February 2010 CABS Newsletter
Contents
Announcements from CABS:- Moving Forward CABS Enters a New Decade
- Welcome to CABS
- Legislative workshop 2010
- CABS Committees 2010
- Wanted: Remarkable Student Leaders
- Founding a Movement The early struggles of the Blind of California
- National Convention
- CABS Seminar, 2010
- Scholarship Announcements
- Assisting our Neighbors in Blindness
Announcements from CABS and NABS
Moving Forward: CABS Enters a new Decade
By: Aziza Cano, First Vice-President
Newsletter Editor
As CABS accelerates full throttle into the new year, we are looking forward to some great events, and experiences. From National Convention 2010, to our very own student Seminar, it appears this year will be jam packed with fun, inspiration and new friends. In this issue readers will find information on many of the upcoming NFB and CABS activities, as well as a few surprises.
Anyone wishing to submit material for the next newsletter, scheduled to be released April 2010, can contact Aziza Cano, the editor of the newsletter with their ideas. The entire CABS board hopes every reader finds this issue informational, inspirational and most of all, an easy and compelling read; the board also urges readers to stay tuned for further issues. Remember, you can always view a copy of past issues on our website at:
http://www.nfbcal.org/cabs/newsletters/newsletters.php
WELCOME TO CABS!
Your current CABS board is:- Angela Fowler, President
- Aziza Cano, First Vice-President
- Pam Chase, Second Vice-President
- Justin Harford, Secretary
- Melissa Haney, Treasurer
- Hani Nasser, Board Member At Large
- Kameron Dibble, Board Member At Large
Start by getting to know the board at www.nfbcal.org/cabs where you can find bios and contact information. You can also sign up for the CABS ListServ, a daily digest delivered to your email inbox so that you can join the discussions important to blind students of our state. In this forum, we share information, resources, and ideas and learn about exciting opportunities. PLEASE NOTE: It is important that you respond to the confirmation email delivered to your inbox when you are added to the ListServ. If you do not receive a request to confirm from the ListServ, please contact Bruce Sexton at bjsexton@comcast.net. Be sure you are signed up today and get to know your CABS network! You can also join the Facebook group “California Association of Blind Students (CABS)” as another way of staying connected to blind students in California at: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23442031813
. CABS also holds Membership conference calls on the last Sunday of each month at 5 PM. This is a way for members to give their input, present new and creative ideas for CABS events, learn about past and upcoming events, and to get to know and stay active with the CABS board. Please participate in our monthly Membership conference calls so you can play an influential and active role in your own student division!
Join us every October at the student meeting at the NFB of California state convention to network in person with other blind students, hear from student speakers about their experiences, and meet graduates of NFB training centers and working professionals. Your $5.00 annual dues can be paid at this meeting, making you eligible to vote in the board elections that occur there every year, and for the door prizes given out at every meeting! Our state convention is also a forum for fun CABS-sponsored events like Monte Carlo Night, where convention-goers show their support for this student organization by making a donation at the door to spend an evening playing cards and board games.
Throughout the year, we raise funds to organize leadership seminars, gatherings, and other social events and public engagements. We also frequently meet up at NFB events like our annual Washington Seminar, where students and other Federationists talk to their state representatives on Capitol Hill about issues like timely access to textbooks, and the NFB national convention.
The best way to stay connected is to be on the ListServ, so sign up now! Get connected, get involved, and we’ll see you out on the NFB Superhighway!
Sincerely,
Your CABS Board
National Federation of the Blind of California
Legislative workshop, 2010
| When? | February 27, 2010, 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM. |
| | |
| Where? | The California School for the Blind |
| 500 Walnut Avenue | |
| Fremont, CA 94536 |
Are you interested in helping to advocate for legislation which will positively impact blind people in California? Are you passionate about legislative issues, but not sure how you can help advocate for them? Then the 2010 NFBC legislative workshop is the place for you.
This workshop will cover the entire legislative advocacy process, starting with a lesson in resolution writing by former NFBC president Jim Willows, and climax in a series of debates on the important legislative issues which are facing us right here and now. This will be a hands-on workshop which will give you real practice in all aspects of legislative advocacy.
Registration will begin at 9:30. The workshop will start at 10 and end at around 4:30. Lunch and registration is five dollars.
To sign up for this exciting seminar, please contact:
Bruce Sexton (Legislative Committee Chair)
Phone: 925-209-8595
Email: bjsexton@comcast.net
Space is limited, so reserve your seat early.
CABS Committees 2010
By Angela Fowler, President
Over the past few months, we have seen the establishment of several new committees within CABS. These committees provide opportunities for members to be involved in the work of CABS more than ever before. What follows is a summery of all of our committees and the contact info of the committee chair where appropriate.
Membership:
All CABS members are also members of this committee, which meets once a month via conference call and shares information about the things which are happening with CABS and the NFB. If you have any questions about CABS, this is the place to come. For more information, contact Aziza Cano at (805) 616-1127.
Advocacy:
We will be helping to advocate for blind students throughout the state, insuring that they receive the services they need to get the most out of their education. Most importantly however, we will provide students with the resources and knowledge to self-advocate; teaching them how to work with the department of rehab, their local DSPS offices, and so forth. If you are interested in working with this committee, or have any advocacy-related questions, please contact Michael Peterson at (916) 364-5663.
Fund Raising:
We are fund raising it up this year. Not only will we be raising money at NFB events, but we will expand our efforts to include year round fund raisers which others in the community can be involved in. We are putting the fun back in fund raising. To become involved in the fund raising committee or submit ideas please contact Melissa Haney at (707) 239-0238.
Marketing:
We have so much fun working with CABS; we want to get the word out. From keeping the web site up to date to creating flyers, newsletters and other literature, we want to let every blind student in the state know who we are and inform others of all the fun and beneficial activities we are involved in. For more information, or to get involved in the marketing committee, please contact Aziza Cano at, (805) 616-1127.
Legislative:
Much of the legislation which is important to the NFBC effects students directly. We, the California Association of Blind Students will make our voices heard in the halls of congress and the California Legislature. Not only will we be champions of legislation which will improve the lives of blind people throughout the state, we will train the next generation of CABS students to do the same. If you are interested in working on the legislative issues so important to the blind of California, or have any questions about legislative issues, please contact Bruce Sexton at (925) 209-8595.
Mentoring:
Blind children often feel isolated in a sighted world. We want to provide them with positive blind role models who will groom them in the ways of the federation while, showing them that they are not alone, that it really is OK to be blind. If you know of someone in need of a mentor, or would like to become a mentor, or would simply like to be involved in this endeavor, contact Aziza Cano at (805) 616-1127.
Events-Social:
That river rafting trip sure was fun, and we want to do it again. Something that gives us the chance to have a blast and get to know each other better, while providing the opportunity to use and improve the blindness skills we all love so much, like Orientation and Mobility. If you are interested in assisting plan the next CABS social event, contact Aziza Cano at (805) 616-1127.
Seminar planning:
We are very excited about the upcoming seminar which will be in Riverside, CA in September of this year. If you would like to help organize this or future seminars, please contact Pamela Chase at (951) 532-6525.
Social Networking:
For the past year we have been working with Myspace, Facebook and other social networking sites to make their sites more accessible to users of screen reading software. If you would like to be a part of this effort, or have questions or concerns about the accessibility of social networking sites, please contact Michael Peterson at (916) 364-5663.If you are interested in being involved in any of the committees for which a contact person is not listed, or if you have ideas for others I haven't listed, please feel free to contact me at (530) 902-0987, or at:
Wanted: Remarkable Student Leaders
By: Aziza Cano, First Vice-President
Students come in various shapes, sizes and capacities. The CABS board recognizes this fact as plainly as any other group of NFB leaders. Therefore, we have decided that as student leaders in this state affiliate, it is time to give student leaders the recognition they rightfully deserve for their hard work and dedication. By means of pulling this project off, we have designed two opportunities for students to be recognized. One of which will be especially geared towards the youth of the NFBC, and the other which will reach out to students of all ages. Please read the following descriptions of our new opportunities, while keeping in mind any deserving student you may know.
The CABS Youth Spotlight will bring into focus a quickly rising youth leader. Young children and teens have remarkable potential, however often times little stars, and great talent are overlooked in favor of concentrating on the children and youth who need our attention more. Therefore, the self sufficient and self motivated students do not always receive the encouragement they deserve. CABS would like to change that. Every future issue of the newsletter will feature a young student who has done something extraordinary for their community. This good deed can most certainly benefit his or her blind community; however any notable community contribution is also applauded. This decision to not limit the acts of leadership to the blind community stems from our belief that any activity worth noting done by a blind person brings about community awareness. Students in the CABS Spotlight will have an article featuring them, as well as describing the kinds of activities they are involved in. Note that passed issues of the CABS newsletter are archived on our website, so that any interested persons can find them at anytime.
The CABS Spotlight is specifically designed to showcase students that do not fall into the youth category. Under graduate and graduate students also deserve recognition for activities and causes they are involved in. Again, community service efforts are not limited to benefitting the blind community. The difference between the CABS Spotlight, and the CABS Youth Spotlight, is that the CABS Youth Spotlight is geared specifically towards teens in the NFB. In addition, the CABS Spotlight will be featured on the CABS website twice a semester. These too will be archived as time progresses.
Anyone wishing to nominate students for either program can find a downloadable nomination form at www.nbcal.org/cabs. After forms have been filled out, they should be emailed to Aziza Cano at, daydreamingncolor@gmail.com. People nominating students should be aware that keeping the nomination a secret could potentially serve as a pleasant surprise to the student in question. The board would like to express that permission from parents of minors will be obtained to feature youth in the newsletter.
Founding a Movement The early struggles of the Blind of California
By Justin Harford, Secretary
(GSI Kathryn Eigen)
May 1, 2009This is a paper I wrote for my US history class in the spring 2009 semester. Apart from a few editorial changes to sentences here and there, and the expansion of some quotations, the text is essentially faithful to what I turned in last May. Thus, I apologize for any problems you might find; the paper was done in a hurry. I thought it is worth posting for this newsletter, because it offers some more perspective on the real early blind movement, which arguably started in the late 1880s, but definitely before 1940. I hope that the reader of this paper will walk away with a better understanding of how blind people like us would have managed in a time without computers, Braille note takers and Optical Character Recognition, the importance of collaboration with our sighted counterparts, and a question which has captivated me for the last year, how to start an organized blind movement in a country that doesn't exactly have the resources to accommodate blindness.
The paper was written with online oral histories from the California Regional Oral History Office (ROHO), accessible to anyone who cares to read them. Given the length limitations of this paper, I was not able to include all the quotations and stories that I would have liked to, therefore I encourage you all to do your own research. Go look at the oral histories that I cite in this paper, and see what other information you can find. Maybe in the future we can publish more history articles so that we all might get a better sense of our origins. After all, if we don't know where we came from, how could we know where we're going?
The text
The 20th century is often remembered for its famous social movements. When Americans look back to this time we think of massive integrated crowds of African Americans and Caucasians cramming into the Washington Plaza in front of the Abraham memorial to listen to Dr. King's dream, or the tireless lobbying and court battles that women underwent in order to get their fair share of the pie, or swat teams and national guard advancing on anti-war college protesters. Many are not aware that throughout this time, since the turn of the 20th century, there was another movement behind the scenes in California, from which new legal discourses on natural human rights would arise, and from which blind Americans would come to gain the essential rights to independence, education and work, which most took for granted. In 1940, this movement sprouted out beyond the limits of the sunshine state with the founding of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), which since its beginnings as an organization consisting of blind people, has represented this traditionally marginalized group from the streets, to the court rooms, all the way to the congress. People often tend to say that the history of the organized blind movement started at this moment in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania when the seven or so state delegates convened to found the NFB, but what happened before that? How did the blind rise up from a time when their families hid them in attics to prevent the company from seeing them, when they had to content themselves with weaving baskets for a living, to studying in the universities, and taking jobs as teachers, lawyers, musicians, scientists and professors among other things? In this paper we will consider this question and argue that, from a look at oral histories from key figures of the organized blind movement like Dr. Newel Perry, Allen Jenkins, Lillian McClure and Perry Sunquist, blind people were the key players in their own enfranchisement. This does not mean that they did it completely independently of the rest of society. In deed the originator of the movement got his education with the financial support of the California School for the Deaf and Blind in the 1890s, an institution founded by the state some 30 years before, but places like these could not have in themselves, brought the blind up from the basket shop to the office.We should first take a brief look at the life of the originator of the movement, Dr. Newel Perry, because a great deal of the early years could scarcely have been accomplished without its influence. He was born on the 2nd of December, 1873, in Dixon California. In 1881, shortly after his 8th birthday, he lost his sight from a run-in with poison oak, but continued to actively play and work around the farm, despite his parents' doubts. After his father died in 1883, they sent him to the California School for the Deaf and Blind in Berkeley. He soon caught the attention of the principal, Mr. Warring Wilkinson, after he showed a profound knack for mathematics in an arithmetic competition between three blind boys and three deaf boys. He went on to excel in math, even teaching a class to other students in the afternoons. By 1890, Principal Wilkinson had become interested in the experiment of sending a blind student to a public high school. Perry, then in the 10th grade, seemed a good bet. After he graduated high school in 1892, the school for the blind agreed to give him 500 dollars per year to go to the University of California Berkeley where he continued studying mathematics and German. He graduated with his math degree after a usual four-year term, and the math department appointed him as a teaching assistant with a 300 dollar per year scholarship to resume studies at the graduate level. By this point he had established a good reputation for himself as a math tutor, which he had been forced to do to take care of the living expenses that his scholarship did not cover. He went on to get his PH.d in Europe.
Dr. Perry took the first key step in his campaign after he came to New York in 1906 and began work on the first reader bill which would appropriate New York state money for the funding of human readers for blind students who wanted to go to New York colleges. He wrote the bill, and called his local assemblyman to ask him to submit it to the legislature. After the assemblyman did this, Perry went to the head of the Legal Aid Society to ask him to write a letter to the governor endorsing the bill, later regretting this move after word of his activities made it out to the prominent blindness charity community which was not going to stand behind him since its director, Winifred Holt, simply thought the idea of blind people going to college nothing more than a fanciful dream.
One of the notable challenges that Perry ran up against in passing the reader bill in 1906-1907 through the New York legislature, was the common objection that it was “class legislation” and unconstitutional, merely free state money given to a marginalized group. Governor Charles Evans Hughes, with whom Perry had discussed the bill after the failure with the lawyers, explained the problem
There existed no question that the reader bill was what people said it was; it consequently fell to Perry to explain to the New York legislators why it was an exception. He found his answer from the state constitution in the section which outlined various exceptions to the rules which did not permit enactment of money legislation, in the 18th article which said “nothing elsewhere stated in this constitution shall prevent the appropriation of state money for the education of the blind.” After he wrote letters to the governor and the nay sayers in the assembly, informing them of this exception noted in the state constitution, the bill immediately passed in the assembly and later on in the senate. Thereafter followed an anxious thirty-day period of waiting for the governor to sign the bill into law. On the twenty-ninth day, Perry called Holt to ask if they would call the governor to encourage him to sign it. She agreed, and on the thirtieth day, the governor signed the bill into law, one day before it would have died in August of 1907. That following year, eleven blind new yorkers enrolled in university course work with the help of that reader bill, and by 1913 Perry promulgated a reader bill in California. By 1956, when the interview with Perry took place, most states in the union had adopted reader bills of their own.“Can you show me how in doing that, which would be a good thing for the blind, you're not opening up an opportunity for its wide extension over other classes. Here's a poor widow down the street here and she has to make a living for her children. She's got a boy and if he could go to college he'd be a better man and have greater opportunities. Why not give him some money?” (Perry (1956) pp. 69)
Now that the blind had access to books at the college level, they had overcome one of their greatest challenges, but they still had some barriers with which to contend. Dr. Perry appears to have been quite fortunate with the fact that he had such a way with numbers in math, since it made him a great tutor, a job which brought in enough money every year to cover the rest of his expenses not covered by the School for the Blind scholarship; however, some of his peers did not come out so fortunate. It was nearly impossible for a blind person to get work in those days. In 1906, Dr. Perry published a letter to the editor in the New York Times after a blind man was refused the right to take a teaching exam on the grounds of his blindness. About a month later, another letter to the editor appeared in response to Perry's allegations that the people managing the teaching exam discriminated against the blind man, arguing that allowing the blind to take such positions of distinction would endanger the public good. By 1956 things had actually not improved greatly, with only one in ten blind people employed according to director of the California orientation Center for the Blind in 1956, Allen Jenkins. So, the early organized blind had two problems. First, they needed to have a way to support themselves financially like all the other students while going through college. Second, they needed to convince employers that they could execute the tasks of the workplace just as well as or better than their sighted colleagues.
They found the solution through government aid payments. In 1928, the California School for the Blind Alumni Association, under the direction of Dr. Perry, began lobbying for a state law which would legalize financial assistance to the blind of the state. Before that time, the California constitution, like in New York, explicitly prohibited the state from giving aid to any private entities. Perry had explained to the legislator that it was not only necessary for the older blind who would have little hope of supporting themselves again, but also for the up in coming generation, which needed governmental aid to support itself through university studies with the purpose of achieving financial independence. Jenkins, Sunquist, McClure and Perry all explained how the association realized this first step by setting off a signature campaign throughout the bay area. Around a half dozen blind people from the association went to cities like Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley, making speeches in areas of dense population and collecting signatures. They even had some of their people board the ferry, which transported passengers across the bay before the bridges were built, to solicit signatures from the passengers. Mr. Jenkins later pointed out that an effort like that put forth in 1928 would have required such a great deal of effort, that many special interest organizations with more money would have simply paid a lobbying firm to do the work for them.
By the end of 1928, their efforts paid off, and the California Aid to Needy Blind act passed into law, followed by a state aid program a year later; however, their problems were only then about to manifest. California's state aid program continued supplying blind Californians with flat monthly grants on its own until 1935 when the Federal Social Security Act passed in Washington. Under this new order, the quantity of aid given to an applicant was not a flat grant but decided by a state social worker who came to the candidate's home and conducted an auditing of said person's financial situation, producing a monthly figure less than 50 dollars, based on the perceived need of the applicant. Any money earned by the client got deducted from their aid payments. This created a situation in which the state was spending extra money to fund these audits, in which clients sometimes got harassed and often came out receiving hardly enough to pay the rent and the groceries much less the remainder of the utilities and self-maintenance expenses like cleanliness. It also met that if a blind person took up paid work, they would lose that money from their aid payment, something which discouraged many from even attempting to get employment and become financially self-sufficient.
For the most part, these problems came to be solved through the lobbying efforts of the California Counsel for the Blind (CCB), which was founded in 1934 under Perry with his alumni association as the nucleus. In 1937, after the CCB convinced the California legislator that it would just be cheaper to pay a flat aid income to all blind people instead of sinking funds into the auditing system, it began providing a flat fifty-dollar monthly grant to its blind recipients, leaving the nation in shock at such unusual legislation for its time. In 1941, the CCB went at it again with its Aid to the Partially Self-Supporting Blind bill which, before opposition by at least two members, passed unanimously after a moving speech by Dr. Perry to the legislators paraphrased by Jenkins
The challenge of this legislation, known as Chapter three under the California Social Security Act, was that California would not get federal funding to pay people who already had work. The key argument behind Chapter three was that the state government would in time save money since it did not need to pay monthly pensions to Chapter three clients after they achieved self sufficiency. By 1951, this legislation appeared as an amendment in the federal Social Security Act as Title ten."I understand that Dr. Perry got up and made one of his wonderful appearances in which he told the legislature that he was a teacher in the California School for the Blind and that among other things he tried to encourage blind people all he could toward independence, but that opportunities were such that many of them could never achieve it, even though personally they were capable of producing, and that for the most part those who did achieve it would have to have a time on public assistance while they went to college or secured some other form of training. So that as a teacher dealing with these blind youngsters, he could promise them only the poorhouse on their graduation from high school. With the poorhouse, complete hopelessness and idleness. He said, "Now, gentlemen, if you want to do this, of course you have the power to do it, but I will insist upon Just one thing if you do, and that is that you go down there and explain what you've done to those youngsters, I just haven't the heart to do it," At this point, he said, every hardened member of the legislature had his handkerchief out wiping his eyes. One fellow leaped up and shouted, n I say to hell with the Federal Government." "(Jenkins (1956) pp. 197)
Even as the blind worked their way up the ranks of high school and university education, the market of employment opportunity remained profoundly scarce. Some people like Jenkins and Perry managed to find work throughout there lives. Perry, after showing extraordinary potential in math, acquired a position at Cal. Jenkins worked on an assembly line as a young man, later going on to sell magazines, then working with people on the drafting of deeds and contracts, then serving as a blindness expert in the State Department Rehabilitation Division and eventually got hired as the director of the OCB after n investigation lead to the unseating of the previous director. However, stories like the above did not appear much according to Perry and Jenkins.
Employment opportunities became more available when state workers began literally going around the communities to convince employers to hire blind people. The first experiment with this took place in the California School for the Blind when Dr. Perry had worked to inapt a state bill which created a Placement Worker position at that school, which was filled by Robert Campbell, one of its alumni. At the national level, the Department of Rehabilitation, founded in 1921 to serve disabled WW I veterans, would have served this purpose, but they did not regard the blind as part of the employable base of disabled people until 1943.
A key aspect of vocational rehabilitation since the early days, according to Jenkins and Perry, was the idea that blind people had to be taught to be independent in great part because of the environment in which many grew up. Parents often prevented their blind kids from even walking around, sometimes placing them in baskets as children for fear of them getting hurt. Many of them were taught from a young age by parents, teachers and the rest of society that they could not amount to much since they lacked vision. Therefore, another challenge that Vocational Rehabilitation and the organized blind had to confront was how to undo these damages and convince the blind clients that they actually could amount to something. Therefore, training centers were necessary to teach blind people how to perform daily tasks such as cooking, cleaning, traveling and applying for work and furthermore, to make them participate in various activities such as wood working, and body building to develop confidence and self-esteem.
The Orientation Center for the Blind was the first training center to provide the aforementioned services. It rose up through a 1951 effort by the National Federation of the Blind, founded by Dr. TenBroek in 1940, to shut down a state sponsored home for the blind which had been masquerading over the years as a training center. After the California legislature witnessed for itself the sorry condition of its blind clients and the misappropriation of its funds by the director, they ordered the center to be overhauled. Allen Jenkins was installed as its director, and by 1956 the California Orientation Center for the Blind was the pride of the organized blind.
It is worth remembering the advances in this story which could not have been accomplished without the works of previous generations, blind and sighted alike. The reputed starter of the movement, Dr. Newel Perry, might not have succeeded in going to college if it had not been for the group of influential women that caused the school to be opened in 1860, or if it had not been for the backing that headmaster Wilkinson gave him. In 1907, things seemed pretty hopeless in New York for Perry's reader bill, when he came up against a state government which regarded the giving of state money to individuals as “class legislation”, an evil which jeopardized a country's economy by making it an untouchable in the area of foreign investment. Consequently we can say with certainty that this bill would not have passed if previous authors to the New York constitution had not added an amendment creating an exception for the funding of the education of the blind.
In addition, there has always been a positive dynamic between the public and the blind throughout their organized movement, one difference distinguishing it from other civil rights struggles. One of the key things to which Dr. Perry kept returning in his interview was the importance of cultivating relationships with people in the legislature, and how over his career he had come to gain such a name for himself that they would do whatever he asked. He attributed times of opposition such as in 1941 in the battles over Chapter 3, to the replacements of legislators with newbies who did not know him very well. Perry, Sunquist, McClure and Jenkins also noted the necessity and ease of getting public support in matters such as the 1929 aid to the blind bill with their stories of the petition initiatives through which the public mobilized behind their legislation.
In fact, the only place from where this support did not so readily come as mentioned to varying degrees in the three oral histories examined, was ironically the web of state and private agencies such as the Foundation for the Blind and the special state schools. Jenkins, among others, attributed this to the fact that these organizations which hosted blind service entities like sheltered shops, homes, nurseries, schools and even flower gardens, profited economically from the needy state of their clients through government subsidies and cheap labor. Whatever the case may have been, it remains apparent that the charitable support, supplied by the various groups, clubs, government organizations and sheltered shops not affiliated with the organized blind, though good intentioned and helpful in giving birth to the movement, lacked something extremely integral which could only be reached through the efforts of the blind themselves.
Jenkins summed up this problem well and concisely, ``It is the social attitude that is the big handicap,'' and this ``social attitude'' was precisely the thing which the prior mentioned organizations failed to overcome. It was a misconception which pervaded both sighted and blind peoples' thinking. It made employers write off whatever occupational accomplishments that blind people might have reached not as testimony to the capacity of the blind as a whole and as a cross section of society, but rather as the works of savants like Beethoven or geniuses like Einstein, nothing more than exceptions to the status quo. A number of schools for the blind continued to not encourage their students to go on to college. A number of blind people themselves continued mirroring the public stereotypes and discouraging others from rising up including Dr. Irwin, president of the AFB, who spoke against the rehabilitation amendment in 1943 and who, upon his retirement, fought to keep another blind person from taking his place insisting that he was the only capable blind man in America. Furthermore, by the mid 1950s after vocational rehabilitation for the blind had been some 15 years underway, they had published a list of around ``30 possible jobs for the blind'' to which counselors had to restrict their clients.
Since the 1950s when our oral histories were made, the organized blind movement has taken a number of steps forward. It has achieved a great deal with regards to education from k-12 up through college. It has replaced the OCB with three more organizations like it servicing the United States, with the same model that Jenkins explained more than 50 years ago. In addition it has helped more and more blind people continue to realize their capacities as physicists, lawyers, school teachers, business owners and computer scientists among other things. Nevertheless, the more things change, the more they seem the same. The social misconceptions, though not as potently as before, still persist. While the general public quibbles about unemployment exceeding the single digits, around seventy percent of the blind make up the unemployment ranks as a contrast to the ninety to ninety-nine percent referred to by Jenkins and Perry of the days of yore. In some areas the movement has even suffered setbacks. In the 1950s, half of blind people learned Braille. This figure has declined to a mere ten percent leaving the rest illiterate, in a great amount owing to the persisting belief that Braille is slow, something of the past or something that advertises inferiority.
In conclusion, the success of the early organized blind movement and eventually the National Federation of the Blind, could be summed up as a combined collaborative effort between the work of both blind and sighted components alike, yet it is notable how the effort of the blind moved things to a place which otherwise would have never been reached. They have come a long way from the days of Dr. Perry, when the employment of the blind was practically regarded as a threat to society, but they still have a long way to go.
References
Newel Perry, Dr. Newel Perry and the California Council for the Blind, 1881 - 1956, an oral history conducted in 1956, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1956Perry, Newel, Discrimination Against the Blind?, New York Times Article Archive, April 11, 1906, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F0CEFDC113EE733A25752C1A9629C946797D6CF
The text:
To the editor of the New York Times:
A few days ago I read in your columns that a blind man who was desirous of taking the teaching examinations for the New York city schools was notified in Superintendant Maxwell's office that his blindness disqualified him. Does a law exist, debarring blind men from competing for public school positions? Are those disadvantages which the blind man incurs as a natural consequence of his physical infirmity considered so slight, that in order to keep this class of earnest citizens from progressing and bettering their condition, legislation has been found necessary? How long will society continue its persecution of these men, refusing to them any and every form of assistance unless they consent to play the roll of beggars?
Signed:
Newel Perry
New York
April 7, 1906
A Real Sympathizer, The Blind as School Teachers, New York Times Article Archive, April 24, 1906, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B00E7DE1E3BE631A25757C2A9629C946797D6CF
The text:
To the editor of the New York Times:
With reference to Dr. Newel Perry's letter on the "discrimination against the blind", which you published recently, I would like to ask if any government in the world permits blind men to hold positions of trust? To me it seems clear that for New York City to permit blind men to compete in the examinations for public school teachers' positions would be to endanger the public good. Let us freely extend to the blind our sympathy and pity, but let us not try to benefit them at the expense of the public good.
Signed:
A real sympathizer
New York
April 22, 1906
Allen Jenkins, Allen Jenkins on the Attitudes and Activists of the Organized Blind, 1956, an oral history conducted in 1956, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1956
Perry Sunquist and Lillian McClure, Aid to the Blind, 1928-1955, an oral history conducted in 1955, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1956
Dr. Stuart Wittenstein, A Brief History of the California School for the Blind, 1986, http://www.csb-cde.ca.gov/History.htm
NY Times, Class Legislation, New York Times Article Archive, April 24, 1888, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9800E6D6173AE033A25757C2A9629C94699FD7CF
Dr. Jacobus TenBroek, Within the Grace of God, an address delivered at the banquet of the National Federation of the Blind convention, July, 1956, http://www.nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/convent/tb1956.htm
BEN NUCKOLS, Fewer than 10 percent of blind Americans can read Braille, The Associated Press, March 26, 2009,http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/03/26/fewer-10-percent-blind-americans-read-braille
National Convention
July 3—8 2010
This year the National Federation of the Blind's annual convention will be held in Dallas, Texas, at the Hilton Anatole Hotel. This year we will celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the NFB, so you won't want to miss out! The Hilton Anatole is now accepting reservations; call
214) 761—7500
to make your reservation now. For more information, please view the National Convention webpage and watch the Braille Monitor.
CABS Seminar, 2010
Submitted by the CABS Marketing Committee
Come and join the CABS board for the 2010 California Association of Blind Students Seminar, tentatively scheduled to be held in September at the California Baptist University in Riverside.
Students will be presented the opportunity to meet with leaders in the National Federation of the Blind and to network with their peers. They will learn how to communicate their needs to the authorities of their respective campuses, to advocate solutions and to make the maximum use of their available resources, skills which will augment their effectiveness as students.
Representatives from various campuses will come to speak to the attendees of the seminar. Individuals representing distributors of products beneficial to blind students will be discussing options currently available. In a series of break out sessions along with a luncheon, delegates will have the opportunity to meet with influential students in CABS to discuss topics such as study skills, and financial aid. During these exchanges, participants will be able to network with each other.
The seminar is sure to be informative, fun filled and productive, and all students are encouraged to attend.
Travel information will be available as soon as we finalize the details for the seminar date and location.
Scholarship Announcements
By Aziza Cano, First Vice—President
As students we are all aware of the urgent need to secure funds to support our educational careers. Some may think that the budget cuts in California have affected financial aid negatively; however students still have many options available to them through scholarships. If you are determined to find financial aid, then there is a scholarship for you, as long as you know where to look. The best place to look for scholarships is on:
After creating a profile, you will be emailed every time new scholarships or internships that match your profile are available. For now, please make use of the following scholarship opportunities.
National Federation of the Blind 2010 Scholarship Applications Now Available
Each year the National Federation of the Blind awards thirty scholarships to legally blind college and graduate students across the country. The scholarship includes a cash award ranging from $3000 to $12000, plus a free trip to the NFB national convention and often a piece of assistive technology such as a KNFB Reader Mobile. The scholarship application for 2010 is now on the Web at:http://www.nfb.org/nfb/scholarship_program.asp
Applications are due by March 31, 2010.
Already won a national NFB scholarship? You can apply again and potentially win a second scholarship, also known as a TenBroek fellowship.
PThe 2010—2011 Council of Citizens with Low Vision
International Fred Scheigert Scholarship Program
The Council of Citizens with Low Vision International (CCLVI) will award three scholarships in the amount of $3,000 each to one full—time student in each category; entering freshmen, undergraduate and graduate. College students who are visually impaired, maintain a strong GPA and are involved in their school and/or local community are encouraged to apply.
Applications may be submitted beginning January 1st and all materials must be received by March 1st. Scholarship monies will be awarded for the 2010—2011 academic year.
To read the scholarship guidelines and complete an online application, please visit:
and click on the “Scholarship” link. Applications will be available to submit online until March 1st at 11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time. Please plan ahead so that documents mailed will be received by March 1st. Please note, no faxed materials will be accepted. Questions may be directed to CCLVI at:
800)733—2258.
Hispanic College Fund scholarship program
The Hispanic College Fund scholarship program is now accepting applications! The program is open to students of Hispanic background majoring in business, finance, accounting, computer science, computer engineering, IT, hospitality management, hotel management, culinary, food & beverage, and many more! Scholarships awards are up to $10,000. To read more about each program's requirements AND to apply, please go to:http://scholarships.hispanicfund.org/
Deadline: February 16th, 2010
As a part of the HCF network, students benefit from relationships with HCF's many Fortune 500 sponsors, including Lockheed Martin, Estee Lauder Companies, and Google. A number of our scholars have even secured full—time employment with their scholarship sponsor.
Assisting our Neighbors in Blindness
It’s winter! You just can’t get around, at least if you’re anywhere like Omaha, Nebraska. We have had 2 blizzards in the last 3 weeks. Transportation, at times has been nearly impossible, schools and businesses have been closed. This has been some of the foulest weather in this region for years, with freezing rain, wind, ice, snow, and no sign of this pattern letting up. With the low temps and piles and piles of snow everywhere, most of us are being very selective in where we choose when traveling away from our homes. Yet people have the choice. Imagine if you had no such choice. Or what if your choices were just as limited, round the clock, day long, week in and out, month after month, life—long? What would that be like?It would be like the lives of blind people in developing nations, with no hope of receiving the basic training they need to live full independent lives. But this kind of training is available in the U. S. A. every single day. Now, the veteran rehabilitation professionals of non—profit Blind Corps provide this kind of U. S.—developed training to blind people and their teachers where it has never been provided before.
You can help to thaw the ice and make it possible for blind persons of developing nations, struggling to be free and equal, to achieve their dreams of independence. For the cost of a $10 Braille slate, a $25 white cane, a $50 Braille watch, or the donation of used but serviceable equipment or technology you can make a difference.
On May 25, 2010 our team of eight, including myself, will be leaving for Istanbul for our third Blind Corps mission. We’ll be providing training to teachers from the 16 schools for the blind scattered across Turkey, as well as direct contact with individual blind persons. If you’d like to join us, as well as the Turkish Ministry of Education, the City of Istanbul, and Bey Az Ay, the leading non—profit organization of the blind in Turkey in supporting this project, please contact me directly or donate securely online with the Paypal link below.
All of us of the Blind Corps team appreciate your consideration and generosity.
Yours respectfully,
Robert Leslie Newman, Board Member, Blind Corps
To use Paypal, please click or paste): https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=10485686xclick&hosted_button_id=10485686
BLIND CORPS, since November 2005, an IRS 501(c)(3) tax—exempt Corporation
National Association of Blind Students
From the Desk of the President, Arielle Silverman
Phone: 602—502—2255
Email: nabs.president@gmail.com
Website: http://www.nabslink.org
NABS on Facebook and Twitter:
The National Association of Blind Students now has a page on Facebook and an account on Twitter! Become a fan of NABS on Facebook to stay in touch and communicate with other blind students across the country. Follow us on Twitter to receive announcements about what NABS is doing, both nationally and in our state divisions.You can find us by searching for "National Association of Blind Students" on Facebook and "NABSLINK" on Twitter.
Do you have a piece of news that you want us to post on Facebook and Twitter? Please send it to the membership committee by writing an email to: Nabs.membership@gmail.com
Pennies for Pages:
Thanks to all of you who raised money for NABS in our Pennies for Pages contest! Please email Sean Whalen at:and let him know how much money you raised. He will tell you how to send in the money. Remember that the person who raises the most money will win an Amazon gift card! Pledges can be collected up until Jan. 22, 2010.
State Division Announcements:
News from Wisconsin:
Meghan Whalen, President
Wisconsin Association of Blind Students
On January 2nd, we held a Bowl—A—Thon for a fundraiser for those of us going to Washington Seminar. We will have 7 students in attendance, and we made around $1000. We are also selling cookie dough to fundraise for D.C., as well as selling raffling an Ipod Nano. The drawing will be in April. We are also in the process of getting T—shirts designed and printed for our division. Things have been busy, and it seems they will only be getting busier. We purchased popcorn makers for fundraising at events we attend, and we have dedicated members working to help us move forward in our goals as a division. There are great things for WABS in 2010!
News from Virginia
Corbb O’Connor, President
Virginia Association of Blind Students
At the 2009 NFB of Virginia convention, the Virginia Student Division held its annual meeting. During this meeting, President Corbb O’Connor conducted a series of “Larry King Live” interviews. He interviewed Fairfax chapter President John Bailey about his experiences in activities like fire—walking, walking on broken glass (not the song, though we’re told John can sing quite well), and breaking boards with his bare hands. John also talked about his experience losing his vision in high school and college. Corbb also interviewed Josh Boudreaux from the Louisiana Center for the Blind and Monique Melton from the Colorado Center for the Blind. Josh and Monique spoke about why students should consider training centers for improved independent living skills and how the centers are unique.
After these insightful interviews President O’Conner led a discussion of possible future activities that the organization would like to see take place. The overall consensus was to have a social gathering for students in the hopes of increasing our outreach program and engaging students prior to the next state convention. One task that Corbb hoped the group could achieve by the late January timeframe was to develop a Constitution for the Division. The meeting concluded with elections. Corbb O’Connor was re—elected President, Brittany Savage was elected Vice President, Michael Fish was elected as Secretary, C. J. Fish was elected as Treasurer, and Chelsea Cook was elected as the Board Member at large. All will serve for one year, and the next election will be held at the 2010 NFB of Virginia State convention.
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