[Nfbwv-talk] SOME REFLECTIONS ON MLK DAY

[Ed McDonald]

Fellow Federationists,

Martin Luther King Day has always been a special day for Karen and me. Each 
year I do a radio show featuring music that I hope reflects the message of 
Dr. King. This year Karen sang with and accompanied a community choir which 
presented a special program for the occasion. In addition, on MLK Day I am 
always reminded of how much we as Federationists share with all of those who 
have struggled for civil rights.

With that in mind, I thought I would share with you some remarks I presented 
four years ago at another MLK Day program in our community. It was the eve 
of President Obama's first inauguration, and so perhaps that gives the 
remarks a bit more relevance today. Some of you may have read them before, 
and I apologize if they become long and boring. Nevertheless--at the risk of 
personal grandstanding--I hope a few of you may find in them some renewed 
reasons to celebrate Martin Luther King Day.

Peace,

Ed


MLK DAY REMARKS
January 19, 2009
Tri-Towns Ministerial Association
Westernport, MD


Today is the day we observe as a national holiday to celebrate the birthday 
of Dr.  Martin Luther King.  I am sure that for some the occasion may be 
little more than a day off from work or school, but for many--including 
those of us who are gathered here this evening--it's a very significant 
occasion.  This year it's especially significant because four score years 
have passed since Dr.  King was born.  Add to that the fact that tomorrow we 
will experience a landmark event in the fulfillment of the dream that we so 
often associate with Dr.  King.

We have celebrated this day in many different ways.  Perhaps the media have 
reminded us of the basic facts of Dr.  King's life, and we might even have 
heard a few seconds of his own voice talking about his dream.  Many of us 
will sing songs and say prayers together, and a few of us will stand up and 
make speeches that try to give some meaning and perspective to the occasion.

Well, I won't even pretend to offer any new insights or understandings about 
Dr.  King, his life, or the spirit of the holiday.  I can share with you 
only a few personal thoughts about how the principles that he talked about 
and lived by make sense to me as a member of a social minority.

Unlike Dr.  King, I am not African American, so I really don't know how it 
feels to be rejected for a job; to be denied the opportunity to live in the 
home of my choice; to be taunted, scorned, feared, or hated because of the 
color of my skin.  However, as a blind person, I do know something about 
what it's like to be regarded as being virtually helpless; to be denied 
educational opportunities; or to be turned down for jobs that I know I'm 
qualified to do simply because I happen not to have the ability to see. 
Just like the people Dr.  King inspired to take a firm stand for freedom and 
human dignity, I too am a member of a minority group within American 
society--a minority whose members have often been denied the rights of 
first-class citizenship not because we are inferior, but simply because of a 
personal characteristic over which we have no control.

With that in mind, it has become increasingly clear to me over the past four 
decades that what Dr.  King had to say, the principles that he fought for, 
and the strategies he used to bring about change were as relevant to me as 
they were to those who marched in Montgomery or Selma.  But, I must admit, 
that's not something I have always understood.

When Martin Luther King was killed in April of 1968, I was a high school 
senior, preparing to graduate from the West Virginia School for the Blind. 
Like the rest of America, I listened to the news accounts of the 
assassination and its aftermath.  But having grown up in what I realize now 
was a rather racist family environment, I really didn't feel as though the 
death of this black leader--I may have even regarded him as a trouble 
maker--had any real direct impact on me.

A few months later I went off to college and discovered people of my own age 
embracing the civil rights movement, protesting the Vietnam war, and 
expressing all sorts of other radical ideas that sounded foreign to me. 
Some of my most fundamental values and beliefs were being challenged by new 
ideas, and it was in the midst of all of this that I was invited to a 
meeting of a group called the National Federation of the Blind-- a group 
that was trying to create an organization of blind college students in West 
Virginia.  Up to then I didn't know there was any kind of organization of 
blind people and really didn't know why there should be, but they persuaded 
me to become secretary of this new student division, and thus began my 
lifelong involvement in the Organized Blind Movement.

The following summer I attended the state convention of the National 
Federation of the Blind.  Incidentally, that'll be forty years ago this 
summer, and I haven't missed a convention since.  The featured speaker was 
the national president of the Federation, a man named Dr.  Kenneth Jernigan. 
I didn't understand it all right away, but that convention introduced me to 
a man who was intelligent, articulate, successful, and blind.  As I read 
more of his essays and listened to more of his recorded speeches, I realized 
that Dr.  Jernigan's role in the lives of blind people was a lot like that 
of Dr.  King in the lives of African Americans.  I learned from Dr. 
Jernigan that the real issues we faced as blind people had little to do with 
our physical lack of eyesight and a lot to do with the myths, 
misunderstandings, and prejudices about blindness and blind people that have 
existed for centuries.  I learned from Dr.  Jernigan that if we as blind 
people wanted to break down the barriers that keep us from first-class 
citizenship, we needed to join together and do what we can to change public 
attitudes about blindness.  Dr.  Jernigan helped us understand how much we 
had in common with the civil rights movement among African Americans, and he 
encouraged us to respect ourselves and not to be afraid to stand up for the 
things we believed in.

That sounds a lot like Dr.  King, doesn't it? Like Dr.  Jernigan, Dr.  King 
understood and articulated the barriers that relegated most African 
Americans to something less than first-class citizenship, and he was able to 
inspire large numbers of people to join together to destroy those barriers 
forever.

I am sure that as a result of Dr.  King's life, many other black Americans 
were inspired to remain involved throughout their lives in the struggle for 
justice and equality for themselves and their brothers and sisters.

In much the same way, Dr.  Jernigan's message has inspired me to stay 
involved for the past four decades in an organization that remains 
dedicated--as we often say-- to changing what it means to be blind.  As a 
result, I have written resolutions and press releases, carried banners and 
picket signs, raised money and raised cane--so to speak, chaired meetings 
and conventions, and met with lawmakers in Charleston and Washington as a 
member of the National Federation of the Blind.  Twenty-five years after he 
spoke at my first convention, Dr.  Jernigan asked me to serve on the 
Federation's national board of directors, and it was a privilege for me to 
do so for three years.

The issues and problems, the solutions and strategies, the tactics and of 
course even the leadership of the organized blind have evolved over those 
four decades, but the basic purpose of the movement remains the 
same--security, equality, and opportunity for all blind Americans.  Surely 
the experience of black Americans over those same forty years has been very 
much the same.

Public education is just one example of an area in which black people and 
blind people have shared a similar experience.  Until 1954, segregated 
education was the norm for African Americans, and we know that segregated 
schools usually meant an inferior education for a variety of reasons.  Thus, 
integration into the educational mainstream offered African Americans a 
better chance of becoming integrated into the social and political 
mainstream as well.  But the court decisions outlawing segregated schools 
were not absolute victories.  African Americans are still working hard to 
ensure equal treatment and equal opportunity in the nation's education 
system, and I understand further that the elimination of all black schools 
may have contributed to the erosion of some of the sense of solidarity that 
unified and strengthened the African American community.  And so it has 
become necessary to find new ways to nurture that sense of community.

Similarly, until the early 1970's, segregated institutions were the norm for 
the education of blind children--state run residential schools where blind 
kids lived in dormitories, often separated from their families for months at 
a time.  The education offered by these institutions was based largely on 
the use of Braille as the means of reading and writing, and without them 
most blind people would have remained illiterate and otherwise uneducated. 
Both my wife Karen and I attended such a school, and if we hadn't done so, 
the two of us would never have met.  So I have no real complaints about my 
segregated education.  It is true, however, that these schools for the blind 
were, simply because of their relatively small size, unable to offer the 
breadth and diversity of educational opportunities that most kids would 
experience in the public school mainstream.  Thus, it was a major step 
forward as more and more blind children were integrated into the public 
school system, but I believe this trend has also contributed to the loss of 
some sense of community.  What's more, since Braille in the public schools 
is the exception rather than the norm, the rate of Braille literacy among 
blind children has actually declined over the past three decades.

This year of 2009 is the two- hundredth anniversary of the birth of Louis 
Braille, the young Frenchman who invented the system of reading and writing 
that I'm using right now.  As part of the bicentennial celebration, we're 
not just telling the story of our hero Louis Braille, we're launching a 
long-term campaign to make sure blind people of all ages are not denied the 
opportunity to learn to read and write.  This is, of course, yet another 
example of a group of people identifying a real problem and then working 
together to solve it.

So what's the point of talking about these parallels and commonalities 
between black people and blind people? Well, in many ways it seems we live 
in a time when division and polarization have come to dominate our society. 
However, as a blind person, taking time to recognize the many common 
experiences that I share with my African American brothers and sisters--not 
to mention my two African American step-sons--reminds me that there are many 
more things that unite us than there are those that divide us.

What's more, I know that black people and blind people are not the only two 
minorities that share these common experiences.  Whether we face injustice 
resulting from race, ethnicity, disability, gender, or any other such 
characteristic, we can all gain knowledge, understanding, wisdom, strength, 
courage, and commitment from the words and the example of Dr.  Martin Luther 
King.  His message was simple yet universal.  Though the business of really 
believing it, understanding it, and living it is not always easy.

In a few minutes we'll join together and sing a song that thousands--indeed, 
millions of people have sung together over the years in their struggle for 
freedom and human dignity.  In the words of that song we find the 
fundamental truths that guided Dr.  King and that continue to guide and 
inspire all of us who really care about matters of justice, equality, and 
opportunity.  We shall organize; we'll walk hand in hand; we're not afraid; 
and someday we will all be free because deep in our hearts we really do 
believe that we shall overcome.  It's important for us to sing these words 
together.  The more re repeat them, the more we know they're true.

I remember when I first heard Dr.  Jernigan say that it was respectable to 
be blind; that with proper training and opportunity blind people could 
compete on terms of equality with sighted people; and that we really could 
achieve first-class citizenship.  His words made more sense than anything I 
had ever heard before about blindness, but deep in my heart I'm not sure I 
really believed it.  I had to hear and say those words over and over again, 
and with time I have come to believe them at a much deeper level.  Even 
after forty years, I'm still learning and understanding more and more about 
what it means and, for that matter what it doesn't mean to be blind.  And 
each of us can have a similar experience.

Those who marched with Dr.  King did not do it because they took some 
pleasure in fighting a losing battle.  Similarly my commitment to the 
Organized Blind Movement has not been a forty-year walk through the 
wilderness with no hope of reaching the promised land.  Like Dr.  Jernigan 
and Dr.  King, I know and you know deep in our hearts that we can and we 
shall overcome.

Dr.  King gave us not only a dream to believe in, but also the tools to help 
make it come true.  During recent years we've come through some hard times 
in pursuit of that dream, but the historic event that the entire nation will 
experience tomorrow should remind us that the dream is still very much 
alive.  Of course, we all know that the inauguration of a black man as 
President of the United States will not bring about a sudden and immediate 
solution to all of our problems.  Nevertheless, it should be for every one 
of us an occasion for hope, inspiration, and a renewed commitment to pursue 
and fulfill the dream.

Thank you for the opportunity to share this evening with you.  As Dr. 
Jernigan often said at the close of a speech, and I know Dr.  King would 
agree ...  come, join me on the barricades, and we will make it come true!