[nfb-talk] Washington Post Reports Passing of Blind Advocate

[David Andrews]

>
> From the Washington Post:
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071102578_pf.html
>
>
>Advocate for Blind Helped Craft Disabilities Law
>
>By T. Rees Shapiro
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>Sunday, July 12, 2009
>
>Harold W. Snider, 61, a prominent advocate for 
>the blind who helped craft legislation that 
>expanded the civil rights of Americans with disabilities and
>aided in the launching of an audible newspaper 
>service, died June 26 at his home in Rockville after a heart attack.
>
>While growing up in Jacksonville, Fla., Mr. 
>Snider said he was forced out of regular 
>third-grade classes because he was blind. His parents sued the Duval
>County school system, and Mr. Snider became the 
>first blind student in the county to graduate from public school.
>
>The experience launched Mr. Snider's interest in 
>advocacy, and in the mid-1970s he reportedly 
>became the first blind employee of the Smithsonian Institution.
>As a handicap program coordinator for the 
>fledgling National Air and Space Museum, he 
>worked to make the facility a vivid experience for the sight-impaired.
>
>
>"You can't look at the spacecraft, so you touch 
>it, or you hold a model of it or a raised line 
>picture of it," Mr. Snider told United Press International
>in 1976. "You can't see an airplane, so you hear its engine roar."
>
>In 1978, he started Access for the Handicapped, 
>a District-based consulting company for guidance 
>on policy, technology and resources for people with disabilities.
>Through his company, he worked on projects for 
>people with disabilities around the world, 
>including Zambia, Ecuador and South Korea.
>
>After Mr. Snider worked for the Republican 
>National Committee on disability issues, 
>President George H.W. Bush appointed him in 1990 as deputy executive
>director of the National Council on Disability. 
>In that role, he served as a liaison among the 
>council, the White House, Congress and the media.
>
>He also helped draft the sweeping Americans With 
>Disabilities Act of 1990, which broadened civil 
>rights already protected in earlier legislation. The act
>guarantees protection of disabled people from 
>discrimination in the public and private sectors 
>and regardless of whether agencies or businesses receive
>federal aid.
>
>After Mr. Snider left the council in 1992, he 
>worked in conjunction with the National 
>Federation of the Blind to develop NFB-Newsline, a free dial-to-listen
>newspaper and magazine service that includes 
>daily editions of The Washington Post, the New 
>York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal
>among its more than 250 publications. It debuted 
>in 1994 and claims more than 50,000 users.
>
>In addition, Mr. Snider was a former chairman of 
>Montgomery County's Commission on People With Disabilities.
>
>Harold Wexler Snider, whose father was a 
>dentist, was born Sept. 6, 1947, in 
>Jacksonville. He graduated in 1969 from 
>Georgetown University's School of Foreign
>Service, where he was elected to the Phi Beta 
>Kappa honor society, but told UPI that he was 
>not allowed to take the Foreign Service examination because
>of prejudice.
>
>In 1970, he received his master's degree in 
>British imperial and commonwealth history from 
>the University of London and did postgraduate work at the University
>of Oxford.
>
>About this time, he married Gail Lovelace, a 
>British woman who also was blind. They divorced 
>in 1994, the same year he married Linda Fossett. All three
>remained on good terms, with the two wives calling each other "wives-in-law."
>
>Survivors include his second wife, of Rockville; 
>two children from his first marriage, David 
>Snider of Alexandria and Ellen Underwood of Fairfax County;
>three stepchildren; his mother, Shirley Snider 
>of Jacksonville; two sisters; and three grandchildren.
>
>Mr. Snider collected antique phones and music 
>boxes, played the accordion, and spoke fluent 
>French and Spanish. He was considered outspoken and sometimes
>called militant in his role as an advocate. But 
>he also said he saw a value in using humor to 
>make sighted people feel comfortable around him.
>
>He said he was sometimes asked how blind people 
>performed tasks such as crossing the street, 
>cutting a sandwich or, as the more curious would ponder, having
>sex.
>
>"I tell them I do it like everybody else," Mr. 
>Snider told the New York Times. "In the dark."
>
>© 2009 The Washington Post Company