THE CONTINUITY OF LEADERSHIP: TWIN REQUIREMENTS
                     An Address Delivered by
                           MARC MAURER
           President, National Federation of the Blind
             At the Banquet of the Annual Convention
                   Dallas, Texas, July 8, 1993

     There are two fundamental kinds of leadership that may be
exercised by nations, by individuals, or by social action
organizations. The first (and more common) is reactive. In times
of crisis the political leader must find ways to bring positive
results from circumstances which present no good alternative. The
second (and perhaps the more important) is creative. The
political leader must anticipate what might be caused to occur if
an action is taken or avoidedþeven though there is no event that
demands an immediate response.
     Leadership is essential in a crisis if disaster is to be
averted. But even more significant, leadership is vital when no
crisis is imminent. In times of turmoil or stress it is perfectly
clear that something must be done. When there is no impending
calamity, there is also no obvious need for leadershipþbut
without leadership there is only stagnation. If progress is to be
realized, there must be leadership. Especially when the
exigencies of circumstance do not demand it.
     In 1970 the sixth largest corporation in the United States
(Penn Central) declared bankruptcy. It did so because it owed
hundreds of millions of dollars in short-term debt. Shortly
before the filing with the bankruptcy court, leading financial
planners contemplated the possible results. As soon as this
mammoth corporation defaulted, all short-term debt obligations
for all companies in America would become suspect. The short-term
debt at that time amounted to over forty billion dollars. The
default would almost certainly cause widespread financial panic.
The companies that had loaned the hundreds of millions to the
bankrupt could not get the money back, and they would not be able
to meet their own financial needs. If they could not obtain
immediate credit, many of these companies would, in their turn,
be faced with ruin. Layoffs would be massive, and there would be
no new jobs for those who had become unemployed.
     The disaster did not occur because individuals at the
Federal Reserve Bank anticipated the need for extraordinary
amounts of money, and (within less than two days) created the
mechanism to assure American bankers and capital managers that
credit would be found to meet the ongoing demands of business
despite the multi-million-dollar loss. Although a catastrophe of
monumental proportions had been avoided, this remarkable feat of
monetary management was not widely reportedþeven though the
bankruptcy of Penn Central was.
     The most important form of leadership is not reactive but
creative. It examines conditions as they exist and imagines what
may be possible if energy and resources can only be focused. It
dreams not of solving the present crisis or avoiding anticipated
tragedy. Instead, it seeks to explore new avenues of thought and
to build social structures, human understanding, and
technological applications that have never been tried.
     The history books tell us that the American Revolution began
in 1775 and that the Declaration of Independence inaugurated our
nation on the fourth of July, 1776. The leadership which
propelled the American Revolution is well-documented and
dramatic. But if the focus of the historian is on the period of
the revolution alone, an essential element in the reallocation of
political and social balances is omitted. The leadership that
occurred during the revolution is of the kind that reacts to dire
circumstance. The Declaration of Independence lists the evils
which the revolution was intended to correct. However, there is a
theory which maintains that the most important form of leadership
on this side of the Atlantic transpired before the first shot was
fired and long before the Declaration was signed.
     To be successful, the revolution had to occur within a
society which believed that the old order was no longer tenable.
The military strategists could synthesize and implement the
alteration, but the underlying reality of the thought processes,
at least in large measure, needed to be in place. Otherwise, the
population on the North American continent would not have
tolerated the revolution. The leadership which brought the
citizens of the colonies to believe þThat these United Colonies
are, and of right ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATESþ
occurred long before the march to Lexington and Concord in 1775.
That leadership had already created in the minds of the American
colonists the conviction that our country should be free and
independentþthat reliance on those governing other lands was no
longer endurableþthat an entirely innovative form of government
should be adopted.
     Although certain patterns of human behavior recur, the
complex fabric of being is ever new. As we meet here tonight in
the largest gathering of the blind that will assemble anywhere in
the United States this year, the opportunities for leadership
will be (and are) abundant. What will our reaction be to the
challenges of today? But even more to the point, what can we
create through focused energy and collective imagination for
tomorrow?
     In 1940, when Dr. Jacobus tenBroek and a small group of
other blind people brought the National Federation of the Blind
into being in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, conditions for the
blind were exceedingly poor. There was very little training,
almost no opportunity for employment, and (except for occasional
social encounters) almost no chance for meaningful interaction.
Schools for the blind had been established in many states, but
almost without exception these institutions had not found a way
to encourage their students to become productively employed. Some
sheltered workshops had been created, but the work was simple and
repetitive, and the pay was dismally low. Modern training centers
had not yet been invented. Almost no blind person had learned to
travel confidently with a cane. Training in the manual arts, home
economics, and communication skills was not readily available.
When the Federation came into being on that eventful day in 1940,
the notion of widespread productivity for blind people was no
more than a shadow and a dream.
     What a dramatic contrast with conditions as we find them
today after more than fifty years of effort! Blind people are now
students in the schools, colleges, and universities, both public
and private. Employment opportunities for the blind are (for many
of us) not a matter for the decades to come but a reality of the
present. Blind people have become teachers, farmers, factory
workers, restaurant operators, scientists, engineers, and
financial consultants. Increasingly, the blind are accepting the
responsibilities of a job, a home, and a place in the community.
Not only are we becoming participants in the social structure of
our country, but ever more often we are helping to shape it. Some
of us have become active in politics, and others of us are
sailing the seas and managing race cars. Not all of the problems
faced by the blind have been solvedþfar from it. But many have.
Not all of the negative attitudes about us have been eradicated,
but it is fair to say that all of them have been affected by our
years of effort. The reason for the alteration can be found in
this room tonightþin the sacrifice, the commitment, and the
belief of the blind of this nationþin our organization, the
National Federation of the Blind.
     Until the establishment of the National Federation of the
Blind in 1940, leadership in matters involving the blind was
provided (to the extent that it was provided at all) by those in
the governmental and private agencies doing work with the blind.
It was assumed that blind people themselves should not attempt to
become leaders because the effort would meet with inevitable
failure.
     In 1937 (and I remind you that 1937 was more than a third of
the way through the present century) a book was published that
today would be unimaginable. It would either be the target of
intense anger or uproarious laughter. And it was written by a
blind authorþa man of some renown at the timeþHenry Randolph
Latimer. Entitled The Conquest of Blindness, it contains the
following astonishing statements:

          To what extent may the physically blind person,
     with safety, lead the physically blind?
          Time and time again, here and there, þall-blindþ
     societies have been formed with the avowed purpose of
     taking over the affairs of blind people, only to
     disintegrate through dissensions incident to their
     self-imposed isolation.
          At best, [Latimer continues] blindness is a
     negative bond of common action. As such, like any other
     human want, it weakens and disappears in exact
     proportion as its needs are met. Accordingly, all-blind
     clubs and societies include among their active
     membership comparatively few of the independently
     successful blind people.

     That's what he says, and I want you to keep in mind that
he's talking about you and me. I wonder how he'd feel if he could
be here with us tonight in our thousands. Regardless of that,
here is some more of it:

          On the other hand, their stronger members tend to
     become lukewarm and to seek more practical outlets for
     their superfluous energy. Thus the less experienced and
     less capable members assume leadership in the affairs
     of the club, causing the society to lose impetus and
     prestige.

     Here, I guess, he's talking about me and those of you who
are national board members, state and local presidents, and state
and local board members. But back to brother Latimer.

               So it is, [he continues] with few
          exceptions, that such societies contain
          within themselves the conditions of inertia
          and decay. It is as literary, musical, or
          otherwise mutually beneficial societies that
          all-blind organizations prove most useful.
               It cannot, then [he continues], be
          through the all-blind society that the blind
          leader of the blind finds adequate
          opportunity for the exercise of his
          leadership. The wise leader will know that
          the best interests of each blind person lie
          within the keeping of the nine hundred and
          ninety-nine sighted people who, with himself,
          make up each one thousand of any average
          population. He will know, further, that if he
          wishes to promote the interests of the blind,
          he must become a leader of the sighted upon
          whose understanding and patronage [patronage,
          he says] the fulfillment of these interests
          depends. There is, nevertheless, no advantage
          accruing from membership in an all-blind
          organization which might not be acquired in
          greater measure through membership in a
          society of sighted people.

     Federationists, take note!
     Three years after Latimer's publication about the futility
of the blind trying to lead the blind, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, the
blind person who would serve as the most striking illustration of
the capacity of the blind for the next twenty-five years, founded
the National Federation of the Blindþand, incidentally, tangibly
refuted Latimer's thesis. In addition to leading the Federation,
handling a full-time teaching load, and raising a family, Dr.
tenBroek published scores of articles and five full-length books.
One of these received the Woodrow Wilson Award as the best
treatise for political science for the year, and the others are
quoted in law schools and legal periodicals to this day. The
quality of his leadership came to be reflected throughout the
National Federation of the Blind and set the standard for the
quality of leadership throughout the organization as a whole. How
different has our experience been from the theory propounded by
Henry Randolph Latimer.
     Although the Latimer thesis could not easily have been
refuted at the time it was written, such is no longer the case.
By the early 1950's Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, one of the most
profound philosophers and powerful writers ever to consider the
subject of blindness, had become a part of the organized blind
movement. For more than a generation Dr. Jernigan has continued
the tradition of Dr. tenBroek. He has led; he has taught; he has
inspired others. We who have heard that resonant voice have
understood the truth and recognized the wisdom. The struggle to
achieve independence by the blind has been conducted in every
part of our nation, and the single most powerful instrument in
this effort has been our organizationþthe organization conceived
by Dr. tenBroek and built by Dr. Jernigan with the help of so
many othersþour movement, the National Federation of the Blind.
     If we who are blind possess leadership talents, why are we
not leading? In many instances, of course, we are, but the
examples of leadership among us have almost always been
dismissed. They have not been regarded as a part of the normal
pattern of human behavior. Instead, they have usually been
ascribed to inspirational and miraculous powers. Miracles don't
need to be explained. If you can explain them, they aren't
miracles, but only science.
     A contemporary of Dr. tenBroek's is the blind World War II
resistance fighter Jacques Lusseyran, who was blinded at the age
of eight. This Frenchman began his work of organizing one of the
French underground resistance movements in 1939 when he was
sixteen. With an original membership of fifty-two boys, all under
the age of twenty-one, this organization grew within a year to
over 600. In 1943 Lusseyran was captured by the Gestapo and sent
to a Nazi prison camp. When inmates of the camp were freed in
1945, Lusseyran was one of the few survivors.
     After the war was over, Jacques Lusseyran sought a
professorship at the university. Despite his heroism in fighting
for his country, and despite his brilliant accomplishments at the
Sorbonne, Lusseyran was barred from the classroom. In the 1950's
he was eventually permitted to teach in France. He later became a
teacher in the United States, and finally achieved the status of
full professor at Case Western Reserve University, in Ohio. The
leadership potential of this blind man cannot be doubted. Yet,
the blind organizer and leader of the French resistance was
prohibited from teaching in the very country he had helped to
save. And why? Because he was blind.
     The notion that the blind can and should lead the blind is
still sometimes resisted, even today, by some of the officials of
the more reactionary governmental and private agencies for the
blind, who attempt to dissuade us from taking independent action.
The notion that we might have full lives or think and act for
ourselves is not even considered. We are depicted as so lacking
in talent, so shrouded in misery, and so racked with pain that
all we needþin fact all we can useþis custody, and care. Custody
and care, incidentally, provided by these agencies. Custody and
care requiring a lot of moneyþeither from the public or the
government, or preferably from both. Consider, for instance, this
language from a recent appeal made by the National Association
for Visually Handicapped. Think about it carefully. Here is what
it says:
                             Summer
             A Time Filled With Sunshine and Leisure
                      But Not For Everyone

          There are those to whom the glare of bright
     sunlight means pain, to whom longer days mean longer
     periods of emptiness, to whom the change of season
     brings only heat and further isolation.
          Our unique services help ease the pain with visual
     aids, temper the heat with warmth and caring, [you'd
     think, by the way, that at least they would offer
     coolness and caring, but back to their appeal] and fill
     the emptiness with youth activities and large print
     books.
          The National Association for Visually Handicapped
     [their letter continues] is the only national health
     agency solely devoted to the partially seeing.
          We reach out to people who live with the
     þHeartbreak of Being a Little Bit Blind,þ to whom the
     brightness of the day does nothing to clear the blur
     that is a loved one's face, nor offer a world different
     from that viewed as if through a rain-splattered
     window.
          Won't you help us add a ray of hope to the summer
     sunshine?

     That, in part, is what the letter of the National
Association for Visually Handicapped saysþand what a picture! Are
blind people ever lonely? Of course, we are. Does blindness
isolate? Sometimes. It can. Are these the overwhelming
experiences of blindness? Only if we leave the management of our
lives to people like those who wrote this appeal. Only if we
suffer the ministrations of the National Association for Visually
Handicapped and their ilk. Only if we accept the misconceptions
about blindness typified by this letter. Only if we default on
the challenges of leadership.
     The National Association for Visually Handicapped says that
it is working on behalf of þthe over eleven million visually
impaired in the United States.þ Do you think they're working for
you and me? Maybe we would be better off if they weren't working
so hardþand, incidentally, collecting so much money. If their
help consists of telling the world how lonely and isolated we
are, how racked with pain, we can do without it. Let them keep
their visual aids and youth activities. We can do without them.
Let them keep their syrupy speeches and tearful fund-raising
appeals in our name. We can do without. We are finding our own
way, and the road we are traveling leads to first-class status
and full membership in society. Yes, and we are providing our own
leadership.
     In 1991, Pantheon Books released the American edition of
Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness by the blind
professor John M. Hull. This book contains the introspection of a
man who has become blind in middle life.
     Hull's feeling of dependence, resulting from his belief that
the blind are less capable than the sighted, is expressed in his
attitude toward walking with a friend. Here are portions of the
text:

          When I am walking into work, [says Hull] it is not
     unusual for people to ask if I need any help.
          Now, with me, a curious thing takes place. I lose
     my independence as soon as I accept my friend's
     company. This is because I must put a finger under the
     elbow of my companion, in order to locate him, to keep
     abreast of him, so as not to keep walking into him. I
     am like a hitch-hiker. I am being towed, moving more
     rapidly than would normally be possible.
          Moreover [he continues], we have to have
     conversation. If you are walking along with somebody
     for company, you talk. This means that I cannot devote
     to my route the concentration which it would normally
     require.
          This means that a sighted person cannot simply
     accept my company. Through no fault of his own, he has,
     by walking with me, deprived me of my independence.
          Through no fault of my own, I have sacrificed my
     independence for the sake of his company. He then
     becomes responsible for me. He becomes like a car
     towing a caravan. It is his responsibility to make sure
     that the vehicle he is towing is still there, i.e.,
     that I do not become detached from him at some crucial
     point of the route.

     These are some of the thoughts of Professor Hull. Blindness
is (for him) an all-pervasive and all-important element of his
lifeþbut this formulation is manifestly not the truth. Blind
people are not less able than others to manage the ordinary
activities of everyday life. Walking with a friend does not strip
us of our independence.
     Professor Hull believes that sight is essential and that
although the blind can sometimes substitute other senses, the
substitution is always inferior. For example, stimulation of the
urges of the body for food and (you guessed it) sex are,
according to Hull, primarily visual. Here, in part, is what he
says:

          Early in infancy we learn to associate our desires
     with the visual images of the things which satisfy
     them. So complete is the identification of desire with
     image that it becomes difficult to distinguish between
     þI feel hungryþ and þI want to eat that food which I
     see there.þ
          Blindness dislocates this primordial union of
     desire and image.
          [I interrupt to say that I really wonder whether
     these high-flown notions have any connection with
     everyday life. Is there really a primordial union of
     desire and image? Has your primordial union suffered a
     dislocation in your attempt to eat your dinner tonight?
     But back to Professor Hull.]
          Naturally [he continues], sight is not the only
     sense to be involved. As always, however, sight is the
     foundation upon which the other senses build.
          I am often [says Hull] bored by food, feel that I
     am losing interest in it, or cannot be bothered eating.
     At the same time, I have the normal pangs of hunger.
     Even whilst feeling hungry, I remain unmotivated by the
     approach of food.
          Something rather similar [he continues] seems to
     happen in the case of sexual desire. The image [visual
     I presume he means] of that which satisfies is quite
     inseparable from the realization of the desire itself.
          So it is possible, I think [says Hull], for a
     heterosexual blind man to be bored by women and yet to
     be conscious of sexual hunger. The trace of a perfume
     and the nuance of a voice are insubstantial when
     compared with the full-bodied impact upon a sighted man
     of the appearance of an attractive woman. There must be
     many [blind] men who wonder whether they will ever
     again be capable of genuine sexual excitement.

     To which I respond, don't you believe it. When you are
hungry, do you find yourselves uninterested in food? Are blind
people generally a lot skinnier than the sighted? And speaking of
desire, perhaps I should address myself to the men. Do you wonder
whether you will ever again be capable of genuine sexual
excitement? Take a moment, think of women. Are you bored? And
what do you women say? Have you lost the power of romantic
encounter?
     It is a temptation to dismiss the writings of Professor Hull
as the work of a nut. However, the Washington Post says of his
book that þit glows with a light that enables the sighted to see
a world beyond ordinary experience, and the blind reader to
identify with a role model of uncommon courage and sensitivity.
We must all be grateful [the Post says] for the appearance of
this stunning book.þ
     That is what the Washington Post says, but Professor Hull is
no model for us to follow. He is headed in the wrong direction.
He believes that he is weaker and less capable than his sighted
colleagues, and perhaps he is, but the problem is not his
blindness. If he could only know the members of the National
Federation of the Blindþif he could know and follow the example
of that other professor, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, what might his
life become?
     Within the past few years a number of books have been
written which have attempted to capitalize on the special needs
or unusual requirements of the blind. One of these books,
entitled One Way or Another: A Guide to Independence for the
Visually Impaired and Their Families, is a compilation of helpful
hints. There is apprehension for the newly blinded and their
families about what lies ahead. Nevertheless, I wonder whether
the suggestions in this book will help to alleviate the distress
or will simply enhance the uncertainty. Here are some of the
suggestions:

          Before you even begin the process of reorientation
     [say the authors], discuss it at length with the
     visually impaired person. You can suggest tasks that
     are safety oriented, such as dialing the phone, and
     finding the front door.
          Don't make decisions for him. If he wants to keep
     the elaborate furniture arrangement and learn to
     navigate around itþso be it! Applaud his sense of
     adventure and determination. Don't insist that he move
     all the furniture against the walls just because it
     would make the reorientation easier for you.

     These are the exact words of the book, and the question
comes to mind, are the authors serious? Is it advisable to adopt
a special arrangement of the furniture for the blind? Why would
it be easier to push the furniture against the wall? But there is
more.

          If [the authors say] your loved one is reluctant
     to leave his bedroom, allow him that. But help him
     explore that roomþshow him every inch. As he gains
     confidence in his bedroom, he will soon want to branch
     out and reacquaint himself with every room in the
     house. Ask if he would like you to set up guide ropes
     or landmarks, as temporary aids, to help him find his
     way around.

     This is what the authors say, and you would think that they
were talking about small, not very bright childrenþbut they
aren't, they're talking about adult blind people. They're talking
about you and meþincluding guide ropes in the living room.
Although I have been totally blind for a great many years, and
although I have known thousands of blind people (many of them
newly-blinded), I have never yet met a blind person who had guide
ropes installed in his house to get from room to room.
     In 1568, the Flemish artist, Pieter Bruegel, painted The
Parable of the Blind also entitled The Blind Leading the Blind.
Six blind men are depicted traveling together. The six form a
line by having the second man hold to the first, the third hold
to the second, and so on until they are all connected. The
leading blind character has fallen into a brook, and the second
is in the act of falling. Those still erect are clearly headed
for the same fate.
     The blind men apparently suffer from at least five different
kinds of eye diseases. The accuracy of detail in the painting is
noteworthy because, at the time it was completed, very little was
known about diseases of the eye. Blindness, it was believed, was
the result of bad gasses rising from the stomach. Advice from
doctors of the sixteenth century to those suffering eye disorders
was that an attendant should be found to þblow into the eye
gently with a breath sweetened by chewing cloves or fennel.þ
     The Bruegel painting would be interesting only for
historical purposes, except that it has served as the basis for a
novel by Gert Hofmann entitled The Parable of the Blind,
published in Germany in 1985, and translated for publication in
the United States in 1986.
     The novel relates the events of the day in the lives of the
six blind men who posed for the Bruegel painting. At dawn they
are awakened from sleep in a barn by a banging on the door. At
dark they are again locked in the barn for the night. The hours
between are described in painful detail. The six are shown as
cringing, self-centered, suspicious, but above all bumbling,
unfit, inept. It may be that there are six blind people in this
country today who are so lacking in perception that they could
fit the portrayal, but I doubt it. When they wake in the barn,
they do not know their own names but must take a moment to
remember. They are not certain how many of them are present. They
feel themselves all over to recall what they are like and to seek
some identity with what they were yesterday and what they may
become tomorrow. But, let Mr. Hofmann speak for himself. Here are
his own words:

          A knocking on the barn door drags us out of our
     sleep. No, the knocking isn't inside us, it's outside,
     where the other people are.
          Yes, we call as we crouch there. Now what do you
     want of us?
          And he asks if we've forgotten about being painted
     today.
          So we must get up now and go to the village green.
     It's time, the knocker says. We have to walk around in
     the village a bit, to practice.
          And why walk around?
          Because we've got to practice the walking that
     will be painted, the knocker says. Especially the
     stumbling and falling, the different kinds of fall.
          But aren't we going to be painted sitting?
          No, not sitting, the painter says.
          So we're going to be painted walking?
          Stumbling and falling and screaming.
          Do we have to practice screaming?
          He doesn't know. Probably we'll have to.
          Wait, we call, we're coming.
          Slowly, clawing at one another, we get out of the
     straw, struggle to our feet. Then we grope at ourselves
     and at one another. Then we pass our hands over our
     bodies. Yes, we're still the same people as yesterday.
     And probably to the end we'll be yesterday's people and
     gradually now we remember ourselves better, down to the
     smallest details. Everything comes back again, even
     that which was buried, and we're very startled. We
     remember our names again too, the names we call one
     another. And this morning, as we feel our heads, arms,
     and sticks, we're probably the same for others. This is
     how we'll be painted, it will be quite a big picture,
     because there are several of us, six perhaps.

     That is what the author says, and despite the surrealist
style, the depiction of the blind is the same old tiresome lie
which has been monotonously told from the beginning of time. Do
you wake in the morning and rub yourself all over to remember who
you are? Do you have to work to recall your own name? The
author's fantasy is just thatþfantasy! But of course, he may
argue that he was not describing fact but creating an allegory.
He may say that the behavior of the characters is exaggerated for
emphasis. Indeed, there is dialogue later in the book which might
suggest this thought. Consider this portion of the text:

          Isn't that it? the painter says. And he's very
     excited now by the sight of us (the sight of us on the
     bridge and on the canvas). Which, as he exclaims again
     and again, does wondrously sum up the ways of the world
     and the fate of man. Nor do we know [the novel
     continues] what the sight of us sums up for the
     painter, we just go on saying: All right, now we'll
     fall, all right, time to fall. And let ourselves be led
     back to the bridge, stumble, scream, and fall. But we
     can't leave the scene yet, we're still being painted.
     The painter is the only person who isn't worn out,
     while his good friend calls out to him over and over
     again how excellent he finds what's being painted, and
     that if the painter means to paint a masterpiece he
     only has to go on like this. Until we suddenly feel
     we're not needed anymore, until somebody even shouts
     this to us. Somebody who'd been silent till now shouts
     it from the window.
          Stop now, he shouts, take them away.

     Both the Flemish painter and the twentieth century author
apparently believe that the blind are a striking example of the
benighted guiding the ignorant. The predetermined result is
inescapable disaster. But their characterization is not the
truth. We who are blind are not forever bound in intellectual
isolation. Blindness does not equate with stupidity. We possess
talents, and we are living demonstrations that we can be
creative. We have the curiosity, the commitment, and the energy
to play a full part in the society in which we live.
     There is at least one other way to interpret the Hofmann
parable. Time and time again the blind are used to achieve
somebody else's private ends regardless of the harm that may be
caused to the blind. The parable of Hofmann's book may be that if
the blind do not lead the blind, there will be oppression,
tyranny, and humiliation. The real moral of the novel (the one
that Hofmann himself probably did not understand) is that we must
accept the demands and challenges of leadership and the direction
of our own lives. If we do not, the theorizing about blindness
and the shaping of public attitudes concerning the blind will be
left to othersþto writers like Hofmann and Hull. We cannot, and
we will not let this happen. Hofmann's parable is not ours. It
may have had power for a different era, but that time is no more.
We are the blind, the organized blindþand we intend to lead. We
have come together from every part of the nation, and we have
formed a common bond. We think and write and act for ourselves.
We are the National Federation of the Blind.
     Blindness and blind people have been misrepresented, falsely
portrayed, and misunderstood from the beginning of recorded
history. The thinkers, the dreamers, the shapers of political
thought and cultural comprehension have almost always been
sighted. If they ever thought about blindness, they gave it only
the briefest attention. They assumed that they themselves would
not be able to compete effectively if they lost their sight, and
they attributed this presumed incompetence to us as well, to all
of the blind. Leadership with respect to the affairs of the blind
has proceeded during almost all of history from the viewpoint of
the sighted. Until quite recently blind people have not, to any
great extent, been leaders of the blind.
     When the National Federation of the Blind was founded a
fundamental change in emphasis and prospect was initiated. But
the creation of a body of philosophical understanding which would
permit the establishment of a pattern of leadership by blind
people could not be fully developed in a year, a decade, or even
half a century. The notion that the blind could and would lead
the blind demanded a change in the basic thought processes of
societyþin the entire cultureþnot only of the sighted but also of
the blind.
     It is of utmost significance to respond with decision and
determination in times of crisis. We, the organized blind, must
be prepared to take concerted action whenever our collective
effort can solve the immediate problems we face. However, of even
greater importance is the need to stimulate an atmosphere of
understandingþof acceptance of the blind on terms of equality.
This must occur all over the nationþin our homes, our immediate
neighborhoods, and our broader communities. The leadership that
inspires this attitude must be a part of our thoughts and actions
every day.
     If we collectively and individually do not meet the
challenge of leadership which is now before us, the odd-ball
notions and crazy ideas about us will continue to impede our
progress and stifle our growth. Furthermore, there is nobody that
can do it for usþwe must meet the challenge ourselves. Let the
sighted march with us, and increasingly they do. Let the
governmental and private agencies join the effort, and ever
growing numbers are doing so. But in the final analysis, others
cannot shape the future for us. We must make our own tomorrow. We
know what our problems are, and we know how to deal with them. We
know how to find the means and how to focus the effort. We cannot
fail or turn back. The stakes are too high and the prize too
great. In the spirit of Dr. Perry, who was the precursor; of Dr.
tenBroek, who was the founder and pioneer; and of Dr. Jernigan,
who has been the organizer and builderþyes, and also in the
spirit of those who will look back to test our actions and
judgment, we of this generation must and will do what is needed
to bring the blind closer to full membership in society. We will
respond to crisis as we must, but we will also be creative and
plan ahead. In the certainty of our strength to do what must be
done and our belief in each other and ourselves, we face the
future with confidence and joy. We are the organized blind. We
are the National Federation of the Blind. My brothers and my
sisters, we will make it come true!