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                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 1064

                            Friday, July 22, 1994

Today's Topics:


                                ******


                             blind loyality 1/4
                             blind loyality 2/4
                             blind loyality 3/4
                             blind loyality 4/4


                                ******


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------



Subject: blind loyality 1/4
From: Kelly.Pierce@ican.com (Kelly Pierce)
Organization:  I CAN! BBS * (ican.com) * 312-736-7388


     I just discovered the following article.  I learned about
circumstances and relationships I did not know before.  I thought
others in this conference might be interested in it as well.
Kelly
BLIND LOYALTY
BY AMY CUNNINGHAM

Baltimore Magazine, July, 1992

A refurbished South Baltimore warehouse is headquarters for this
country's most vocal blind rights activist.  But does Kenneth
Jernigan's all-or-nothing approach go too far?   THE MOST
CONTROVERSIAL BLIND MAN IN AMERICA IS AS COURTLY and courteous as
a wine steward today, hardly seeming the paranoid demagogue his
critics say he is. Like any shrewd PR man, however, Kenneth
Jernigan, 65, chooses not to answer questions directly,
preferring to get folksy and tell stories instead.  Soon he is
leaning back in the desk chair of his National Federation of the
Blind office, rubbing the smooth Burmese jade ring he wears on
his left hand and recounting what it felt like to be a blind
youth in Tennessee during the Great Depression. The shiny plaques
on the walls honoring his work suddenly seem the by-products of a
life spent compensating for the sadness he knew as a boy.

A stout man with a balding crown that swoops over his closed eyes
like an awning, Jernigan has been emancipating blind people since
the early 1950's. The organization he heads is the country's most
vocal blind advocacy group, boasting a membership of fifty
thousand and, since 1978, an address in a sprawling refurbished
warehouse in South Baltimore.  His success in organizing blind
people to fight for equal opportunity has earned him three
honorary doctorates, a distinguished service award from President
Bush, two appearances on The Today Show, and the status of a
saint among countless of the 750,000 legally blind Americans.

"Jernigan was ahead in understanding that the disabled need to be
empowered, and that handouts have the power to enslave," says
justin Dart, President Bush's wheelchair-bound chief adviser on
disability issues. "In that alone, he has made a great
contribution." But Kenneth Jernigan is not beloved by everybody.
To government agencies, private companies, and individuals who
have wound up on the wrong end of a Jernigan-led crusade, he is
an unreasonable zealot. More telling is the enmity he's inspired
among many blind activists and educators by spending hundreds of
thousands of NFB dollars to sue its own regional affiliates so he
and his handpicked board can control the nation's blind agenda.
"It's unfortunate how much time and energy we spend undoing NFB
damage," says Oral Miller, the blind executive director of the
rival American Council of the Blind, based in Washington, D.C.
Adds Robert Acosta, a blind high school teacher who was expelled
with thirty-five hundred other California NFB members in 1979,
"Under Jernigan, the NFB has become a tantrum organization."

One clue to Jernigan's inflammatory nature is embedded in an
essay he wrote several years ago. In it, he describes how, as a
frightened 6-year-old during his first week of classes at a
Nashville school for the blind, he weathered the daily beatings
of a 9-year-old blind bully.  Not one to stay frightened,Jernigan
assembled a band of similarly aggrieved blind boys to beat up the
bully as a team. "Just to make certain," Jernigan writes, "we
kept at it for a while until there was absolutely no doubt that
we hadn't lost the fight." Jernigan has referred to this parable
as his "first lesson in the worthwhileness of collective action."
Anyone who has experienced firsthand the wrath of Kenneth
Jernigan and his followers would no doubt shudder at the
admission. KENNETH JERNIGAN WAS ONE of this country's first, and
certainly loudest, disability rights activists to combat the
psychological hardship suffered by the blind.  He and his
organization worked to convince hundreds of thousands of blind
people that getting around needn't be the hard part of their
handicap.  With the right training and aided by technology, their
physical limitations could be reduced to mainly a nuisance. The
emotional servitude to which they were subjugated by a cruel or
unthinking society was far more damaging.

Jernigan has attacked rehabilitation services that shunt blind
people into careers as basket weavers or piano tuners; parents,
such as his own well-meaning folks, who tell their blind
children, "now, you know there are just some things you can't
do"; blind people themselves who are in denial, who insist on
holding newspapers up to their faces in a vain attempt to conform
to society. He's pressed hard in state legislatures for funding
to encourage Braille literacy.  Years before "politically
correct" became popular buzzwords and the landmark Americans with
Disability Act of 1991 was enacted into law, Jernigan awoke
people to the stigmatization inherent in excluding the blind from
sitting in the emergency exit aisles of airplanes and from
serving on juries. Under his leadership (though he officially
retired as NFB president in 1986, assuming the title of
"executive director," everyone associated with the organization
still recognizes him as the boss), the NFB has emerged as a
diligent watchdog organization, the blind equivalent of
Greenpeace or Act Up.

Last fall, the ABC situation comedy Good and Evil, starring Teri
Garr, made the mistake of featuring a blind character who wrecked
a laboratory and groped at a woman's crotch. The NFB immediately
called for a boycott of the show's sponsors, threatening to stage
a Lipton "tea party" in New York harbor, before that company
pulled its commercial spots.  NFB staffers and volunteers
picketed ABC headquarters and regional affiliates, tapping their
white NFB-monogrammed canes on the sidewalks and chanting, "Hey-
de-hey, Hi-dee-ho, Good and Evil's got to go!" Though the show's
ratings already had been lackluster, the ugly publicity shortened
the patience of network executives, and they pulled the plug on
the program after just four weeks.

Few people sensitive to the needs of blind people would question
the worthiness of Jernigan's causes. The argument comes in as the
demands of a blind minority are balanced against those of the
general public. In a society with limited resources, certain
compromises must be made.  Of course, what strikes one person as
a reasonable compromise may strike another as unacceptably
stigmatizing. For instance, Jernigan has clashed with more
conservative organizations, such as the American Council of the
Blind, that are run by both blind and sighted people.  Such
groups may support blind children using their residual vision for
as long as they can, before switching to print magnification
equipment and finally Braille. Jernigan argues that every legally
blind child should have access to Braille instruction and
textbooks. Jernigan also faces opposition from young, liberal
blind activists who say that the NFB should expend less resources
on traditional "rights" issues such as airline seats and more on
combating blind unemployment.

Disagreement along such lines is not so surprising. What
distinguishes the NFB is how personal the arguments become. "With
Jernigan, it's always all or nothing," says former NFB member
Robert Acosta.  A slightly divergent view on Braille literacy,
for example, might draw a stinging rebuke in the Braille Monitor,
a monthly newsletter edited by Jernigan, or, worse, expulsion
from the NFB. Sometimes entire affiliates have been kicked out.
If they haven't gone peaceably, Jernigan has been quick to sue
with little heed to legal expense. When going up against a rival
organization or agency, Jernigan might take the fight directly to
the ramparts, showing up at its meetings with a vocal band of
followers.

"Jernigan is a genius. He's literate, inspiring; he has done a
great service to blind people," says Jamal Mazrui, a prominent
young, black Massachusetts NFB member expelled in 1990. "At the
same time, he believes he has a historical responsibility for
assuring the destiny of blind people, and that his view is the
only one. If people get in the way, he must get rid of them."

Toeing the NFB line is not always easy because Jernigan's views
are not always consistent.  He opposes textured tape along subway
platforms and half-price bus fares on the grounds that they're
condescending, yet he argues that Social Security disability
benefits should be allocated to all blind people regardless of
income. He encourages the blind to travel independently and rely
on public transportation, but he frequently is assisted by his
sighted staff. Considering the inconsistencies, the demand for
unwavering loyalty, the harsh punishments for heresy, critics
contend that the NFB has become prisoner of a cult of
personality--Kenneth Jernigan's personality. This impression is
reinforced at the NFB's annual convention.  Addressing an
auditorium full of followers, as they sit with their guide dogs
and NFB canes, wearing NFB tie tacks and NFB buttons, Jernigan
imbues the struggle for blind equality with the fervor of a holy
war.  "My brothers and sisters, the future is ours," he intones.
"Come! Join me on the barricades, and we will make it come true."




------



Subject: blind loyality 2/4
From: Kelly.Pierce@ican.com (Kelly Pierce)
Organization:  I CAN! BBS * (ican.com) * 312-736-7388



THESE ARE SOME OF THE MORE interesting work rules at the National
Center for the Blind, NFB's headquarters, located in a handsomely
refurbished brick warehouse facing Riverside Park: The six blind
and thirty-four sighted employees must comport themselves like
foot soldiers in a national movement, which means they must
address their male superiors as "Sir" and never call
staffers--male or female--by their first names.  It's either Mr.,
Mrs., or Miss. Everyone refers to Jernigan as "Dr.," even though
all his doctorates were honorary. Staffers must be at their desks
at 8 a.m., when one of the male administrators dutifully takes
attendance. No employee is allowed in the "citizens' lunchroom"
between the hours of 8 and 9 a.m. and after lunch. This keeps
staff members from developing unbusinesslike, chatty
relationships. Lunch periods and clean-up duties are assigned. If
employees spill anything on the office carpets, they are fined
$10 and denied beverage "carrying privileges" for thirty days. If
an employee bumps into a co-worker and either one of them spills
a drink, they are both penalized. Staffers are instructed to keep
their files and office doors locked when they're not in, even if
they're just visiting the rest room. Employees are warned that
the brass Medco keys they receive when hired are worth two weeks'
pay. If they lose them, they pay for them.

The 206,000-square-foot, fortress-like center is a point of pride
for NFB members. With its impressive Braille library, recording
studio, state-of-the-art Braille technology room, and overnight
accommodations for as many as fifty people attending NFB training
seminars, the center is impeccably equipped.  Last year, 1.75
million products such as white NFB canes, talking wristwatches,
and Dr.Jernigan's favorite rice cooker--all very reasonably
priced--were shipped to mail-order customers around the world
from the center's clearinghouse in the basement. The center's
total annual operating budget is approximately $8 million. The
Old Linen Mill building cost the NFB only $532,000 when Jernigan
signed the deed in 1978.  Workmen threw out the pigeons,
completely gutted the structure, and rebuilt it, covering the
interior walls with heavy walnut-toned paneling. Because security
is an important concern of all blind people--and Jernigan in
particular--some street-side windows were painted black, and a
barbed-wire fence was installed in back of the building.

Despite the strict rules and Kremlin-like feel of some of the
spaces, there's a familial atmosphere to headquarters. Blind
staffers walk briskly down the long hallways with the help of
their NFB canes, greeting each other warmly. The cause unites
them all. Plus, for some employees, work and family relationships
conveniently overlap. Marc Maurer, NFB's blind current president
and a longtime Jernigan protege, married to the full-time
volunteer who directs community relations. Jernigan's third wife,
Mary Ellen, who is sighted and about twenty years younger than
her husband, works part-time as Jernigan's personal assistant.
She too calls him "Dr." His son-in-law directs program
operations; his legally blind daughter is the organization's
volunteer chef, and Jernigan himself helps out in the kitchen
with a variety of Southern dishes, including a quite famous
cornbread. Since moving to Baltimore in 1978, Jernigan, Maurer,
their families, and a handful of other staffers transplanted here
from the old headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, have enjoyed
relative anonymity.  Whenever Jernigan is asked why he moved the
organization's headquarters, he emphasizes that he wanted an East
Coast base and was attracted by the low cost of living in
Baltimore. But there's more to the story than that. Like
beleaguered immigrants searching for the Promised Land, they all
moved to Baltimore to escape the hounding of newspaper reporters
asking about Jernigan's fear of race riots, about the supposed
stockpile of firearms nobody ever could find, and about those
office windows he allegedly had bullet-proofed.

NO ONE COULD HAVE PREDICTED that Jernigan would someday be known
for his positive thinking. In his youth, he was angry and bitter
about his blindness, caused by congenital optic atrophy. "He once
told me," says John Taylor, a blind grade-school classmate and
former NFB president, "that if there were a surgical procedure
that would give him a 1 percent chance of seeing and a 99 percent
chance of dying, he would take it." By the time he was a
teenager, however, Jernigan's blindness motivated him to
outperform his peers. Unable to work in the Tennessee fields, he
took to making furniture out of wooden spools and car steering
wheels.  As an under-graduate at Tennessee Technological
University, he excelled in debating and ran a vending business on
campus. Then, after getting a master's in English from Peabody
College in Nashville, he taught at the same school for the blind
where he'd subdued that blind bully. Jernigan dove into blind
state politics. His national break came when the NFB held its
annual convention in Nashville in 1952. The distinguished
Dr.jacobus tenbroek, NFB's founding president and chairman of the
speech department of the University of California at Berkeley,
liked the young man's pluck. By 1958, with tenbroek's help,
jernigan was elected NFB vice president and, more significantly,
chosen to direct a three- member commission in charge of Iowa's
only blind rehabilitation center.

When Jernigan took over, the Iowa commission had a rehabilitation
budget of only $50,000 and one of the worst reputations in the
country. But Jernigan and tenbroek saw the facility as a
potential laboratory where blind instructors could develop and
test rehabilitation techniques in the spirit of NFB's uplifting
philosophy. Thus began "the Iowa Experience," an incredible
success by anyone's standards. Blind students at the Iowa
commission learned to travel independently, water-ski, rebuild
car engines, barbecue hot dogs on coals that they lit, and
operate buzz saws, arc welders, and rifles. Jernigan traveled the
state, cultivating contacts with Lions Club members and
politicians to get the Iowa commission properly funded. Pushy and
arrogant, he nevertheless was highly effective. In the twenty
years Jernigan presided over the facility, the staff grew to a
hundred and the budget blossomed to $3 million.
In the meantime, the National Federation of the Blind was
beginning to divide into factions. Some approved of tenbroek's
leadership, some didn't--and some were uncomfortable that the
aggressive, young Jernigan seemed to be in line for his job. In
1961, the NFB experienced what members came to call its "Civil
War." Jernigan and tenbroek crafted new by-laws that state
affiliates were required to sign. One new tenet was a vow not to
attack the organization or its leaders in public. Fifteen states
refused to sign and had their charters immediately revoked by the
national board--establishing a pattern that gathered steam
throughout the 1970s and '80s.

Of the seven state blind organizations that linked up to found
the National Federation in 1940, none remain, all casualties of
internal power struggles.  The fifteen chapters kicked out in
1961 went on to form the nucleus of the rival American Council of
the Blind. The ACB says that 20 percent of its twenty-two
thousand members today are former NFB members who either jumped
ship or were forced overboard for failing to meet the NFB's
standards of loyalty. After tenbroek's death in 1968, Jernigan
was elected NFB president, and the NFB headquarters was moved
from California into a former hotel building in Des Moines just a
few blocks away from the Iowa commission. With his Brooks
Brothers suits, neatly folded pocket handkerchiefs, and stirring
oratory, Jernigan brought grandeur and mystique to the position.

The NFB annual convention of 1968 was the most spectacular ever.
Jernigan had always considered the conventions, held every year,
during the July 4 weekend, a valuable form of rehabilitation in
and of themselves, a were    place where the newly blind could
meet the experienced blind and realize there was life after
losing their eyesight. Jernigan transformed this existing forum
into a near-religious experience. He encouraged group sing-alongs
(a favorite was "I've Been Working in the Workshop," sung to the
tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad") and spirited
audience clapping and chanting during the speeches. Each time the
membership assembled, a tin was passed and conventioneers were
exhorted to empty their pockets for the cause. Several of
Jernigan's politically prominent poker-playing buddies lent
luster to the 1968 event with their appearances, including Iowa
Governor Harold Hughes.




------



Subject: blind loyality 3/4
From: Kelly.Pierce@ican.com (Kelly Pierce)
Organization:  I CAN! BBS * (ican.com) * 312-736-7388



"I was a lost soul. I couldn't accept I was blind.  But the NFB
turned me around," says Craig Kiser. Before attending the '68
convention and classes at the Iowa commission, Kiser says, he'd
dropped out of high school because retinitis pigmentosa had made
it impossible to read. Today, he is an attorney who recently ran
for Florida comptroller.

IN THE EARLY 1970S, NFB MEMBERS adulation of Kenneth Jernigan
continued to grow. "In the old days, when Jernigan started
drinking carrot juice, we all drank carrot juice," says ex-NFB
member Robert Acosta, with a chuckle.  "Then when he started
drinking milk, we all drank milk."                  Other
personal habits mimicked by his followers actually helped them
live fuller lives. For example, many people switched from guide
dogs to canes, a less conspicuous way to get around favored by
Jernigan. There was also Dr. Jernigan's famous recipe for corn
bread muffins. A crucial step in the recipe was that the batter
had to be poured into piping hot muffin tins. Jernigan developed
a heat-resistant template to go over the tins, enabling him to
find the holes without scalding his fingers. Then he had the
template mass produced and sold for a nominal fee by the NFB.

In 1971, Jernigan unsuccessfully lobbied the Iowa Legislature to
place the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School under the Iowa
commission's domain. On several counts the move actually made
sense, but it stirred gossip in the blind community that Jernigan
was trying to take over everything.  "I don't see 'God,'"
purportedly joked one instructor when Jernigan failed to show up
for a meeting. In 1972, Jernigan raised more eyebrows with a
power play on the National Accreditation Council (NAC), an
independent agency that evaluates education facilities for the
blind. Jernigan said if the NFB couldn't control ten of the
eighteen seats on the NAC's board, his organization wouldn't
participate in any NAC policy-making. The NAC rejected the
ultimatum.  Again in fairness to Jernigan, the accreditation body
never has been the most progressive force. In the nearly twenty
years since their rebuff, however, Jernigan and the NFB have done
everything they can to discredit and bankrupt the NAC. One of
their tactics has been to rent hotel suites adjacent to NAC
meetings and to disrupt proceedings with songs and chants.

All the same,Jernigan's controversial style remained a subject
only of interest to other blind people until 1973. That's when
eighteen plaintiffs sued Jernigan and the Iowa commission,
claiming he didn't give the same quality of rehab service to
blind Iowans who refused to join the NFB as to those who did.
While the lawsuit ultimately was thrown out of court, it did
garner him his first negative press clippings in The Des Moines
Register. Several years later, the Register was back on the trail
of its city's charismatic blind power broker. Some articles
followed up on complaints by former NFB members that Jernigan and
his hand-picked board had carte blanche discretion over how the
organization's money was spent.  Other articles detailed how in
some fund-raising campaigns the cost of fund-raising ate up as
much as 85 cents of every $1 brought in; still more news stories
raised questions about the propriety of Jernigan's brief
involvement in a legitimate firm selling "blindness insurance."
Most embarrassing were the printed but never proven allegations
by former Iowa commission employees that Jernigan had been
paranoid about race riots since the era of social unrest in the
late '60s, and that he'd tried to turn the building into a
fortress stocked with hand grenades and automatic weapons and
protected by bulletproof windows. There was even mention of a
plan to install an anti-aircraft gun on the roof.

In all, more than 150 unflattering articles about Jernigan, the
Iowa commission, and the NFB were printed in The Des Moines
Register between 1977 and '79.  It was a staggering, unrelenting
onslaught. But Jernigan refused to go down without a fight.  He
repeatedly maintained that he was the victim of a smear campaign.
He devoted one entire issue of the Braille Monitor to repudiating
Register articles point by point, defending the NFB's financial
record, and asserting that the paper was relying on the hysteria
of disgruntled ex-employees and expelled NFB members. At the
height of the ruckus, a GOP U.S. Senate candidate had his
campaign momentarily side-tracked by reports of his ties to
Jernigan, Iowa's U.S. Attorney launched an investigation into the
blind leader, and FBI agents searched the Iowa commission's
premises for weapons and electronic listening devices. Jernigan's
foes were chagrined, however, when the search yielded only some
Civil Defense supplies and an elaborate office intercom system.
The U.S. Attorney soon dropped her probe.

Jernigan, meanwhile, was complaining to colleagues that he
couldn't sleep. The stress of the ordeal took a toll on his
health. "He kept talking about his triglycerides," recalls his
old grade-school chum John Taylor.  "We were all worried about
him." Finally,Jernigan installed Taylor as his replacement at the
Iowa commission, handed the NFB presidency over to another
associate, Ralph Sanders, and left Iowa for Maryland. FOURTEEN
YEARS LATER, JERNIGAN is visibly uncomfortable about reopening a
chapter of his life he'd prefer to forget. "I considered suing
The Des Moines Register," he recalls.  "I talked to lawyers, but
they said since I was a state official, filing suit wouldn't do
me any good." Jernigan is safely seated in his own living room,
having just refastened all the locks and bolts on the gates and
doors leading to his Irvington home. This grand Victorian stucco
is listed in The Historic Register as the "Schwartz
Mansion."Jernigan spent $72,000 for the house in 1979, and tens
of thousands more painstakingly restoring it. But the furnishings
are far from ostentatious. The living room is simply arranged
with an old Victrola bought by Jernigan's parents for $7 many
years ago, Baltimore promotional posters, a couch, and two tables
that he, himself, made. The dining room, with its twenty-foot-
long table, is impressive, but more in the style of the NFB's
headquarters building than a stately mansion. The Jernigan's
entertain frequently, serving drinks out of "Kj" monogrammed
highball glasses. Unlike the political luminaries Jernigan
cultivated in Iowa, the guests in Baltimore have been mostly
other members of the local blind community, although there was a
coffee klatch in 1984 for then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer, and
a visit by former state Senator Harry "Soft Shoes" McGuirk, who
lived three blocks away.  "I was only there once," McGuirk
emphasized, a few weeks before he died in mid- April. "After
dinner, Dr. Jernigan and his wife asked if I wanted to stick
around to see how blind people play poker. I had never seen
Braille playing cards before."

McGuirk had reasons for being a bit testy about his relationship
with Jernigan. In contrast to his low profile around town in
recent years, when Jernigan first arrived, in 1978, he created a
miniature "Iowa-like" splash, and Soft Shoes was one of those who
got wet. Within months of moving to Baltimore,Jernigan had
reassumed the NFB presidency.  He then pushed to introduce
legislation in Annapolis to create a Maryland Commission of the
Blind to oversee the state's existing blind agencies, He and his
associates also applied for a state bond issue to pay for the
rehabilitation of the NFB's new headquarters. On the surface,
Jernigan's plans seemed reasonable enough. Twenty-three senators
attached their names to the Maryland commission bill, with
McGuirk as the lead sponsor. Then in early 1979, rumors spread
that the NFB wasn't just interested in consolidating blind
services in the state, but also had a secret agenda to control
every seat on the proposed Maryland commission's board.  People
found out that Jernigan was the same person who'd created a huge
sensation in Iowa.  Reprints of past Des Moines Register articles
made the rounds in Annapolis. The Maryland School for the Blind
and other local blind agencies mounted an aggressive lobbying
campaign to stop the NFB's legislation. Things got worse when the
Baltimore Sun reported that the NFB's chief legislative sponsor,
McGuirk, had made a broker's commission by selling a house to one
of Jernigan's top lieutenants. The legislation died shortly
thereafter, and Jernigan was left to lick his wounds for the
second time in less than two years.




------



Subject: blind loyality 4/4
From: Kelly.Pierce@ican.com (Kelly Pierce)
Organization:  I CAN! BBS * (ican.com) * 312-736-7388



Given the baggage from Iowa, says former NFB president Ralph
Sanders, "I remember him talking at length about how we should
have known better." After his brief brush with controversy in
Maryland, Jernigan has spent most of the past decade working
alongside the existing players to bring progressive reform to the
state. It's now common, for example, for NFB representatives to
champion the cases of individual Baltimore-area blind children
who seek greater Braille instruction from their public schools.


The NFB was a key force in lobbying for $6 million in state
funding for the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
at Park Avenue and Franklin Street. And, along the way, there
have been no wild news stories about weapons stashes or
anti-aircraft guns. For ten years, there have been virtually no
stories in Baltimore about Jernigan at all. Which doesn't mean
Jernigan and the NFB have maintained a low profile elsewhere.
Some highlights: The NFB went through three law firms in five
years suing its thirty-five-hundred member California affiliate
for its treasury until the case finally was settled in 1983. "It
makes sense for a group like the ACLU to have high legal fees,"
says Sanders. "But with the NFB, the question becomes, is it
legitimate to defend yourself and spend huge sums of money on
internal, structural questions?"

In late 1990,Jernigan sent protege Marc Maurer to Boston to expel
NFB member jamal Mazrui. The 26-year-old graduate of Harvard's
Kennedy School had called on NFB board members that summer to
name blind unemployment its top priority. Failing to win anything
but a reprimand from Mazrui's state affiliate, Jernigan and
Maurer had Mazrui expelled by the national board in Baltimore.
Maurer then flew back to Boston to explain the action to the
disgruntled affiliate. Mazrui tried to get into the meeting to
defend himself but was kept out by a uniformed guard paid by the
NFB.

On December 8 of that same year, a half dozen NFB staffers and
volunteers infiltrated a closed meeting of the National
Accreditation Council at Chicago's Bismarck Hotel. Grant Mack,
71-year-old chairman of National Industries for the Blind, asked
NFB hecklers to leave. When they refused, Mack angrily knocked a
microphone out of the hand of a demonstrator. In the confusion,
Mack was arrested by police and charged with assault. NFB
activists took a photograph of Mack and his guide dog crawling
into the police paddy wagon--a photo they then distributed to
agencies and organizations that work with the blind.

The NFB declined to join the consortium of seventy-five of the
country's leading disability organizations that helped to draft
the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991--legislation that has
been likened to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The organization's
only real contribution to the bill came at the eleventh hour: an
amendment that handicapped people cannot be forced to accept
special accommodations (at a hotel, for example) if they don't
want them.  The NFB then added it wouldn't support the ADA if its
amendment wasn't tacked onto the huge package. Jernigan got his
way but, as usual, left many people mumbling in his wake. THE
AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT represents a sad irony in the
career of Kenneth Jernigan. The bill has been hailed as the most
important event in the fight for disability rights, yet one of
the major leaders of the blind was barely involved. The sense,
shared by critics and admirers alike, is that years of
internecine warfare finally may have rendered Jernigan
ineffective at a time when so many other parties were laying down
their arms and pulling together.

"If every disability group had the NFB's perspective, you could
never coalesce," says Paul Marchand, chairman of the consortium
of disability organizations that drove the ADA home. For his
part,Jernigan remains steadfastly upbeat.  A visit to NFB
headquarters in South Baltimore still finds him lording over his
domain, blasting announcements over the office intercom, and
walking the hallways with a prickly pride. Jernigan takes the
long view of his career, seeing the good and evil attributed to
him against the broader backdrop of all rights revolutions, in
which today's hero is apt to be tomorrow's villain and next
year's martyr. "It's not popular to be in a civil rights
organization,"Jernigan says. "How do you explain people's
feelings about Martin Luther King? Some people loved him. But
some people hated him enough to kill him."

Amy Cunningham is a Washington, D. C., writer.




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                 End of Issue # 1064 of the Blind News Digest

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