<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Hey NFB Family and Friends,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Please read below for day 26 of Black History Month stories.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>John T. McCraw, was President of the Free State Federation of the Blind, the NFB affiliate in Maryland.]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>He aolso traveled to South Carolina to head the State of Maryland convention delegation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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".<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Uricka Harrison</span><span lang=EN style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#222222'><br>Peace,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#222222'>Jacki Bruce<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#222222'>Corresponding Secretary, National Federation of the Blind of Virginia<br><a href="mailto:jackibruce6@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>mailto:jackibruce6@gmail.com</span></a></span><span style='color:black'><br></span><span style='color:#222222'><a href="tel:(757)291-1789" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>tel:(757)291-1789</span></a></span><span style='color:black'><br></span><span style='color:#222222'><a href="http://www.nfb.org/" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>www.nfb.org</span></a></span><span style='color:black'><br></span><span style='color:#222222'><a href="http://www.nfbv.org/" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>www.nfbv.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#222222'>Follow us on Twitter @NFBVirginia<br>Find us on Facebook @NationalFederationoftheBlindofVirginia<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#222222'>Live the life you want.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#222222'>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<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>