

McCraw brought to his work the innate qualities of the humanist and the
polished skills and disciplined knowledge of the well-educated leader. He
worked with pre-school-aged children, school children, teens, adults,
humanity labelled "handicapped"-the crippled, the blind, those with impaired
hearing, the mentally ill and the retarded. He had a keen awareness of the
intrinsic value of all people and the insight and ability to recognize the
special needs of each person. His genuine warmth and uncontrived humor were
magnetic.

He met challenges head-on, broke down walls and stepped  over obstacles. He
was  blind, but he employed no guide, refuses a seeing-eye dog and sought no
preferential treatment. His work day began at 9:00 a.m. and ended at 2:00
a.m. During the course of his work he traveled to many areas of a sprawling
city and he arrived each morning by public transportation. A typical day's
work schedule began when he arrived at a center to meet groups of two to
five-year-old children and implemented the program he had planned for them;
salute to the flag, song, marching, running, skipping, "flying", a brief
rest period and then games, singing and crafts. After lunch older children
attending schools dedicated to teaching the handicapped looked forward to a
two-hour program of games and physical exercise modified to meet their
needs, singing, crafts and trips when the weather permitted. This was
followed by an evening program for blind adults: choral singing, discussion
groups and braille games chess, checkers, scrabble, cards).

At 9:30 each night, McCraw changed hats and entered the world of show
business. He was musical director for a well known after dark club and led
the John McCraw Combo. He has been widely acclaimed as a leading exponent of
jazz and a top-flight pianist.  The  summer before, he worked at Camp
Variety, the Baltimore City Bureau of Recreation's day camp for handicapped
children. His title was "Music Specialist"; his job description was "to plan
and implement musical programs designed to meet the needs of all campers."
The camp was located on 42 acres of fields, streams, hills and woodland.
McCraw met and established a solid relationship with most of the 104 staff
and 1,200 children. He acted as trouble-shooter ex officio, advisor,
counselor to counselors and indispensable aid to the camp director. He
planned to work at camp again the next  year as the program director. In
that  capacity he  planned and directed programs for 1,500 children.

He was  most interested in the progress of recreation, the teaching and
training of recreationists and the public image of the profession. He acted
as co-chairman of a series of seminars incorporated in the Governor's
Conference on Recreation held that  May. These seminars dealt, in depth,
with recreation for the handicapped, and McCraw served in a dual capacity as
panelist as well as moderator.

His outstanding leadership abilities were  attested to by the confidence
placed in him by his peers. He was  the current president of the Free State
Federation of the Blind and past president of the Greater Baltimore Chapter
of the Blind. Those organizations were and still current  local affiliates
of the National Federation of the Blind.

He aolso traveled to    South Carolina to head the State of Maryland
convention delegation.

McCraw was  versatile and he recognized the fact that recreation had many
facets.  They were play,   learning,   relaxing and it could be taxing at
tim4ews. It offers achievement, friendship and new horizons. Professional
recreationists should be versatile, sensitive, warm; they should be people
who love people. John McCraw had all these qualities, plus empathy, the
intelligence and skill to plan good programs, and the stamina to follow his
plans through. He could not select the color of his shirt, nor did he know
if a rose was  red or perhaps pink; but he could tell stories and sing songs
and play music that delighted the hearts of children, their parents and
older people. He could invent games, teach them, play them; he could counsel
teens and lead a teen club he was  a good recreationist.

He had unlocked a closed door; he was  the first blind person to be employed
by the Baltimore City Bureau of Recreation. You might call him a pioneer in
a field that has long needed an updated approach. Recreation is indeed a
profession, and professional recreationists recognize that this is the age
of specialization. Each year our colleges and universities graduate many
hundreds of young people. Some will be good doctors or teachers or
recreationists. Some can draw, some cannot; some can sing, some cannot;some
are athletes, some are not; some can run, some cannot even walk; some can
see, and some cannot. Each has something to offer, a talent sharpened, a
skill well polished the knowledge needed to enhance the daily living of
someone or a group of people. Recreation needs these talents, skills and
knowledge; needs the trained leader, director, specialist, even if he is
tagged with the misnomer "handicapped".

John McCraw beared the label "handicapped". The people with whom he worked
refuted this label; they knew that he cannot see but that he was  not
handicapped. His supervisor knew it and looked to him for the fine program
he never failed to produce. His co-workers knew it and shared with him
close, good comradeship. Adult program participants knew it, saught his
counsel and smiled with him over a bit of subtle humor. And the many
children who waited for him each day knew it.

He received his formal training in Baltimore, at the Peabody Conservatory of
Music, as a Dale Carnegie Scholarship student. He attended Morgan State
College as the recipient of four full scholarships. He received his Bachelor
of Science Degree as an education major, with emphasis on English and music.

Each of us are endowed with talent, with strength; all of us are in some way
handicapped. John T. McCraw was  indeed unique-he had proven, successfully,
that a handicap can be overcome.

 

Uricka Harrison

 


Peace,

Jacki Bruce

Corresponding Secretary, National Federation of the Blind of Virginia
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Live the life you want.

The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends
who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation's blind. Every day we work
together to help blind people live the lives they want

 

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