[Nfbwv-talk] SOME REFLECTIONS ON MLK DAY

[Smyth, Charlene R]

Ed, 

This is wonderful!!  Thank you so much for sharing it.  I agree with
Joyce, it should be in the Braille Monitor.

Charlene


-----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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