National Federation of The Blind (United States) - Organizational History

Organizational History

In 1940 sixteen people met in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to develop a constitution that would unite organizations of blind people in seven states (California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) in a national federation that would serve as a vehicle for collective action to improve the prospects of the nation’s blind citizens. Historically such organizing efforts had resulted in blind people’s eventual loss of internal political power, resulting in a shift in the organization’s goals and focus to priorities held by sighted members. For this reason the NFB’s founders did what they could to ensure that blind people would always retain control of the organization.

The founder and president of the NFB for its first twenty years was Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, a professor, lawyer and constitutional scholar. The NFB’s first logo was a circle with the words “Security, Equality, and Opportunity” forming a triangle at the center of the circle. This expressed the pressing needs and demands of the fledgling organization. TenBroek led early battles to obtain a modest stipend for blind people so they could live independently (security), equal access to jobs in the Civil Service and elsewhere where blind candidates had been prohibited from applying (opportunity), and equal access to housing, transportation, and places of public accommodation (equality). The NFB grew and expanded during these early years, and this sudden assertiveness on the part of their hitherto passive, grateful clients made the agencies in the field of work with the blind extremely nervous.

Because of pressure exerted from within and differences of opinion about whether the organization should be a loose confederacy of strong state affiliates or a unified federal structure with state affiliates and local chapters (which is the way the current federation is organized), the NFB split into two groups in 1961. Those who left the NFB united to form the American Council of the Blind (ACB), an organization that continues to exist today.

Jacobus tenBroek, who had served as president of the NFB for 20 years, resigned due to these problems, and was succeeded by John Taylor, who was succeeded by Russell Kletzing the following year, but tenBroek became president again in 1966. The NFB gradually replaced the handful of affiliates that had left, and by the 1970s it had regained its momentum. When Jacobus tenBroek died in 1968, he was succeeded in the presidency by Kenneth Jernigan, who served as president for most of the period until 1986 and who continued to be a much loved blind leader, teacher, and thinker with an international reputation until his death in 1998. Marc Maurer, a young lawyer who had been mentored by Jernigan, was elected president in 1986 and has served as President since then.

In 1978 he led the organization in establishing its national headquarters at 1800 Johnson Street in Baltimore, Maryland. Gradually the group remodeled and occupied the four floors of a block-long building, which they named the National Center for the Blind. The NFB broke ground in October 2001 for a twenty-million-dollar research and training institute now located adjacent to the National Center. The National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute opened for business in January 2004. Continuing to exert its influence, the NFB has taken over Braille Transcriber Certification from the Library of Congress, will receive up to $10 million from a US coin honoring Louis Braille and works to influence state training programs for the blind to require training in the use of the white cane.