Convention of unsighted realizes vision of equality
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By Jeffry Scott, Mike Morris
News Outlet: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/04/07
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They gathered around daybreak and hit the streets, an unlikely group of demonstrators. Almost all were blind. Most carried white walking canes. A few had guide dogs. They marched by the hundreds from the Marriott Marquis hotel to Centennial Olympic Park, where, on Tuesday morning in downtown Atlanta, they were praised for their courage.
"You are making a difference by being here this morning," said U.S. Rep. John Lewis, comparing the group's work to the protests he joined in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. "We cannot wait, we cannot be patient. You must stand up. You must make some noise. ... For what is right, and what is good."
It was the opening act of the national convention of the National Federation of the Blind. And, if the bulk of the convention, which is here through Thursday, is devoted to meetings and a product expo, the thrust of group's efforts it is to get the sighted world to see the blind the way the blind see themselves —- as equals.
When the group's president Marc Maurer was introduced at the park rally, he was greeted like a rock star, or grass-roots activist about to announce for political office. Several in the crowd screamed "We love you!" Maurer then exhorted the group —- which has a national membership of about 50,000 —- to define its own destiny, telling members only they can decide what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.
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Back at the Marriott Tuesday afternoon, the lobby bustled with participants, navigating through the crowd and the up and down escalators with relative ease, tapping canes across the carpet, offering object lessons in how the blind are self-sufficient, said John Pare Jr., who heads public relations for the group. "Our biggest problem isn't being blind," he said. "It's being accepted as being as capable of performing as sighted people."
Judy Sanders, 60, was working the information desk in the downstairs lobby. Like many of the 3,000 attending the convention, she has been attending the annual event for decades. Her first NFB convention was in 1971. It changed her life, she said: "I spent my whole childhood and college career not knowing that I could walk around by myself with a cane. I learned different."
Pare had a similar epiphany. He is 48. When he started losing his vision 13 years ago, he lost his job as a salesman, and retreated to his home to live out his life on disability. He heard about NFB, attended meetings and met people "who were successful and confident —- that turned my life around." Eighteen months ago he became the group's spokesman.
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James Gashel, NFB's executive director for strategic initiatives, said the unsighted world has seen profound changes since he attended his first NFB convention in 1965. "There are changes in the law, and the organization is much larger," he said. "The capabilities of the blind are now more recognized. Back then, a lot of blind people were led around. Not anymore."
He said technological advances are making the unsighted and sighted more equal by the day. The group helped develop one of the latest breakthroughs: A $2,200 device called a Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader, that reads print and translates it into spoken word in 20 seconds. "It's becoming artificial vision," he said.
Not far from a sign in the lobby promoting the Georgia Aquarium —- "See Things You've Never Seen Before at the World's Largest Aquarium" —- Kelly Prescott, 36, of Cincinnati talked about attending the convention the past 12 years, and debunked the notion that he's just in town for the convention. Yesterday —- along with a few other blind visitors —- he took a tour of the World of Coca-Cola.
"Tomorrow we're taking a tour of CNN," he said. "And, after that —- a shopping excursion."
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