[Nfbwv-talk] SOME REFLECTIONS ON MLK DAY

Joyce Porter joyce.porter1 at frontier.com
Tue Jan 22 12:16:41 UTC 2013


Ed:  What a wonderful and appropriate address you presented.
I wish you had sent it to the Monitor.  I believe it would be published.
Thank you for sharing it with us. 

Joyce


-----Original Message-----
From: Nfbwv-talk [mailto:nfbwv-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Ed
McDonald
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 11:16 PM
To: NFBWV Discussion List
Subject: [Nfbwv-talk] SOME REFLECTIONS ON MLK DAY

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! 



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