[Ohio-talk] Who was Alfonso Smith?

[Annette]

Thank you Jay W for sharing this. We all hear these names from the past, but many of us don’t know the fight and the dedication that these folks had in establishing our Federation.

Thank you again for bringing us this information, let’s all remember Mr. Smith for the great person that he was.

Annette

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 13, 2019, at 11:47 AM, Smith, JW via Ohio-Talk <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Dear NFB of Ohio Family, Friends, and Colleagues,
> 
> As many of you know, the Alfonso Smith award is one of our most prestigious recognitions. I was honored to receive it some years ago and it was a joy to nominate Sheri Albers for it in 2018 and to be able to present it to her. I have always known how important this award was, but I have always wondered just who Alfonso Smith really was. This has plagued me for some time and so today I decided to do a little digging, so that I could share with you what an amazing man he really was.
> 
> Here is what the Braille Monitor had to say about him in the March 1970 issue:
> 
> "MEET OUR STATE PRESIDENT--ALFONSO SMITH AND OUR STATE AFFILIATE--OHIO
> Alfonso Smith has been President of the Ohio Council of the Blind for the past two years and is now serving his third term. He was preceded in this office by Frank Jasinski (1947), Harry Stiller (1948), Clyde Ross (1949-1963) and George Bonsky (1963-1967). Smith was a charter member and one of the organizers of the Youngstown Council of the Blind, an Ohio Council affiliate, and he is familiar with this organization at every level, having been elected president five times and having served in all of its offices except that of secretary. In the state organization he has held the offices of first vice-president and second vice-president in addition to his present office and he has served on its Resolution, Legislative, and Broom Shop Committees. He is a newly elected member of the NFB Executive Committee.
> 
> Alfonso Smith was born November 1, 1913 in Coosa County, Alabama but was raised and schooled in Youngstown, Ohio where his family settled in 1917. He graduated from Rayen High School in 1933. His blindness is a result of scarlet fever at the age of thirteen and the gradual deterioration of vision until age twenty-six. Before rehabilitation at the Ohio Commission for the Blind in 1945 where he learned his trade of broom making Smith worked for construction companies. As an independent businessman he owned and operated the Steel City Broom Company for thirteen years. The Youngstown Society for the Blind hired him as a supervisor to train men in his trade eleven years ago. A strong believer in personal dignity and self-reliance, Smith believes that each person has a human worth which should be developed to the greatest extent of his ability.
> 
> In June, 1938 Smith married Amanda Wallace and they have three daughters and two grandsons. His interests include sports, having played both baseball and football, fishing, reading, and an avid interest in legislation. He is a board member of the Ohio Chapter of the AAWB and the McGuffey Center, Inc.
> 
> In 1940, when seven states gathered in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to form the National Federation of the Blind, Ohio was represented by Glenn Hoffman. Ohio is proud to have been a charter member of the NFB. Because the Ohio Federation of the Blind was not growing leaders of the blind gathered in Canton in 1946 to draft a constitution that would set forth the real goals of the Ohio blind. In January, 1947 a convention was held in Columbus and from this issued the Ohio Council of the Blind with five chartered affiliates.
> 
> With the help of the Ohio Lions the OCB got the White Cane Law enacted. It secured a $200.00 yearly medical benefit before the arrival of Medicaid and Medicare and it helped in the abolition of the twelve-day hospital tenure. The OCB blocked a bill to permit the publication of names of public assistance recipients as well as a bill that would have permitted the wholesale and retail of fireworks without a license. When title XVI of the Social Security Act took effect, lumping all public assistance under one head, the OCB was able to save the separate law for Aid to the Blind recipients. The OCB was also instrumental in defeating a bill to combine the handicapped under one commission. The Council helped reduce residence requirements from three years to one year before the decsion of the Supreme Court. Recently the OCB prevented the building of a superhighway through the grounds of the Ohio State Schools for the Blind and Deaf.
> 
> To inform the blind of Ohio about the goals and achievements of the NFB, Alfonso Smith arranged regional meetings in four sections of Ohio. National Federationists such as John Nagle, Chief of the Washington Office, Jim Omvig of the Iowa Commission and Bob Whitehead, Executive Board Member from Kentucky spoke and answered questions at these meetings. People who had never attended state or national conventions were exposed by these seminars to NFB philosophy. The OCB hopes in the future to get the Model White Cane Law and the Little Randolph-Sheppard Act passed. Other goals are the advancement of H.R. 3782 in Congress and the establishment of a commission for the blind in Ohio."
> 
> Sadly, just a few months later, Dr. Jernigan as President, had to report the following from one of his letters in May of 1970:
> 
> "Dear Colleagues:
> This is one of those letters which I write to you from time to time to bring you up to date on general happenings. My first piece of news is, indeed, not pleasant. Word has just reached me of the death of Alfonso Smith, president of our Ohio affiliate and member of the NFB Executive Committee. I do not have very much in the way of details--just that Al went into the hospital with what appeared to be the flu, that he was placed on the critical list and that he was dead of pneumonia within something like a week. Al was a staunch Federationist, a friend, and a colleague."
> 
> Apparently Alfonso Smith  died in the office of Presidency, but it is safe to say that his legacy continues. I don't know when this award was established (perhaps others can chime in here) but let's never take it lightly and keep is as prestigious and memorable as it remains today. This was a Black, blind person that, if I am not mistaken, served at a time when there were segregated chapters in our affiliate based on race and ethnicity. By all accounts, he served with positivity, credibility, and distinction through some potentially turbulent times.
> 
> God Bless Alfonso Smith.
> 
> jw
> 
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