A speech presented by Mary Ellen Gabias, CFB President
at the CFB ‘Organize’ Convention
May 5, 2018, Sandman Inn, Victoria, B.C.

In 1968, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek died. On the 50th anniversary of his death we commemorate this Canadian-born blind lawyer, thinker, movement leader. By any standards, Jacobus tenBroek was an outstanding human being. He was a full professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He was the head of the speech department at that university. He wrote books, one of which, Prejudice, Law and the Constitution, dealt with the internment of Japanese people during World War 2 and laid the constitutional framework that eventually caused the Supreme Court to declare that behaviour as the travesty that it was. That book is still studied by constitutional scholars today. His paper, “The Right to Live in the World: The Disabled in the Law of Torts”, is still the founding document, in terms of legalities, of the whole disability rights movement in the United States. Leaders credit it with the foundation of the principals underlying the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

If there was ever a blind person who could claim the right to be an elitist, it was Dr. tenBroek. But he was not an elitist. All we need to do to know that is to think about how Jacobus tenBroek spent his weekends. He left his family and his cushy job at the university, his pleasant home in the hills above Berkeley, California to travel the nation, to go to hotels like this one we are in today, to meet with groups of blind people, many of whom were broom makers in sheltered facilities being paid five cents an hour. When he met with blind people, none of whom had the skills or the opportunities he had, Dr. tenBroek said with great sincerity and profound respect, “It’s a pleasure to be here. It’s a privilege to be here.” Because he understood that beneath the veneer, beneath the surface characteristics of his achievement, when the public saw him and when the public saw the people who had had no opportunity, the public saw only blindness. He knew that unless the hopes and the dreams of the blind community as a whole could be built, he was living on very insecure ground.

Across the country from Dr. tenBroek, in the state of Tennessee, there was another brilliant blind student who was invited to attend a meeting of an organization of blind people, and that young man said, “I don’t want to hang out with those blind people. They’re a bunch of zeros and it doesn’t matter how many zeros you add together, the answer is still zero. No, I don’t want to do that.”

Most of us, when we hear about a blind person who doesn’t want to meet with other blind people, who calls us all a bunch of zeros, would be resentful and say, “Well, to heck with him, that arrogant so and so.” But somebody took the time to work with this particular young blind student, to gently educate him to the realities that none of us is an island and that all of us need to work together. That particular arrogant, young blind person finally agreed that he should participate in the organized blind movement. All of those who had been a victim of his snobby, superior attitude took a while to believe that his commitment was genuine. But over time they came to believe it. That young man was named Kenneth Jernigan. His writing and his philosophy added to the work of Dr. tenBroek. Their combined work is the foundation of the understandings that we now share in the Canadian Federation of the Blind (CFB) and in the Federation movement worldwide. Many others have added to that foundation, since Federationism is a living movement, not a historical artifact. Nobody doubts, however, that tenBroek and Jernigan blazed the trail.

This is the 20th anniversary of Dr. Jernigan’s death.

We look at the experience of the first six decades of Federationism and celebrate. We are grateful for the lives of Drs. tenBroek and Jernigan. We are awed by their contributions and we desire to emulate their example.

Dr. tenBroek could speak in glowing terms and resounding words, but he could also be quite direct and a little bit pithy. When he met Kenneth Jernigan, who was still overcoming his arrogance, Dr. tenBroek said to him, “Why, even the animals in the jungle have sense enough to hunt in packs. The blind ought to be at least as intelligent.”

We’re looking back on a history that was created in the United States. But because of the internet, because of sharing worldwide, it’s a history available to all of us.

Canada, like all countries, has a history of thinking of blindness as a “medical” problem or as a matter of charity: “Let’s do something to help
‘them”’. As blind people, we have been victimized by the notion that others are in charge of our lives. Unwittingly, that corrosive knowledge has caused us to buy into the notion that ‘they’ need to figure this out for us; that whoever is in charge of the blind organization needs to take care of the problems. We really hope ‘they’ do a good job.

But the Federation is different because we all know that our simple five dollar dues buys us a stake in this movement. The Federation is our property! We know that it is up to us to determine whether our property appreciates in value or whether our neglect will cause it to depreciate so that we become the zeros that we know we are not. We know we must never abdicate our personal responsibility by letting ‘them’ take care of things.

I have met most of you in this room. There are some of you that I do not know. Even though I have never met some of you, I can guarantee you that there isn’t a zero human being in the place. Each of us has our own contribution to make. By coming together in this organization, we pledge to put our skills and our talents at the disposal of one another to build the kind of strength that we alone can build for ourselves.

For some of us that means writing letters to parliament, for some of us it means engaging in public advocacy, for some of us it means the little quiet gifts of giving of ourselves to one another that help to encourage the discouraged, to give hope to people who are frightened about their future, to teach a skill to someone who doesn’t have it so that their life will be easier next time, to gently remind one another when we doubt, that yes, we are people of value.

The Canadian Federation of the Blind is organized to change society. But we’re also organized to continue to change, uplift and build one another. Anyone who has studied the activity on our list for the last year can think of countless times where a blind person has raised a question, expressed a doubt and has been met with encouragement, with practical suggestions and personal offers of help. That’s the Federation. It’s OUR organization. It doesn’t belong to the executive, it doesn’t belong just to the vocal leaders, it belongs to all of us. It’s our job to make our Federation real estate, our property, as valuable as possible.

When Dr. tenBroek was nearing the end of his life, he gave a speech in which he talked about the state of blindness and blind people in the world. He spoke about Canada. This is a paraphrase. He said that: “The saddest and sorriest story of all was that of the country of his birth. An agency colossus bestrides the land. That agency colossus leaves devastation in its wake and has crushed independent spirit. Only a few have the courage to stand up and speak out on behalf of the rest of the disorganized blind.”

Dr. tenBroek, I tell you now and we all tell you and we pledge to the memory of your legacy that THINGS HAVE CHANGED IN CANADA. There is a new movement in the land. The blind are organizing, standing, living the lives we want, speaking for ourselves. NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP A PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME TO KNOW WHO THEY ARE!