Announcer:
Live life you want. Nobody can stop you.
Shoot for the sun and break on through.
The following message is brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind.
Live the life you want.Live the life you want. Yes, we know the truth.
Mark Riccobono:
Greetings fellow Federationist. Today is Tuesday, March 24th, 2026. And this is Presidential Release 559 for the month of April. Spring is, well, sometimes here. Hopefully by the time that you're hearing this release, spring is in force where you are. In Maryland. It seems to come and go and then come back for a little while.
So we're hoping it's going to stay later this week. We'll have opening day here in Baltimore, and that's always a great sign of spring. And I know that there is a lot of excitement around the Federation for summer, which will quickly be coming.
So before I get to the main topic I wanted to discuss on this release, I do want to briefly discuss the national convention because I do want to share that it is true, our main hotel, the JW Marriott in Austin is sold out for most nights of the convention.
But never fear. Our overflow hotels have plenty of rooms and all of them are within two or three blocks of the JW Marriott. They're in downtown Austin. Very walkable community. I was just there at the beginning of February, so I can attest to it myself.
We will be providing Federation members with lots of information about traveling from the overflow hotels. And I know that our host affiliate, the National Federation of the Blind of Texas, will have lots of information. I encourage you to continue to make your reservations, even if you're going to be in the overflow hotel, you won't want to miss the convention.
It is going to be a great time, and I guarantee you're still going to have a great experience. And I know some people prefer to stay in the overflow hotels because you can avoid some of the major backups that can happen at the main hotel.
I wanted to, on this release, talk about some content from the Braille Monitor. This is something that our chapter should definitely consider at many meetings is pulling content from the Braille Monitor. It is a tremendous source of information and inspiration for content at our chapter meetings.
The April 2026 Braille Monitor has a number of really fantastic articles that you should consider as do every issue of the Braille Monitor, but I just wanted to highlight one as an opportunity for our chapters to have discussion.
Before I get to that though, let me highlight the lead article from this issue of the Monitor, which has to do with the current attack on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and what we're doing to beat back that attack. When we start talking about the Rehabilitation Act and various laws, I know some members say, "Oh, I'm not a lawyer." I can't really keep all the details of why these pieces are important straight.
And I want to articulate to all of you that you do not have to be a lawyer to understand why Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is important to our daily lives and to the work that we do in the National Federation of the Blind. And I thought I'd share that with you quickly.
Through the experience in our movement, as supported by highly cited legal sources, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek was the founder and president of the National Federation of the Blind. And his legal work, especially his integrationist theory of disability rights, is the underpinning for many aspects of disability law.
This is well cited by legal scholars, and especially his work is cited as being fundamental to Sections 501, 503, and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The core of his writing and thinking there comes from his 1966 article entitled The Right to Live in the World, where he discusses shifting from a custodial model to an integration model of disability rights.
tenBroek argued that society must move away from the segregation and dependency model that it had for centuries promoted to one of full participation in the mainstream society. That idea, of course, really comes out of the wisdom and experience of the organized blind movement. And it has been the foundation for the Rehabilitation Act and all of the disability rights work that has come since that time.
Why is this relevant to today? Well, the current attack on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act that we've been writing about in the Monitor and talking about in Federation meetings puts this idea of integration into society into real jeopardy. And so I urge all of our chapters to be talking about this and taking action on it.
I am confident we will not fail in this effort, but if we speculate about what would happen if we did, it would have a lingering impact on potentially the next decades of our experience in this nation as people who are blind and for all people with disabilities.
So this is an important time for us to mobilize an act. And I encourage the chapter to spend time talking about that. Now, the article I wanted to talk to you about on this release though is an article called Friendship in Action. And this is an article about Nyal McConaughey and telling the story of Nyal McConaughey.
And I would invite our chapters to consider the article, make sure that members read it and use it as a point of discussion.
This is an article written by our Federation staff who deal specifically with the National Archives of the Blind People's Movement. Nyal was the first blind person to work in the foreign service overseas. And our archives illuminate how important this was, communications with Dr. tenBroek. And this article tells this story and how one blind person who was learning to live as a blind person and learning about how to self-advocate for themselves found strength, power, resources, support in the National Federation of the Blind.
We know that we are stronger when we work together because we know other blind people, because we know that we have a community of people who will have our back. This article tells a story like that, but it also tells why it is so important that we preserve the history of what we're doing at all levels of our organization.
It illuminates why our local chapters and state affiliates should be documenting the stories of blind people who are participating locally in the chapter and about the work that the chapter's doing and making sure that those records and those stories are getting to our archives by sending them to archives at nfb.org.
I would encourage our chapters not only to read the article, but to discuss some relevant questions. Some of those might be, and you might have others, but some of them might be, how was the movement important in this story?
What connections can we make to current day activities in the Organized Blind Movement and the importance of all levels of our organization? And more specifically related to how we're documenting our work, what is the chapter doing to document the stories of people in the chapter and preserve the history of actions and priorities taken by the chapter over time?
How might this become a regular part of our organizational efforts at the local level? You may have other questions that this story brings to mind. We want to encourage that you continue to write and document stories of the members and blind people that are making a difference in our local communities. And if you need support on how to archive records and correspondence of our local chapters and affiliates, please write to archives@nfb.org.
This of course relates to our broader mission to change society's understanding about blindness through the development of resources like the Museum of the Blind People's Movement, which is one of our big future dreams that we're working on currently.
Now, I do have a few Federation family notes to provide to you before we close this release. And the first comes from South Carolina, where we have been informed that Eric Hilton passed away on January 18th of this year. He was from Manning, South Carolina and was only 50 years old.
He was vice president of the Sumter Chapter of the NFB of South Carolina, and he also served in the Affiliates Successful Transitions Program as a transition specialist.
From Georgia, we have received information about the passing of two members of our South Side of Atlanta chapter. We have received information that Kieran Spencer passed away on December 23rd, 2025, and also Tiffany Forts, who passed away on January 28th, 2026.
I encourage you to keep these members and ones we may not know about in your thoughts and prayers as we enjoy the springtime and look toward our national convention.
It's a good time to remember those who have been part of our movement who are no longer with us. That's what I have for the month of April. We are now just about three months away from the National Convention, and I'm getting very excited about being with all of you in Austin, Texas.
I think by July, we will definitely want that extra shot in the arm that the convention always gives. Before we close this release, I do have some of the customary endings and they go like this.
Why did the teddy bear say no to dessert? Because it was stuffed.
What's the best way to catch a squirrel? Well, you should act like a nut, of course.
And why did the baseball stadium get hot after the game was over? Because all the fans left.
Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.
Announcer:
The preceding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind, 410-659-9314. Officeofthepresident@nfb.org. Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon. Just search for @president@NFB.Social. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.