[Mt-blind] What's More Important, Safety or Freedom?

[Joe & Flo]

What an interesting exchange of ideas, opinions and knowledge. I am 
impressed by the whole diatribe, and have been watching Montana Blind posts 
daily since Jim's first post. What a healthy system we have, after all. And 
differences of opinion usually lead to great ideas.
    Since I don't use the White Cane yet, being legally blind is a different 
situation. I don't recognize close friends until they speak, or tell me  who 
is speaking. So I have passed up many old friends who don't realize I don't 
recognize them. Kinda embarassing sometimes.
Hence, the recent exchange has been very interesting to me, and I do believe 
we are being led by a very intelligent, knowledgeable membership with our 
diverse abilities, and disabilities, searching for the ame recognition as 
human beings.
Keep up the good work, MAB,
Flo Nelson
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Marks" <blind.grizzly at gmail.com>
To: "'Montana Association for the Blind List'" <mt-blind at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 8:31 AM
Subject: Re: [Mt-blind] What's More Important, Safety or Freedom?


> Sometimes it takes a rhetorical question, some controversy, and open and
> frank discussions to get at the heart of a matter.  It's been bothering me
> for a long time that some in the MAB miss the essence of 
> self-determination
> by the blind.  In any event, as Paul Harvey would say, now for the rest of
> the story...
>
> White Cane Safety Day: A Symbol of Independence
>
> by Marc Maurer
>
> In February of 1978 a young blind lady said, "I encounter people all of 
> the
> time who bless me, extol my independence, call me brave and courageous, 
> and
> thoroughly miss the boat as to what the real significance of the white 
> cane
> is."
>
> The National Federation of the Blind in convention assembled on the 6th 
> day
> of July, 1963, called upon the governors of the fifty states to proclaim
> October
> 15 of each year as White Cane Safety Day in each of our fifty states. On
> October 6, 1964, a joint resolution of the Congress, HR 753, was signed 
> into
> law
> authorizing the President of the United States to proclaim October 15 of
> each year as "White Cane Safety Day." This resolution said: "Resolved by 
> the
> Senate
> and House of Representatives., that the President is hereby authorized to
> issue annually a proclamation designating October 15 as White Cane Safety
> Day
> and calling upon the people of the United States to observe such a day 
> with
> appropriate ceremonies and activities."
>
> Within hours of the passage of the congressional joint resolution
> authorizing the President to proclaim October 15 as White Cane Safety Day,
> then President
> Lyndon B. Johnson recognized the importance of the white cane as a staff 
> of
> independence for blind people. In the first Presidential White Cane
> Proclamation
> President Johnson commended the blind for the growing spirit of 
> independence
> and the increased determination to be self-reliant that the organized 
> blind
> had shown. The Presidential proclamation said:
>
> The white cane in our society has become one of the symbols of a blind
> person's ability to come and go on his own. Its use has promoted courtesy
> and special
> consideration to the blind on our streets and highways. To make our people
> more fully aware of the meaning of the white cane and of the need for
> motorists
> to exercise special care for the blind persons who carry it Congress, by a
> joint resolution approved as of October 6, 1964, has authorized the
> President
> to proclaim October 15 of each year as White Cane Safety Day.
>
> Now, therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of
> America do hereby proclaim October 15, 1964 as White Cane Safety Day.
>
> With those stirring words President Johnson issued the first White Cane
> Proclamation which was the culmination of a long and serious effort on the
> part
> of the National Federation of the Blind to gain recognition for the 
> growing
> independence and self-sufficiency of blind people in America, and also to
> gain
> recognition of the white cane as the symbol of that independence and that
> self-reliance.
> The first of the state laws regarding the right of blind people to travel
> independently with the white cane was passed in 1930. In 1966, Dr. Jacobus
> tenBroek,
> the founder of the National Federation of the Blind, drafted the model 
> White
> Cane Law. This model act - which has become known as the Civil Rights Bill
> for the Blind, the Disabled, and the Otherwise Physically Handicapped -
> contains a provision designating October 15 as White Cane Safety Day. 
> Today
> there
> is a variant of the White Cane Law on the statute books of every state in
> the nation.
>
>>From 1963 (and even before) when the National Federation of the Blind
> sought to have White Cane Safety Day proclaimed as a recognition of the
> rights of
> blind persons, to 1978 when a blind pedestrian met with misunderstanding
> regarding the true meaning of the white cane, is but a short time in the
> life
> of a movement. In 1963, a comparatively small number of blind people had
> achieved sufficient independence to travel alone on the busy highways of 
> our
> nation.
> In 1978 that number has not simply increased but multiplied a hundredfold.
> The process began in the beginning of the organized blind movement and
> continues
> today. There was a time when it was unusual to see a blind person on the
> street, to find a blind person working in an office, or to see a blind
> person
> operating machinery in a factory. This is still all too uncommon. But it
> happens more often and the symbol of this independence is the white cane.
> The
> blind are able to go, to move, to be, and to compete with all others in
> society. The means by which this is done is that simple tool, the white
> cane. With
> the growing use of the white cane is an added element - the wish and the
> will to be free - the unquenchable spirit and the inextinguishable
> determination
> to be independent. With these our lives are changed, and the prospects for
> blind people become bright. That is what White Cane Safety Day is all 
> about.
> That is what we do in the National Federation of the Blind
>
>
> -------
> Jim Marks
> blind.grizzly at gmail.com
>
>
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