[Arizona-students] (no subject)

[David Andrews]

Greetings, fellow Federationists:

In case you have not visited the Voice of the Nation's Blind Web site
lately, this note is to inform you that the November issue of this brand
new on-line publication of the NFB is now available at
www.voiceofthenationsblind.org
<
http://www.voiceofthenationsblind.org> .
You can also still browse the content of our inaugural issue. Below is
pasted my Editor's Message for the November 2004 issue so that you will
have an idea of the new content that is available.

Please continue to give us your comments and suggestions for the Voice
of the Nation's Blind, and please feel free to submit articles at any
time by emailing submissions to editor at voiceofthenationsblind.org
<
mailto:editor at voiceofthenationsblind.org> .

Happy browsing,

Chris Danielsen, Editor

Editor's Message for November 2004

As I participated last January in the grand opening of our new Jernigan
Institute, I thought about the great leader for whom it is named and the
last speech
he ever made before a banquet of the National Federation of the Blind.
In that speech, he called upon us to move beyond the civil rights
battles that had
characterized our movement in the past, and to a new day of working with
our sighted colleagues to make our dreams of real equality come true. In
reading
from his own contribution to our latest Kernel book at the time, Dr.
Jernigan spoke of the lessons he has learned about accepting help from
sighted people.
The article concluded with this thought:

If I had to sum up my personal philosophy in a single sentence, it would
probably be this: Do all you can to help yourself before you call on
somebody else;
try to make life better for those around you; and don't throw nickels.

The reference to throwing nickels came from an incident in Dr.
Jernigan's youth, when he threw away a nickel given to him by an elderly
lady for bus fare
rather than accept her help. That issue, perhaps, is for another time.
But Dr. Jernigan's main point, it seems to me, goes to the heart of what
the new
NFB Jernigan Institute symbolizes for our movement.

At the time Dr. Jernigan made this speech, most of us did not know of
his dream to build what would ultimately become the Jernigan Institute.
We would learn
of it a couple of years later, at the 1999 convention held in Atlanta,
where the capital campaign to build this grand new facility began. Dr.
Jernigan,
of course, already had a vision for the future of our organization, a
vision that he had shared with Dr. Maurer and our other leaders. So he
sought to
encourage us all to think of the problem of blindness in a new way, not
merely as a battle to be fought for acceptance and equality, but as a
problem we
ourselves could solve through our own imagination and innovative spirit.
He advised us to help ourselves wherever possible, and so now we are
helping ourselves
by formulating our own programs and developing our own technological
initiatives.

The National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute had its grand
opening on January 30, 2004, at a gala celebration with some fourteen
hundred Federationists
and friends present. The event was covered extensively in the April 2004
issue of the Braille Monitor, and the actual speeches and presentations
made were
of course available on the cassette edition. This material has not
previously been published on the Web, however, so we are including it
here for your
added enjoyment. We are also including a link to the speech that so
grandly articulated the vision of this new facility, though many of us
did not know
it at the time. "The Day After Civil Rights" provides an incisive
overview of our history and a call to action for the future, and though
it is relatively
recent, it is worth reading and hearing again now that the work of the
Jernigan Institute has begun in earnest.

One of the crowning achievements of the Institute thus far is the
Science Camps conducted this summer as the inaugural project of the
National Center for
Blind Youth in Science (NCBYS). A brief article on the science camps and
some audio and video highlights are included in this issue of the VNB,
including
an audio interview with several of the students and video footage of the
launch of a sounding rocket conducted by the students who attended the
second
week-long camp, dubbed "Rocket On!"

One of the battles we will certainly be fighting in this new century is
the battle for access to the World Wide Web, which has long since moved
from being
an interesting novelty and become a critical source of information,
commerce, and entertainment. But Web developers don't always design
their sites in
a way that is helpful to text-to-speech screen readers and other
adaptive software and devices used by the blind, and as yet no legal
precedent has arisen
which makes it incumbent upon them to do so except out of good business
sense or the goodness of their hearts. In this issue, you'll find out
how the nation's
two satellite radio providers are limiting access to their services by
blind customers because of bad decisions regarding Web design, and you
can read
about the state of the law regarding Web access for the blind, such as
it is. Web access may be one of those areas where the outlook for
straight-on fighting
may be less desirable than partnerships with Web consultants and
developers and innovations of our own, given that the legal climate is
so far unhelpful
at best.

We hope you'll enjoy this November issue of the Voice of the Nation's
Blind, and as ever we invite your comments, suggestions, and
submissions.

Christopher S. Danielsen, Editor

Christopher S. danielsen, Editor
Voice of the Nation's Blind
An On-line Publication of
National Federation of the Blind
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, MD 21230
Phone: 410-659-9314, ext. 2330
Fax: 410-685-5653
Email: cdanielsen at nfb.org <
mailto:cdanielsen at nfb.org>
http://www.voiceofthenationsblind.org
<
http://www.voiceofthenationsblind.org>