we're family

 

Hello Andy,

The ACB is Family.  We need to keep that thought in mind.  Like yourself, I joined the NFB, mostly on the basis of the Jacobus tenBroek speeches, but in addition I became fast friends with Ken Hopkins and Manuel Urena.  At first it seemed that we were truly the blind leading the blind, a grass roots movement.  But as time went forward I began to be bothered by the elitist attitude among the leadership.  The NFB began taking on the trappings of a corporation rather than a people's movement.  Control of state and local chapters became managed from Headquarters. 

This is not to criticize the NFB.  It is certainly a force to be reckoned with in blind affairs, but it is not any longer a family, or having anything approaching a democratic base. 

When President Jernigan began telling our state chapter what we could and could not do within our own state, we defied him.  Oops!  The short end of a long story is that we were kicked out and our state was, "Reorganized", by a few faithful believers. 

We sued to stay in, believing that we had a right to be the loyal opposition.  Wrong again.  The court said the NFB had the right to put us out. 

Today I maintain that the ACB is the only national organization of the blind.  The NFB has morphed into a National Agency of/for the Blind.  The state chapters exist at the pleasure of the Central Office and are mostly fund raisers for the Jernigan Center. 

I know that some of my friends in the NFB will protest that I'm being far too harsh, but I do not intend this as a statement either for or against the NFB.  To me it is simply pointing out the major differences between two organizations. 

Curious Carl