[Nfbf-l] Fwd: White Cane Safety Day Event In Orlando!!!

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Sent: 10/1/2010 11:25:48 A.M. Eastern Daylight  Time
Subj: White Cane Safety Day Event In Orlando!!!


LIghthouse Central Florida Is Planning a White Cane Safety Day Event on  
Friday Oct. 15, 2010 . 
They are planning refreshments and the whole Gig. More information to  
follow from Mary Clark at Lighthouse. If you want to contact her call  
407-898-2483

White Cane Safety Day: A Symbol of Independence
by Marc Maurer 
In February of 1978 a young blind lady said, “I encounter people all of the 
 time who bless me, extol my independence, call me brave and courageous, 
and  thoroughly miss the boat as to what the real significance of the white 
cane  is.” 
The National Federation of the Blind in convention assembled on the 6th day 
 of July, 1963, called upon the governors of the fifty states to proclaim  
October 15 of each year as White Cane Safety Day in each of our fifty 
states.  On October 6, 1964, a joint resolution of the Congress, HR 753, was 
signed  into law authorizing the President of the United States to proclaim 
October 15  of each year as “White Cane Safety Day.” This resolution said: “
Resolved by  the Senate and House of Representatives…, that the President is 
hereby  authorized to issue annually a proclamation designating October 15 as 
White  Cane Safety Day and calling upon the people of the United States to 
observe  such a day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.” 
Within hours of the passage of the congressional joint resolution  
authorizing the President to proclaim October 15 as White Cane Safety Day,  then 
President Lyndon B. Johnson recognized the importance of the white cane  as a 
staff of independence for blind people. In the first Presidential White  Cane 
Proclamation President Johnson commended the blind for the growing spirit  
of independence and the increased determination to be self-reliant that the  
organized blind had shown. The Presidential proclamation said: 
The white cane in our society has become one of the symbols of a blind  
person’s ability to come and go on his own. Its use has promoted courtesy and  
special consideration to the blind on our streets and highways. To make our  
people more fully aware of the meaning of the white cane and of the need 
for  motorists to exercise special care for the blind persons who carry it  
Congress, by a joint resolution approved as of October 6, 1964, has authorized 
 the President to proclaim October 15 of each year as White Cane Safety  
Day. 
Now, therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of  
America do hereby proclaim October 15, 1964 as White Cane Safety Day. 
With those stirring words President Johnson issued the first White Cane  
Proclamation which was the culmination of a long and serious effort on the  
part of the National Federation of the Blind to gain recognition for the  
growing independence and self-sufficiency of blind people in America, and also  
to gain recognition of the white cane as the symbol of that independence and 
 that self-reliance. 
The first of the state laws regarding the right of blind people to travel  
independently with the white cane was passed in 1930. In 1966, Dr. Jacobus  
tenBroek, the founder of the National Federation of the Blind, drafted the  
model White Cane Law. This model act--which has become known as the Civil  
Rights Bill for the Blind, the Disabled, and the Otherwise Physically  
Handicapped-–contains a provision designating October 15 as White Cane Safety  
Day. Today there is a variant of the White Cane Law on the statute books of  
every state in the nation. 
>From 1963 (and even before) when the National Federation of the Blind  
sought to have White Cane Safety Day proclaimed as a recognition of the rights  
of blind persons, to 1978 when a blind pedestrian met with misunderstanding  
regarding the true meaning of the white cane, is but a short time in the 
life  of a movement. In 1963, a comparatively small number of blind people had 
 achieved sufficient independence to travel alone on the busy highways of 
our  nation. In 1978 that number has not simply increased but multiplied a  
hundredfold. The process began in the beginning of the organized blind  
movement and continues today. There was a time when it was unusual to see a  
blind person on the street, to find a blind person working in an office, or to  
see a blind person operating machinery in a factory. This is still all too  
uncommon. But it happens more often and the symbol of this independence is 
the  white cane. The blind are able to go, to move, to be, and to compete 
with all  others in society. The means by which this is done is that simple 
tool, the  white cane. With the growing use of the white cane is an added 
element–-the  wish and the will to be free–-the unquenchable spirit and the 
inextinguishable  determination to be independent. With these our lives are 
changed, and the  prospects for blind people become bright. That is what White 
Cane Safety Day  is all about. That is what we do in the National Federation 
of the Blind 
_Model  White Cane Law_ 
(http://www.nfb.org/nfb/model_white_cane_bill.asp?SnID=1772185191)