[Colorado-Talk] From our archives

[Peggy Chong]

Slowly, very slowly we are making a dent in the transcription of files from
our past.  Here is a letter recently  transcribed by our volunteers.  I
thought you would like to read it.  Our affiliate had been reorganized only
a week when this was written.  (I love the date!)

 

Peggy Chong.  

 

June 13, 1955

Honorable Edwin C. Johnson

Governor of the State of Colorado

Denver, Colorado

 

Dear Governor Johnson,

            By unanimous vote of its Board of Directors, the National
Federation of the Blind salutes you as the Man of the Year in work with the
blind.  During our banquet, the high point of our annual national convention
to be held on the evening of July 17, 1955 at the Hotel Fontenelle, Omaha,
Nebraska, the National Federation of the Blind wishes to present you with a
scroll symbolizing this award.  

            The attention of the nation's more than 300.000 blind men and
women is now focused on Colorado, because of the bold, sweeping, and
imaginative action recently taken by you.  In the view of the Board of
Directors of the nationwide organization of the blind themselves, that
action was a signal act of constructive statesmanship. 

Immediately upon your inauguration into office you perceived the necessity
of instituting measures for the improvement of the welfare of the blind.
You proceeded to do this first by impartially and objectively investigating
the facts, and there after by soliciting informed opinion.  You called upon
the National Federation of the Blind to investigate conditions and make
recommendations.

            You are perhaps the first chief executive of an important state
to recognize the fact that the blind themselves may very well know more
about their own problems than do those who assume to speak for them.  Your
action indeed may set a pattern of relationships between agencies for the
blind and the blind themselves which other states and the whole nation may
follow.  The enthusiastic support which you have given to the principle that
the blind men and women of your state should organize to unify and express
their opinions is an essential element in that pattern.

            In accepting as your guide the overall program recommendations
of the National Federation of the Blind, you have at one stroke brushed
aside an ancient and entrenched approach to dealing with the problems of the
blind, together with the institutions formalizing that approach, and
substituted for it a concept which holds great promise for the blind of
Colorado, and sets a goal not yet achieved by any other state.

            Your action has made Colorado a pioneer in a new era-an era in
which the blind will be regarded as equals rather than inferiors, in which
they will be accorded opportunity on the basis of ability rather than
discarded on a stereotype of disability.  Thus the new dawning for the blind
of Colorado under your leadership has opened up entirely new horizons for
the blind of the nation.

            We therefore cordially invite you to attend our national
gathering at Omaha, so that we may honor you as befits your accomplishments.

Yours sincerely,

Jacobus tenBroek

President

            

 

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