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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-001/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Stuart Levenson, June 28, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-001 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Stuart Levenson Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|16(4)|30(5)|43(11)|60(6)|71(3)|86(1)|95(6)|107(7)|119(3)|130(4)|141(11)|153(10)|166(13)|180(2)|192(5)|203(15)|213(11)|225(5)|237(4)|251(8)|261(10)|277(7)|289(5)|300(1)|311(2)|323(12)|338(3)|353(1)|364(6)|375(11)|390(2) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_b7dbfauo& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_rgn2wk1r" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 22 Education So tell me a little bit about yourself. Levenson describes his educational experience in Savannah where he attended school until 12th grade. He mentions his two years at Armstrong State College--now part of Georgia Southern University--before he attended Oglethrorpe University in Atlanta from 1963 to 1967. Levenson describes his connection to Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) where he participated in the talking book program. He describes the difficulty of being visually impaired in the " ; mainstream" ; education system and his refusal to attend the school for blind and deaf in Macon. He talks about the difficulty of adjusting to the increased workload of college and how he had to hire readers to read his textbooks and other materials. Charles Ellis Elementary School ; community college ; eye doctor ; GLASS ; minister ; public school 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 456 Finding a job with the Social Security Administration What happened once you graduated from college? Levenson talks about the three years he spent at graduate school at Georgia State University before he dropped out. He describes the difficulty of finding a job as a visually impaired person. He talks about finally locating a job with a program for the blind at the Social Security Administration where he worked for 36 years. He describes adjusting to the increased responsibility and pace of work. college degree ; diploma ; Georgia Department of Rehabilitation Services ; job applications ; National Commissioner ; Richard Rich ; vocational rehabilitation 17 912 Impact of Technology How do you feel your work experience was different as someone who is partially sighted? Levenson describes the difficulty using typewriters to fill out forms. He talks about initially using monitors or " ; dumb terminals" ; before the Social Security Administration switched personal computers. He talks about using the Job Access With Speech (JAWS) computer program that reads the text on the computer screen out loud. He describes his love of email as " ; the most wonderful thing God ever created" ; because it enables him to communicate with friends across the world. He also talks about his frequent use of the telephone with an anecdote about locating a gift for a friend in Honolulu by calling gift shops in Hawaii. communication ; computer literacy ; directory assistance ; flat rate long-distance ; Humuhumunukunukuapua'a fish ; international ; spellcheck 17 1308 Support group / Challenges / Technology change Tell me more about your friend circle. Levenson talks about his friends as his support group that keeps him sane. He describes his childhood friends and his adult friendships--some over 50 years. Levenson says that the two hardest things about being visually impaired are relying on others for transportation and shopping. Levenson describes changes in his lifetime and the increased accommodations for the visually impaired through technology. birthdays ; Harley Davidson ; internet ; Lenox Square ; MARTA ; motorcycles ; neighbors ; one-room schoolhouse ; online shopping ; private school ; public school ; radio ; television ; Uber 17 IRVIN: Hello, my name is Stephanie Irvin. I' ; m going to have a conversation with Stuart Levenson for Our Stories, Our Lives, an oral history project with Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is June 28th and this is being recorded at GLASS Atlanta. Hello, Stuart, thank you for joining today. LEVENSON: Thank you. Very nice to be here. IRVIN: So tell me a little bit about yourself. LEVENSON: Well, I was born in Savannah, and that' ; s where I got all of my education through the--actually, through the 12th grade. Then I went to a--now they call them " ; community colleges." ; It' ; s called Armstrong State College. Now it belongs to the Georgia Southern complex. Until--I did that for two years and then decided I wanted to leave because everybody I knew was leaving, and I wanted to come to a small school somewhere else. And I found Oglethorpe University here in Atlanta where I have--where I was in 1963 through my graduation in ' ; 67, and then I just never went back. I stayed in Atlanta. IRVIN: And are you a patron of GLASS? LEVENSON: Oh, yes. I have been a patron of GLASS since before there was GLASS, probably since about 1956. IRVIN: How did you become a patron of GLASS? LEVENSON: That was so long ago, I don' ; t remember. I' ; m sure someone told my mother that there was such a service. You know, as a visually impaired person, you always hear about talking books. And I' ; d always heard about talking books. Probably I got informed about the talking book program through the eye doctor that I had in Savannah back then. IRVIN: What was it like being a visually impaired individual in Savannah? LEVENSON: Well, back then it was much more difficult than it is now, because there were none of the programs that exist now to assist a visually impaired student. My eye doctor--later doctor told me that I was going to be in a very difficult position. I wasn' ; t totally blind, nor am I totally sighted. I was in the middle, and the middle was slowly going to go away. So the school system, the board of education was not prepared for anyone with a slight limitation of any kind. So I came along. When I entered the first grade in Charles Ellis Elementary School, I remember still being there for one week. The superintendent of schools met with my parents and said no, we couldn' ; t do this, because they weren' ; t prepared to keep me as a student. They had no idea what to do with a blind person. Absolutely no idea. And the only solution was to go to the school for the blind and deaf in Macon, and my parents weren' ; t going to do that. Not then. They tried later, but I threw a temper tantrum and wouldn' ; t go. IRVIN: Well, how did you end up liking the school or disliking the school? LEVENSON: Which school? IRVIN: The one in Macon. LEVENSON: I didn' ; t. I didn' ; t want to--I didn' ; t want to go away from home. A very well meaning minister came to our house one night and tried to convince my parents that that was the place for me to be. I probably was about in the 9th or 10th grade, and being a precocious kid, I overheard most of the conversation and I threw what could be classified as one hell of a tantrum. I wouldn' ; t go because I didn' ; t want to leave home. And so I never went there. I continued in the--what now is called " ; mainstream" ; of the education process through graduation from high school and then into college and so forth. It' ; s the funny thing about it is that when I was in high school in the 10th grade, the A student in one of my classes, my history class, just happened to be the son of the very same minister. And we had long talks about why I didn' ; t go to the school for the deaf and blind in Macon. And he said, well, it wasn' ; t--even the kid knew better--that it wasn' ; t set up for everybody. I decided early that it wasn' ; t set up for me and I wasn' ; t going to do it. IRVIN: You had mentioned you went to college. How has that experience, moving into college? LEVENSON: College was interesting. I remember the first day I was at Armstrong. It was then Armstrong College. It was in the downtown area. Now they call it the historic district of Savannah. Armstrong took over several of the old mansions and turned them into classroom buildings. And I remember going to my English class. I had to take remedial English. Unfortunately, I took remedial English twice. I flunked it. And I took remedial math twice. I flunked that, too. But the first day I remember going to class and the instructor gave us--after we' ; d sat there for an hour. She gave us the homework assignment, which was half the book. And I remember leaving and I said, " ; Oh, that' ; s for the whole quarter." ; She said, " ; No, that' ; s for Monday." ; You got to be kidding! But college was interesting, because I learned quickly that you had to obviously adjust to it. But as a blind person or partially sighted person, you wouldn' ; t adjust the same as everyone else did. You had to make your own way. And I did. I hired readers to read to me my textbooks and other material that I had to read. I paid them the munificent sum of--ready for this? One dollar an hour. That' ; s what the going rate was back then. And I had quite a few interesting readers. I had elementary school teachers. I had a good friend of mine who was a fireman and we would read in the park in Forsyth Park in Savannah on the days when he was not being a fireman. It was 24 hours on, 24 hours off. We would we would sit by the fountain feeding the pigeons, and he' ; d be reading to me books. And then on other days I would go to one of Savannah' ; s plantation homes out on one of the islands near Savannah, and I would sit on the dock and be read to. I was read to in some very interesting places. But I learned to deal with it as best I could, and so did my instructors. They learned to deal with me as best they could, and most of them did pretty well. IRVIN: What happened once you graduated from college? LEVENSON: Therein lies the problem. When I was growing up, I was never told that I would never find--I couldn' ; t go to work and support myself. So here it comes. In August of 1967, the reason it was August of ' ; 67, I dropped one course at Oglethorpe. And so I had to take one course in the summer. Here it was in August of ' ; 67, and I was out of school. I had a piece of paper in my hand that said I had completed all the academic requirements and therefore I was let out, as it were. And now it was up to me to decide what to do next. Well, I didn' ; t want to go back to Savannah, because my family, God bless them, were really good. But what would have happened is they were--especially my parents--extremely protective. And I knew that if I went back to Savannah, I would wind up working in one of my uncle' ; s businesses. He had a liquor business. I probably would be selling bottles of booze, which I wasn' ; t willing to do. So I came up with the idea, aha, graduate school. So I went to Washington to look at American University, which accepted me, and I looked at Washington and said, " ; I don' ; t want to live here." ; So I enrolled and was accepted to Georgia State and went to school there for three years, taking one course per quarter. But in those three years I decided you can' ; t go on like this. So I was looking for a job. Now, in the ' ; 60s, finding a job for a visually impaired person was not what it is today. I knocked on doors. I filled out applications. I used to say that the shredding of my job applications, if you threw the shredded paper out the window on Peachtree Street, I could probably have my own ticker tape parade. I had people--what they call--what this one advertising agency called us, " ; community influential," ; important people in the community looking for me for a job. The State of Georgia, the Department of Rehabilitation Services tried to find me a job. They suggested that I go to work in the vending stand program, and I refused to do that. I was a headstrong kid, and I wouldn' ; t do that because I said I was educated and I had a college degree and I wanted to do something else. Finally, the secretary of a very important person in town, Richard Rich, who owned Richard' ; s department store, his secretary and I became really good friends. She knew a federal judge and the federal judge said that he knew of a program that the Social Security Administration was starting for blind people to put them to work in general information. You would learn all there was to know about Social Security and you would be on the telephone talking to the general public. So they said would I like to do that? Well, by then I would have done anything. So I went to Florida. The VR, vocational rehabilitation people sent me to Florida for a screening. I spent four days in Daytona Beach thinking I was in heaven, and then I came back here and they said they' ; d let me know. Well, I had been told that so many times that I just--oh, there goes that idea. In May, they told me that I was accepted and that I would spend the summer--June, July, and August--in Miami learning how to work for the Social Security Administration. I was accepted into the second class, the second class of students. They had one in ' ; 69. This was in ' ; 70. And that I would learn all about Social Security and I would come back in September and I would work in Atlanta and I was absolutely astounded. I couldn' ; t believe it. So the State of Georgia would pay for three months of my upkeep. That meant that they paid the hotel bill, and it was really a cheap hotel, believe me. And at the end of that time, Social Security did not hire you at that time when you were in training. They didn' ; t hire you until you went through the training. In September I went through training. I then came back here and swore an oath and then I was officially an employee and working on 730 Peachtree Street, where I worked until they moved out of that office and they moved over to 805 Peachtree Street. Then they moved out of that office, moved to 55 Marietta Street, and they finally moved to the office they' ; re in now, which is 401 West Peachtree, which is the Summit Building. So I was there for 36 years. I would have been longer because they said that after you worked for 40 years you got a free trip to Baltimore to meet the national commissioner. I said, oh, that was fun. Well, I took it for 36 years now, and I said that was enough. And by the time I left, they said well, they didn' ; t even give that anymore. So I left. I decided I had already met the national commissioner when she came to Atlanta. IRVIN: What surprised you most about entering the professional world? LEVENSON: What surprised me the most was that--and this is very trite--at the end of May--I went to work in September of the first year. At the end of May, I didn' ; t get out for a summer vacation. You just kept right on working, through June, July, and August. I mean, those were no different than any other months of the year. You just continued right on. They would give you the paycheck every two weeks, and there was no difference. You just kept right on going. Also, the world of work was what you made of it. In other words, I think I worked reasonably well. I saw people who didn' ; t work very well, who didn' ; t do what they were supposed to. Some of them were fired. It is possible to get fired from the federal government. It is not easy, but they can do it. But if they set their mind to it, they can really do it. But when you' ; re working, the fun is over. School is nice, it' ; s fun, it' ; s enjoyable. But in the world of work, you' ; re responsible for everything you do. You can' ; t go running to mommy and say, " ; I didn' ; t mean it." ; No. That' ; s over. You do everything you' ; re responsible for, for yourself, your own living situation. You pay your own bills, you rent an apartment, and it' ; s just the real world, as it is. IRVIN: How do you feel your work experience was different as someone who is partially sighted? LEVENSON: It was very different. First of all, now, let' ; s forget about computers and let' ; s forget about the electronics that we have today. When I went to work, let us say you called my office and you wanted to file for benefits. What I had to do was the forms were there and you know as well as I do--the government does nothing better than create forms. They create forms for the sake of creating forms. You took a form and you put it into a typewriter and you learned how to fill out the form on the typewriter, filling out the spaces so that someone was able to read what you had written. Not in longhand because you couldn' ; t do it. You had to learn to--you had to push the spacebar over so many spaces when you got to this part of the form. You had to turn the little wheel to go down so many clicks to get to the next line. You learned all of this. Now, no big deal. Now you sit down in front of a computer. You press the button, the keystrokes. The computer comes on. JAWS, in my case that' ; s what I used. JAWS comes up and it tells you where you are and you know what to do next. You press the Spacebar or the Tab key or whatever, and you go to the next available block and you fill in that. And then you go to the following block. It' ; s a lot different. In some respects it' ; s easier than it used to be. Most of that stuff now is all on computers and you don' ; t fill out a paper form. You fill out the form on the computer and you press Send and it goes off to who knows where. And that individual gets a phone call of their application. IRVIN: Tell me more about how you use technology in your everyday life. LEVENSON: Oh boy. Well, back in 1989, a little before then, Social Security had on all of our desks what are called " ; dumb terminals." ; In other words, this was a terminal, i.e., monitor. You could do nothing with it except read it, if you did see it. And mine, fortunately at that time, my vision was such that I could see it. And you could read the screen and know what was available. Now, you couldn' ; t feel anything out, but what you could do is read what was someone' ; s information, basic information that they had with the Social Security Administration. In 1989, they decided we would all get personal computers, so we all went to training and learned how to work a personal computer. I think that was the greatest help. Now, I have a computer--well, I' ; ve always had one since then. I had my own. I love email. I think email is the most wonderful thing God ever created. So I use email to communicate with my friends and whatever. I use it a lot more than I use the telephone. It' ; s wonderful, you can email anybody all around the world. I know people in Australia and people in Israel, and if you want to ask them question, you just call them up on your contact list and ask them the question and they answer you. You don' ; t have to worry about the time of day. You don' ; t have to worry about the day of the week. You don' ; t worry about anything. All you have to worry about is did you spell the word correctly, and I' ; m notoriously bad speller. God bless spellcheck. So I use email quite a bit. I use the telephone. I am addicted also to the telephone. We have now what is called " ; flat rate long-distance," ; which means I can call anywhere in the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii, and it doesn' ; t show up on the bill. I' ; m used to three minute calls and a call before 11:00 is more expensive than after 11:00. Now you don' ; t have to worry about any of that. If I want to talk to someone--well, somebody in Honolulu, which I did recently--there' ; s a member of the group that I eat dinner with--he' ; s 94, and we became acquainted and his two sons are really nice people. Well, he became acquainted with a fish. In Hawaii, there is a fish called the--let' ; s see if I can pronounce this correctly--Humuhumunukunukuapua' ; a. That' ; s a rockfish. It' ; s the state fish of Hawaii. And it got to be a joke. Every time we would crack a joke about something, we would say the name of the fish and everybody would laugh. Well, somebody said that they had been to Hawaii and they found that name of that fish on a baseball cap. Well, that' ; s all I had to hear because I wanted to give this particular friend that baseball cap with the name of that fish on the front of it. So two weeks ago, I spent one entire evening calling all types of gift shops and hotel gift shops and regular gift shops. I found it! And he now has the hat, on the front of which says Humuhumunukunukuapua' ; a. That I deal with the telephone. I can find, do a lot of things with the phone that most people can' ; t, because I' ; ve learned how to use it and what you can and cannot do with it, with the exception of directory assistance, and you don' ; t want to hear what I think about them. IRVIN: Tell me more about your friend circle. LEVENSON: You mean--I don' ; t call them " ; friends," ; I call them my support group. When you are visually impaired, you develop a support group, friends. You have to. You have no choice. If you don' ; t, you slowly go crazy. Now, I don' ; t mean it literally, but I mean, when I was a kid I went to a private school. Remember I told you I had gone to elementary school for one week and they said they weren' ; t able to take care of me, so my parents found a lady who ran a one-room schoolhouse. I could be president and I went to a one-room schoolhouse, and I went to that lady' ; s house. She would have homeschooled her kids, but her kids had grown. So I went to this private school until the seventh grade when I refused to go back and they put me in the public school system. That' ; s another story. But anyway, so the situation was that you had to make. I had no real friends except those people who lived in the neighborhood. The people down the street had a couple of kids. Two blocks over they had a couple of kids, you know. If you want to make friends in your neighborhood, have kids. They can do it. Well, now when I went to high school, junior high, high school, and college, I have quite a few friends all around the country, actually all around the world. They are my support group. I had this one particular friend in Dallas, Texas. I was out there visiting once 20 years ago, and Harry said, " ; You know, when you make friends with Stuart, it' ; s permanent. You never let go." ; And he' ; s right. I never let go. I have friends that have been friends for 50 years because I like people and I just think that all types of people make the world more well-rounded. And everybody' ; s different. My friendships are sort of compartmentalized. I had a birthday party about 15 years ago for my 60th birthday and my best friend who threw it said he--it was a surprise party--it took him three months to get ahold of all the people that he had to come, because he said your friends work, you had separate friends at work, had separate friends from your Lions Club, separate friends from this. He said, " ; It was hard as hell to round up everybody." ; But they all mean--they' ; re all very important to me. IRVIN: What are some of the hardest challenges you faced? And how did you get through them? LEVENSON: The hardest challenge I had to face then and still have to face today is transportation and just some things that I have to do during the day. Someone said blindness is nothing more than an inconvenience. Those are the truest word that have ever been spoken. For example, when you are in your home and you drop something on the floor, you look down and you see it and you pick it up. Not me. Nuh-uh. A lot of times I will go down on all fours, hands and knees, and with my hands have to figure out where that item is. And it' ; s never where you think it' ; s going to be! Going to different places--like here at the library, when we finish this I will go to the MARTA station across the street with assistance and pray that I remember enough about that MARTA station that' ; s over there to get on the train and go out to the closest MARTA station to me and then take Uber to my apartment. If I want to get something--there are some shirts that I want to buy. Now, one of my suppressed desires is motorcycles. I happen to love them. There' ; s a psychologist who says, " ; You always love what you can' ; t have." ; Well, I can' ; t go out and buy a motorcycle and drive it. No, that ain' ; t going to happen. But I am the best advertisement Harley Davidson has. Well, there' ; s this place in Marietta, a dealership that sells shirts. There' ; s one in Roswell, too. But I want some shirts, but I want them from the place in Marietta. For weeks I' ; ve been wanting these shirts. I have yet to find someone who will drive me to Marietta to go pick those up. I will eventually, but it just it just takes a while. If I want to go to the market, it' ; s difficult to do. I have to plan in advance who' ; s going to do this and when they' ; re going to do it and how much time they have to do. Like last night, I was at a concert and I asked this friend of mine who wanted to go to the concert. I said, " ; Do you mind stopping at Publix on the way back? I need to pick up a few things." ; I have to divide what I want, because I can' ; t spend a lot of time in a market because people just don' ; t want to do that. They' ; ll come and go quickly or whatever. But they don' ; t want to spend the time you normally would spend in a supermarket looking for things. I have to do it quickly. It' ; s almost like a surgical strike: Come and get what you want and leave. Same thing with any department store. I love Lenox Square. I used to walk all over the place when I could see better. Can' ; t do that anymore. So I miss it. Though, transportation and getting things is about the thing that I miss the most or find hardest to deal with. IRVIN: What do you find has changed the most from when you were a child who was visually impaired, as to when you are now an adult who is visually impaired. LEVENSON: Technology. Technology now is absolutely incredible. Technology in the ' ; 50s was basically the radio, the television, the typewriter, and that you that was it. Technology now, being able to communicate in many different ways. Radio and television, that' ; s still around. I have two TV sets. They' ; re glorified radios. I can' ; t see the screen anymore, but I listen to them, and I wouldn' ; t know what to do without them. Cellphones, what we now use as a cellphone and take for granted, in the ' ; 50s and ' ; 60s, you would mention that and people would laugh at you and say, " ; Buck Rogers! They' ; ll never do that kind of thing in this century." ; Technology has made life so much simpler. Now, I don' ; t deal with the internet all that well. I tell people that I' ; ve tried to order a shirt from Target when I was learning how to do that kind of stuff. And by the time I got to the end of the cart, the check was in my cart. I don' ; t know how I did it. I wound up buying four shirts. Of course, I eliminated that and didn' ; t buy any of it. I don' ; t shop on the internet because I don' ; t know how to do it very well. And besides, if I want to buy a shirt, I like to go to the store and pick it out and look at it as best I can see it and buy it. I don' ; t want--Amazon is good. That' ; s fine. Let' ; s not shortchange them. They' ; re good for what they' ; re worth. And I' ; ve used them. Other friends have ordered stuff for me, and I love getting packages. But nothing to me takes the place of going to a store, whether it be Macy' ; s or Target or Wal-Mart or Saks or any place and going to the stores. I used to know all of the sales clerks at Lenox Square. They would save me stuff that they wanted me to look at. Not anymore. It' ; s just a whole different world. IRVIN: Well, thank you so much for talking with me today, Stuart. It' ; s been a pleasure to have you. LEVENSON: I' ; m just getting started. (both laughing) Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-001.xml RBRL451GLASS-001.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
31 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Stuart Levenson, June 28, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-001
Creator
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Stuart Levenson
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with disabilities--Education
United States--Officials and employees
People with visual disabilities
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
Description
An account of the resource
Stuart Levenson was born and educated in Savannah, Georgia. He attended Armstrong College before working for the Social Security Administration for 36 years. Levenson talks about growing up visually impaired, emphasizing the changing role of assistive technology in his life.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-06-28
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-002/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Vashaun Jones, September 24, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-002 RBRL451GLASS Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Vashaun Jones Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|13(14)|22(7)|32(3)|41(11)|52(16)|61(9)|72(3)|83(12)|93(6)|104(16)|113(3)|125(3)|134(12)|146(1)|155(12)|165(4)|174(2)|183(4)|193(3)|203(10)|210(7)|218(2)|227(13)|236(3)|241(11)|249(11)|259(9)|267(2)|275(4) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_4lsjius5& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_ho1zlaqt" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 46 The importance of failure / early life And it's a great journey, and it started for me born three months premature in Portsmouth, Virginia... Jones talks about how he achieved his dream by having everything he wants, being in great relationships, starting several successful businesses, and helping thousands of people across the world. He goes on to describe the importance of acknowledging failure, highlighting his divorce, bankruptcy, dropping out of tenth grade, blindness, and business failures. Jones talks about his early problems with his vision that stemmed from his premature birth. He mentions having sixteen unsuccessful eye surgeries before having one that restored his vision. He recalls disobeying the doctor's orders by playing sports which caused him losing his vision again a few years later as a result of two detached retinas. Jones describes how failing the third grade motivated him to try harder in school. astigmatism ; class clown ; cross-eyed ; Doctor Sponaugle ; Doctor Valone ; empowerment ; encouragement ; jokes ; nystagmus ; Portsmouth, Virginia ; travel 17 537 Dropping out of school And I'm visually impaired. I'm blind. I'm visually impaired. I'm blind. And, you know, what's the difference? Jones describes the difference between being visually impaired and blind, noting his experience with both. He talks about dropping out of the tenth grade since he was already making a lot of money selling newspaper subscriptions. He states that leaving school was an empowering failure because it taught him that he was in control of his life. computers ; education system ; Individualized Education Program (IEP) 17 853 Business experience And so you fast forward to business. Jones describes his experience working as a center director at the large telecommunication company, MCI WorldCom, before leaving to start his own business. He talks about starting multiple failed businesses in the debt collections industry before he finally started a successful business. bonuses ; corporate ; failure ; goals ; profit ; self-employment ; success ; telecommunications 17 1179 The blind community And I sell the business and I get a divorce. Jones describes struggling after his divorce until he embraced the disability community through Georgia Library for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) and Stella Cone, specifically. He talks about learning from the experiences of other blind people and then working to help others by sharing his failures and successes. case studies ; Clarke Atlanta University ; daughter ; Dave Ramsey ; GLASS ; JAWS ; parents ; Ray Charles ; Savannah Center for the Blind and Low Vision ; Stevie Wonder ; the Center for the Vision Impaired and Vocational Rehabilitation Services ; Zig Ziglar 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Vashaun Jones for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is July 24th, and this is being recorded at the Georgia Radio Reading Service in Atlanta, Georgia. JONES: Hey what' ; s up everybody? It is Vashaun Jones and I am here to tell my story, and it' ; s a very, very interesting one. A lot of people discuss various things, especially looking at the Facebook and YouTube and all of the social media and, you know, they talk about items and, you know, life. And it' ; s a great journey, and it started for me born three months premature in Portsmouth, Virginia. And I was at a race to come out, I guess. I had nystagmus, or astigmatism, where my eyes would shake. And I was cross-eyed and I just had a lot of eye issues due to premature birth. And, you know, a lot of people they talk about the successes ; they say things like " ; successful business owner" ; and you, know, they talk about the Rolls Royce or the Bentley or the private jet, and they never see the failure. They never see the start of that person, how they evolved. And so this is my start. This is my long, long streams of failures to get to this point. And you might say, " ; Well, what is this point?" ; Right here today as I said to record my story, at 42 years old I' ; ve accomplished all of my dreams. I have all of the toys that I wanted. I have great relationships. I was able to start several successful companies. I' ; ve been able to help thousands of people all around the world. I' ; ve travel to any place that, you know, I' ; ve always wanted to go to that I' ; ve seen with my eyes closed, I was able to realize with my eyes open at some point in life. And my goal has always been to help enough people get what they wanted out of life, and I knew that I would always have what I wanted out of life. And that definitely stands true. You' ; ll hear stories about my divorce. You' ; ll hear my story about bankruptcy. You' ; ll hear my story about never graduating the 10th grade. You will hear my story about being blind and you hear the failures in business that I had to be able to sit here today to tell you that you can do it. And so what I' ; m most known in my community of disabled individuals is for the encouragement, the empowerment and the ability to assist with equipping those of us with disabilities to be able to live with greater success, do more, and be excellent at the things that we want to accomplish in our hearts. Finding or creating work that is meaningful, purposeful, and profitable is my mantra. It' ; s literally a dream come true for me. So again, my name is Vashaun Jones. I was born three months premature in Portsmouth, Virginia. I had a total of 16 eye surgeries, none of them actually correcting the issue. And each one with great hope of success, and each one of them failing, just caused more and more problems and I became blind early on in life. It was exciting because I became blind and then I got my sight back, and that was due to lots of prayer and lots of going back and forth to specialists. And that was like the one time that my surgery was successful but it took a doctor, Doctor Sponaugle and Doctor Valone who are from the UK to literally give me this secret surgery that had been working over in the UK in the United States and they said, " ; Hey, we can pretty much get your sight back." ; And they did, and it was stable. And for years I was able to see, but they would always tell me you could literally step off a curve and be blind. And me being a young boy wanting to play, wanting to be out there in the world, wanting to be normal, I went out there and I played sports and I got hit in the eye and I had a detached retina in one eye, and I didn' ; t learn from that, right? Failure--didn' ; t learn from that, and went out again and was playing sports and I got hit in the other eye, and lost my sight yet again. And it was it was one of those things that you like man, I' ; m plunged back into this world of darkness all because of being hardheaded. And that' ; s kind of the storyline of my life ; it' ; s always been pushing the boundaries, seeing that I could do something despite people telling me that I couldn' ; t. And I think outside of just not listening to my parents and not listening to the doctor on proper care and not playing sports and, you know, from that point, early on, they told me, " ; You' ; re not going to be normal ; you can' ; t play sports like other kids." ; And I just, just didn' ; t believe it. I wouldn' ; t succumb to that type of mentality. If somebody else was doing it, that I felt that I could do it--not say do it better, but do it different, but still be able to do it. And that was kind of my first bout with failure, and the second was third grade. Miss Frank, she say, " ; If you don' ; t straighten up your act, I' ; m going to fail you!" ; And I did not believe her. But she was the type of person, she would say, " ; You catch my drift?" ; She was like super old school. And like I said, I' ; m 42 so imagine me in the third grade it' ; s like like old, old school, right? So I kept playing. I wanted to be the class clown, wanted everybody to, you know, laugh at my jokes. And come the end of third grade year, the joke was on me--failed. So like, you know, how do you how do you recover from that? You know, failing was something that my parents did not tolerate at all! Failure? Man, no! And I was in my room literally the whole summer as a punishment for failing the third grade. I looked out the window and I was able to, you know, see and hear all the kids in the neighborhood playing every day of the summer until I went back to third grade to say, " ; You know what? I' ; m not gonna make that mistake again. I' ; ll make some new mistakes, but I' ; m not going to fail school--period. Dot." ; And so it was like my first failure. And I' ; m visually impaired. I' ; m blind. I' ; m visually impaired. I' ; m blind. And, you know, what' ; s the difference? Well blind, for me, I can' ; t see anything ; that' ; s the state of my eyesight now. Visually impaired, you know, you still can be cool. You walk around. You don' ; t have a cane. You know, life is almost OK, you know, and I' ; ve been able to see and I' ; ve driven and purchased cars and all that great stuff. And so I' ; m lucky in that. But I would say my second failure--and there was some micro failures you know, down through my journey--but there' ; s a core premise that I want everyone that' ; s able to listen to this has to understand is that failure is inevitable. You' ; re gonna fail. It' ; s what you do with the failure, how you fail forward, that is going to propel you to where you want to be. And just as a side bar, the reason why I get to help so many individuals is for that particular reason. You have to know what you want to be in order for you to be able to make it happen. And so my next failure comes--major failure, I guess you can call it--was the 10th grade. And I had to make a decision because for me, in the time that I grew up, going to school was a direct correlation to the amount of money that you would make. And I, from the age of 8, has always been taught with both my parents to work, to earn, to earn your allowance, to earn your keep. And my mom always told me, " ; At 18 you' ; ll have to get out and face the world. And the world is reality, and reality is going to smack you in the face, and you have to be ready for it." ; Now in the 10th grade, you know, and I' ; m a great student, you know, I learned how to learn, number one, and I learned how to, for lack of a better phrase, manipulate the teachers. You know, I knew you know you bring them an apple and, you know, you tell them that dress looks good and, you know, all of that and you stood a better chance of having good grades versus. So I drop out of high school at 10th grade, you know. And on my high school wall it said, " ; Believe, achieve and succeed," ; you know, and nothing in the education, all the IEPs, all the teachers who didn' ; t know what to do with me, you know, they didn' ; t know. They couldn' ; t, you know, just learn this and hopefully life will work out. But I looked at if it was a direct correlation to the amount of money that I was wanting to make in the future. I was already doing it. I was knocking on doors selling newspaper subscriptions in the 10th grade. I was making $400 a week, you know. And it was hourly--I had to go out and kill it, (chuckles) literally--not literally but, you know, and bring it home. I had to, you know, sell this subscription, right then at the door, get the money, turn it in, and then at the end of the week, I would get a paycheck. And those skills taught me so much more than what I was getting in school. And then, at that time they kept saying, " ; Well computers are the future," ; but we had no computers. So it' ; s computers are the future, and this is what you' ; re telling me, but that' ; s not what is happening in school, nowhere. I mean in in Virginia, it was a disconnect for me. And I always felt that whenever I told this story in life, and this is like the first time, that it would be a failure. And it was actually the most empowering thing that happened in my life because I realize that I control my destiny. A degree didn' ; t control it. A educator didn' ; t control it. I had the ability to go out there and make it happen. So second failure was super, super empowering. The first one was third grade, and it was never to repeat the same mistake again--that was the lesson out of it. And so you fast forward to business. I again have always worked in corporate. I work for MCI WorldCom. I was the center director, lead 20, 30 managers, 300 people reporting. You know, and that was great corporate lifestyle was cool. You kind of learn and adapt and speak the language, and do the whole song and dance. And, you know, but it was it was phony. It was, you know, it was it my authentic me. I realized that I would be great at whatever I put my mind to and so I left. And I said-well, my dad always drilled to me, he said, " ; It doesn' ; t matter whether you taking out the trash or whether you' ; re fixing sandwiches at Subway," ; he said, " ; find out what that man is doing to get his supplies and to employ his people, and then you mirror it and you can do the same thing." ; And so I started a business. It was in collections. And in my book, if you help enough people get what you want, this story is fully fleshed out. But I realized in starting a business that there was a lot more involved than just saying, " ; Hey, I have a business name." ; There was a lot more involved than just having a business ; it was experience, it was relationships, it was having a great product, it was being able to assist and go above and beyond. And none of those things I knew ; I just thought the act of having a business was going to propel me forward. And so I failed. I failed miserably. I put a lot of money into a great idea. But, going back to my third grade lesson, I never made the same mistakes again. I knew business would work. So I tried it again. It failed. It failed for a different reason. So I tried it again. And it worked. And it worked for all the reasons that I failed in the past. Lesson: Don' ; t give up on your dreams ; they' ; re your dreams, not the government' ; s dreams. So I sold that business because I wanted to do something different. I wanted to elevate because I failed before. I grew something and I' ; d seen that dream realized, and I want to do it again, but now I want to do it in a different state. I want to do it in a different state of mind. I want to do it in a whole other atmosphere just to prove that what I knew was actually exactly what I knew. So I go back to Virginia. I open up a business a mile away from the beach. I' ; m visually impaired. I' ; m married. I just left corporate at the highest level for the second time. And I start up this business ; it was collections. You know, calling people, " ; Hey, this is Vashaun Jones calling from xyz. I calling about your past due BellSouth Bill. Is this something that you want to pay today in full or should we set you up on a payment arrangement?" ; That type of work. And it was exciting because I was back killing it and bringing it home. What I produced, the work that I put in, was the result of what I got back. A lot different than going to work and working for someone else and fulfilling their dream. It was like I could literally sit here and say, " ; I want to make a thousand dollars today." ; And I could sit down and map it out. So if I' ; m going to work 10 hours, then need to make $100 an hour, you know, da da da da. And then you make $200 a hour and you' ; re like, " ; Man, I' ; m ahead of a game!" ; You know, and this is where the whole bonus-ing comes in, right? You had these goals and you set them and then you like overachieve them and like everything you overachieve were bonuses. So I got in that particular realm, used to bonuses, extra, you know. The check and all that was good. But you know, and you just get used to it. All right. Working for someone else never really worked for me. And I sell the business and I get a divorce. You know and the divorce was like super cool. It was like, " ; Hey when we met each other 10 years ago, we were just latching on to life and, you know maybe this, like, was a mistake." ; And I' ; m like, man, my parents never got divorced. I mean they' ; re together now, 36 years later. You know, and I feel that ping of failure, you know. And so I get the divorce and I' ; m at this crossroad because now I can' ; t see and I' ; m divorced and I' ; m blind and I' ; m about to lose it all--I' ; m talking about American Express cards and Mercedes Benz and all this stuff that life dictates to you and say you' ; re supposed to have and if you don' ; t, then you' ; re a failure. And I' ; m blind. So I haven' ; t--Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder were the only blind people successful that I knew, and I didn' ; t even know them. And so I' ; m like homeless in this whole thing. When you kind of look at it, it' ; s like this world that you' ; re just thrust into and you' ; re literally just trying to feel your way around it. And I came across the National Federation of the Blind. I came across the Georgia Library for Accessible Services and Stella Cone. And literally those two entities along with the Center for the Vision Impaired and Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Savannah Center for the Blind and Low Vision and, you know, all the blind people that I came across changed my life. Changed my life because I wanted to learn this thing called " ; blindness" ; so bad that I wanted to become a master of it. And once I became a master, I said, " ; I want to teach other people how to take this disability, this failure, this thing that' ; s looked at by the world' ; s optics as something that needs to be pitied, and I want to turn it into something so powerful, that it cannot be ignored." ; And I said to myself and I say to everybody I came across I said, " ; I' ; m going to learn one thing from every disabled person that I came across, and that' ; s what is going to help me to help other individuals master their life." ; And so you have all these failures that amount to experience in life that allows you to be able to help someone because you went through the experience of being homeless, the experience of divorce, the experience of bankruptcy, the experience of educational systems, the experience of life. That' ; s what allows you to help someone. If you never bump into anything, you' ; ll never be able to guide anyone. And so that' ; s the story of how I got here. The question is what is the story of Vashaun Jones ten years from now? I' ; ll be 52. I would have would have made tons more mistakes. I love making mistakes. I love failing. I love when people say that I can' ; t. It' ; s empowering to be able to sit here and tell a story of failure so that someone else listening can look at it and say, " ; I' ; m going to fail, too." ; And just don' ; t make the same mistake twice. Don' ; t give up on your dream. If it' ; s not working, find a way to make it work. My daughter, Ivy, graduated from Clark Atlanta--proud father, husband, two daughters. They told them her commencement speech, or told all the students, " ; Find a way or make a way." ; Life is not going to stop for us. It' ; s not going to be accessible unless we make it accessible. I remember Georgia Library for Accessible Services and Stella Cone and me having that first conversation like, " ; Man, we got to make all the libraries all across Georgia accessible!" ; You know, and she' ; s like, " ; Well yeah, we got it. It' ; s accessible. We' ; ll have JAWS in every library." ; And, you know, and then I realized that, oh I' ; m like you know along with GLASS, that I' ; m like the only one that really wants it because nobody' ; s going to the libraries to get all of this free education. And so my life has never been about me. You know it' ; s always been about showing people that you can do it and whatever that " ; it" ; is, whatever it is. You know, I have tons and tons of stories and I guess, you know, in the business side you would call them case studies--people that you' ; ve been able to help, you know. I don' ; t know. It' ; s right now for me, for Vashaun Jones for me to tell my story, it' ; s like so-- (sighs) --it' ; s like being on a beach all day and you have nothing but time to think and solve and implement and ask people, " ; Hey, can you help me with this? This is the idea that I' ; m having." ; That' ; s what excites me. When my parents come to my house 42 years later--and mind you, I left home at 17. I left home at 17. I was at that point probably make an 800 bucks a week, couldn' ; t tell me anything. And I said, " ; I will not come back home until I' ; ve made it in life." ; And to have my mom come a week ago in 2018, July, and she' ; s walking around house. She' ; s like, " ; Vashaun, you know, everything that a person wants when they retire," ; she' ; s like, " ; you got it now. You can just retire." ; And I' ; m like, nah, you know, my mentors Zig Ziglar and Dave Ramsey, you know, they didn' ; t retire. They died empty. You know they died giving and giving and giving. You know and that' ; s all I want to do I want to help enough people get what they want because I know a man with experience is not at the mercy of someone with an opinion. And I know that through helping you I' ; m inadvertently helping myself. And together, we can change the world. Thank you. IRVIN: Thank you for sharing, Vashaun. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-002.xml RBRL451GLASS-002.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
29 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Vashaun Jones, September 24, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-002
Creator
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Vashaun Jones
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
African Americans with disabilities
Blindness
People with disabilities--Education
Businesspeople with visual disabilities
Business enterprises
African Americans--History
Description
An account of the resource
Vashaun Jones was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. He describes being blind or visually impaired throughout his life. He talks about his career, emphasizing the importance of failure to achieving success.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-24
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-003/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Rita Harris, July 12, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-003 RBRL451GLASS Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Rita Harris Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|11(9)|22(9)|35(3)|46(3)|57(4)|69(8)|80(6)|91(7)|101(9)|114(7)|125(9)|136(8)|149(1)|159(15)|173(7)|185(17)|199(2)|209(4)|221(10)|229(11)|241(16)|252(14)|263(4)|273(10)|284(11)|296(5)|309(7) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_ge7fqrhy& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_qg9l1dpv" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 21 Becoming visually impaired as an adult Hi. I'm Rita Harris and I will be telling you my story. Jones describes the impact of becoming visually impaired as an adult due to Retinitis Pigmentosa--a genetic disorder that damages the retina. She talks about becoming withdrawn and depressed because she could not longer do the things she loved like working, driving, and shopping. career ; dependent ; diagnosis ; family ; God ; Good Hope, Georgia ; independent ; ophthalmologists ; outgoing ; Religion ; retina specialist 17 261 Vocational rehabilitation services Well, a person--a friend of mine--referred me to vocational rehabilitation services, and I was assigned a mobility trainer that came to my home three days a week. Jones describes working with a mobility trainer to learn how to use a cane. She talks about the importance of regaining her independence by learning how to navigate by herself. Jones discusses her experience with the Leader Dogs for the Blind program where she continued learning mobility skills. cane skills ; Dr. Linn ; independence ; mental compass direction ; mobility orientation ; night walking ; Rochester Hills, Michigan ; visually impaired 17 Leader Dogs for the Blind https://www.leaderdog.org/ 734 Guide Dog At the end of the week, he asked me if I had considered becoming a guide dog handler. Jones describes her experience training to use a guide dog and the positive impact her dog, Madden, has had on her life. She talks about the importance of compatibility between a guide dog and owner, emphasizing that her dog had to be able to adapt to new situations, handle loud noises, and be stubborn. She describes how having a guide dog gave her the freedom to travel and go on adventures. Africa ; Atlanta Motor Speedway ; bucket list ; bungee jumping ; canes ; confidence ; danger warnings ; Hawaii ; horseback riding ; independence ; Italy ; kayaking ; Labrador Retriever ; mission trip ; mobility training ; Naples, Florida ; Orlando, Florida ; Paris, France ; Richard Petty driving experience ; school for the blind ; tandem bike riding ; Universal Studios ; Venice ; zip-lining 17 1304 Leadership and community involvement I am Vice President of Madison's Lions Club. I am on the ADA committee at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, as well. Jones describes telling her life story in the poem " ; Journey to light" ; which was featured along with her picture at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. She describes starting Living Life Team, Inc., a support group for the blind and visually impaired. 501c3 organization ; ADA committee at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport ; Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ; Madison Lion's Club ; Montessori school ; Morgan County Library ; motivational speaking ; overcoming obstacles 17 www.livinglifeteam.net Living Life Team, Inc. IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Rita Harris for Our Stories, Our Lives: an Oral History Project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is July twelfth, and this is being recorded at the Morgan County Library. HARRIS: Hi. I' ; m Rita Harris and I will be telling you my story. I was born and raised in a small town in Good Hope, Georgia. And even from childhood all the way up through teenage adolescence through adult, I have always been very, very outgoing. I consider myself as an adrenaline junkie. The only thing I fear is the fear of God. Nothing. I don' ; t have fear of anything else. And I' ; m saying that to lead up to me being visually impaired. The year of 2002 is when I became visually impaired. Let me back up a little. From 1997 up until 2002, I notice difficulty in my vision and I had gone to three different ophthalmologists and I was misdiagnosed all three times. And when there was a very significant decrease in my vision, I went to a retina specialist, and that' ; s when I was correctly diagnosed with RP, which is known as Retinitis Pigmentosa. This was in 2002. Well, from there my life changed drastically. I went from being this total outgoing social person full of adrenaline to being socially withdrawn. And I went through anger, depression, and it was a very, very hard transition from me. I would not go on any social outings or would not accept any invitations. I would always make up excuses to why I couldn' ; t go, because in all honesty, I felt very ashamed of myself. I felt like I wasn' ; t whole. It wasn' ; t me. And for a long time, I tried to hide it. It was like that. You know, you smile on the outside and you cry as you' ; re dying on the inside. No one knew but my immediate family, which include my husband and my children. While I was in despair for such a long time, and like I said, I was just very, very angry. I was in denial. At first, I was in denial, because I didn' ; t want to give up the things that I loved doing, which was working--I work in the school system assisting children with disabilities. I loved shopping and I loved driving. I would drive to Timbuktu if I had to get somewhere. Reading poetry, dancing, are all things that I once loved to do, and it all had to come to a halt. I had to stop. So I went from being this totally independent outgoing person to being very dependent. I couldn' ; t--If I was out in a restaurant, I couldn' ; t even go to the ladies room without someone assisting me. So that took a very, very hard toll on me in my life and where I was in the way I was thinking. And a lot of people didn' ; t understand what I was going through, so that made it worse. I felt like I was in this alone, like I was on an island all by myself, and basically I was giving up. I was giving up on life. It got to a point to where I didn' ; t want to live any longer. But I, you know--And after just, you know, being in that self-pity party and self-pity party, I always say your true personality always prevails, because I knew that is not me. That' ; s not how God wanted me to live. So I prayed and I prayed and I asked God to help me get out of that situation. Well, a person--a friend of mine--referred me to vocational rehabilitation services, and I was assigned a mobility trainer that came to my home three days a week. And he gave me a cane. I had no cane training, no daily living skills training prior to this. So he gave me issued me a cane and he would train me inside and outside of my home. And once I mastered that, we would leave home and go downtown and work on intersection crossing, going into department stores working on independent shopping. And I did really good, because when I saw the difference that it would make in my life, then those light bulbs started going off in my head again. " ; Yes! I can do this! I can get back to the way I used to be!" ; So I was completely on a mission, and for the ones that know me, they know when I set my mind to going on a mission, I do not let anything stop me or get in the way. I do not take no for an answer. So I was I was headed forward. After about three months of training, he told me--said " ; You have done exceptionally well" ; and asked me if I had heard of Leader Dog for the Blind, which is located in Rochester Hills, Michigan. And I had not. Well, he recommended for me to get connected with the Leader Dog for the Blind. So I said sure. In order to get connected with Leader Dog, I would have to display a certain level of mobility skills and using a white cane, because this was in an accelerated orientation and mobility training week long class that Leader Dog was offering. So we continued to work on it. He had to actually video me--doing intersection crossings, going in and out of businesses using my cane, going up and down flights of stairs, crossing four way stop signs--to prove that I had a certain level of cane skills. Well it was submitted, the application was submitted as well as the video, and I was accepted. So I flew to Rochester Hills, Michigan, for a week. And you have to go alone. No one can go with you. And that was my first time--I had flown many times, but that was my first time flying solo since becoming visually impaired, let alone staying in a strange place for a whole week without someone familiar being there with me. There at Leader Dog, there were six of us in a class, and each one of us had our one-on-one instructor. My instructor was Dr. Linn. He was awesome. He was a veteran. He--and I didn' ; t realize this at the time, but you' ; re with them spending so many hours that week with them, they' ; re doing more than just teaching you mobility orientation--mobility skills. They' ; re actually observing you, and they' ; re recording your every move, how you walk, the strides that you take, how fast you walk, the way you think. They' ; re analyzing your thought process, the way you think mentally, the way you are physically, your personality, your character. And I didn' ; t know this at the time, but going on through the week long class, he saw my potential. He saw that I could be stubborn. I could be very adamant. And he pushed me to the limit. He introduced skills and techniques to me that I didn' ; t even know existed and I didn' ; t even know I had it in me to do it. We would go downtown Rochester Hills, Michigan, to a headquarters building, a place I' ; d never gone before, and we would walk like three or four different blocks. And learning--He' ; d tell me the name of the streets. And also, back up, he taught me compass direction which is, at any--when you' ; re walking anywhere, using your mental compass direction--north, south, east and west--at any given time when you' ; re walking, you should be able to stop and point back into the direction of where you started from. And I learned mental compass directions. So one day we was walking and we had gone about four different blocks. And he said, " ; Okay your job is to take us back to where we started from." ; And I said " ; Okay! I can do that." ; So I pointed back using my mental compass direction. He said " ; Wait a minute, you have to take us back a different route in which we came." ; And I couldn' ; t believe he was asking me to do that. I had to do it. So I gathered my thoughts and I was able to do it using my mental compass direction and all the techniques that he had taught me to learn. He also introduced night walking, was something I had never done before because it is totally different walking at night. Keeping in mind, I should have mentioned this earlier, that I am not completely blind. I' ; m visually impaired. I' ; m legally blind. I am totally blind in my left eye and I only have less than 13 percent left in my right eye. So I have a little bit of vision. I can see shapes. I can' ; t tell colors. I can' ; t see details when I' ; m looking at a person. I can' ; t see what their face looks like. So I go by shapes and feel and sounds. But night vision is totally different because that less than thirteen percent that I have in the daytime is completely dark at night and I can' ; t see anything. So that was really challenging for me to learn to walk and go from point A to point B independently, without someone assisting me, was challenging. But I mastered that as well. We also went to malls that was like three or four different stories, floors, and he told us to drop an anchor, meaning when you enter into a large place that have multiple floors, you listen for a specific sound that you can use to know that that' ; s where you entered in, so you listen for that sound when you' ; re trying to get back to the point to go out. He would give an assignment. For instance, I had to find Nordstrom, which was on the fourth floor, and I had to do this alone. I was able to ask someone for directions, but they was not able to guide me or lead me. I learned to do that, which also I learned to be an advocate for myself, meaning asking for help when you need help, but not allowing someone to take your hand and guide you or pull you because you have to be in control of yourself at all times. They just need to verbally give you directions, and then you take it from there. That was completely new to me, as well. So I mastered that. At the end of the week, he asked me if I had considered becoming a guide dog handler. And I told him no I had not. I never owned a dog. I didn' ; t know much about dogs, to be honest. And he said, " ; Well, you have done so well with this. You would be an excellent candidate for a guide dog handler." ; I said no, I don' ; t think so. No way, no how, I won' ; t do that. But he ignored me because, again, he saw my potential. The last day of class he arranged for a guide dog trainer to come in and bring a dog, and for me to work with the dog. Well I had one day to see the difference, and immediately I fell in love with it, because I realized that a guide dog will let you know when there' ; s a moving vehicle coming, or won' ; t allow you to bump into something or fall into a hole or step off of a curb. But a cane can' ; t tell you those things. The cane totally depends on the technique that you' ; re using. But a guide dog, you can you can move more faster, which that is how I live my life: in the fast lane, because I do a lot of traveling as well. So I fell in love with it, and when I had to go back the following day, I went to the airport and all, he asked me then " ; Would you like to get a guide dog?" ; I said absolutely. Normally it takes six months to a year to be accepted into the guide dog program, but when I returned home I got a call two days later saying that I had been highly recommended and they had a program set up in Naples, Florida, within the next two weeks, and would I' ; d be willing to go? And by this time, my adrenaline is going again! I' ; m going back to my old self! You know, it' ; s only poppin' ; now! I said sure. So two weeks later I flew to Naples, Florida, to train for my guide dog. And it was amazing, because you don' ; t know. It' ; s almost like carrying a child, and you' ; re giving birth and you don' ; t have the ultrasound to know the gender of the baby. It' ; s a total surprise when the baby gets here. Because they don' ; t tell you the breed of the dog, the color, the dog' ; s name or the gender. They don' ; t tell you anything. That first day--the first two days, you are in class, orientation class, where they are talking verbally, explaining everything to you. The second day, we went to our hotel rooms, and the trainer came in with our dogs. And it' ; s one on one, because you' ; re in your individual room with your trainer. And that' ; s how you meet your dog. And when I--My dog' ; s name is Madden, and when I saw him--he' ; s a chocolate lab. He was three years old at the time--He was two years old at the time. I' ; ve had him for three years, so he' ; s five years old now. And I honestly--I don' ; t know who was more nervous, me or the dog, because this was new to him. He was going to be leaving the trainer whom he had known for the past year going with me, a new owner, and to a whole different new environment. And I didn' ; t know anything about dogs, so this was just totally new to me. And I always tell people when they ask me that when we met and the trainer left out the room and Madden sat on the floor and he held his head to the side and looked at me, and I sat down on the floor in front of him and held my head to the side and looked at him. And I said, " ; Oh boy, you don' ; t know what to do with me and I don' ; t know what to do with you, but by the grace of God we' ; re going to make it through this thing." ; But we did. We worked vigorously eight hours a day together training. We would walk at least four or five miles per day in training. He was trained, but I had to be trained. I had to learn all the basic commands--stay, calm, forward, left, right. Had to learn his pace of walking. He had to learn to adapt to my pace of walking. But one of the good things is I learned one of the reasons why they observe you so closely is because when you' ; re matched up with the guide dog, they match the dog perfectly to fit the client and their lifestyle. For instance, I' ; m always on the go, always on the move, so I' ; m moving fast. My days could be very unpredictable, so I have to have a dog that can adapt to a change at any time. And there' ; s no telling what I' ; m around. He has to be able to handle loud noises, ' ; cause I' ; m very adventurous, and I have a personality. I have a very strong-willed personality, very adamant, and so I have to have a dog the same way, and vice versa. Because with my dog, he has a strong-willed personality. Someone who is easygoing and laidback, he will just completely take advantage of him. Just like a child will. They learn what they can get away with. So he has to have someone that can really handle him as well as me as well. Because, for one thing, if he senses danger--for instance, if we' ; re walking and there' ; s something he senses of danger, then he is so adamant he will just put on breaks. And with me being strong-willed, then I would say come on boy, let' ; s go. We gotta go. Let' ; s go. But with him being the same temperament as me, he wouldn' ; t budge. And I learned that he' ; s letting me know that there' ; s something unsafe for me and that' ; s why he refuses to go forward. So it kind of works--You know, it' ; s a twofold situation. But he is awesome. We go everywhere now together. Because of him, I have gained my confidence back, my self-esteem, which leads to that independence. And I have to give my guide dog, Madden, a lot of that credit. Because of him, my life has totally turned around. I thought it was good before I started losing my vision, but my life is actually absolutely wonderful now. It' ; s better than ever. I have a new life. I' ; m involved in so many things because of my newfound confidence and independence. I am--I have a bucket list, and I have been chipping away at that bucket list and I' ; m almost to the end of it. I have gone--Since I got Madden, I have gone to Italy. I' ; ve always wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I did that. The gondola boat ride in Venice. Going to Hawaii. I' ; ve always wanted to fly over an active volcano. I told you, I am adventurous. I did that. Let' ; s see. I' ; ve gone horseback--I do horseback riding. I' ; m trying to name them all. Kayaking, tandem bike riding, and this is all since I' ; ve lost most of my vision. I' ; m trying to think of anything else I' ; m leaving out. Bungee jumping, ziplining. Madden and I actually went to Orlando, Florida, alone, because we travel solo a lot. And I had gone to Universal Studios before, you know, with my family when I had sight. But I just wanted to do something challenging, so I went to Orlando, Florida, alone--just Madden and I--and we went to Universal Studios, just the two of us. By ourselves. And it was so much fun, but I really--We wrote rides together, and the ones that he couldn' ; t ride, they will accommodate and they had the kennel cages brought up right there and had someone to watch him. But he was able to ride with me the King Kong ride. He was able to ride Earthquake--I mean, he rode a lot of rides with me. That' ; s why I had to have a dog that can handle adventure and noises. I' ; ve gone to Atlanta Motor Speedway and did the Richard Petty driving experience where I got in a racecar and had a racecar driver to drive me. I' ; ve done that. Oh gosh, what else? There' ; s so much. I feel like I' ; m leaving some things out. I travel all over. I am looking forward this month to going to Africa. Madden won' ; t be able to go with me, but because of my independence I' ; m able to do it. I will be going to Africa to do mission work, and I will also be going to visit the school for the Blind as well. I am Vice President of Madison' ; s Lions Club. I am on the ADA committee at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, as well. And Madden and I just completed a project with Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, where I told my story and I was creative with it because, by the way, I do poetry as well. And I wrote my journey. It' ; s called Journey to Light, my story of my time being vision impaired. I put it in poetry, and it was chosen, so Madden and I will be on a display, a twenty four foot wall on the international concourse F at the Atlanta airport where there' ; s pictures of us and graphic art, designs of Madden and I, and the poem. And it will also be printed in Braille form as well. So that' ; s exciting. I do motivational speaking. I go into classrooms and do presentations on the visually impaired, because my main thing is encouraging, encouraging, encouraging, because no matter what your obstacles are, you can overcome those obstacles. You have to believe in yourself, where I--My motto is you reach for the stars. You don' ; t allow your disability to handicap you. And you don' ; t have to have a disability to reach for the stars. You can do anything you set your mind to. You just have to be dedicated and determined. And you also have to have that mind of persevering. And you can do anything you set your mind to. Because I look at myself where I started as to where I am now, and I just thank God for my mindset, my willingness, and my confidence and gaining that independence back. And that' ; s what I try to instill in everyone. Only entertain positive, because positive would take you far. Negative would take you nowhere. It will keep you in that hole, in that place of darkness, whether you' ; re sighted or visually impaired. Now I' ; m trying to think if there' ; s anything else I' ; m leaving out--the most important thing! Through my whole ordeal of difficult transitioning from becoming independent to dependent, God placed it in my spirit to start--I had a vision to start an organization. The organization is called Living Life Team Incorporated. We are 501c3 organization, and it is an organization that supports the blind and visually impaired, because I felt as though I was alone, I was ashamed, and I want to help others go through that transition with less difficulty, so they feel like that there are others that understand. I' ; m not in this thing alone. So that' ; s what I did with Living Life Team. It has been in existence since 2016. Now we have grown tremendously. We have a great group. We have a board of directors and I have about a total of 15 blind and vision impaired individuals that come every month. We meet on the second Thursday mornings every month at the Morgan County Library. I bring in different resource speakers, different activities, sports. We go on trips. We go on field outings as well. We have wonderful social gatherings. We do open topic discussions. We do goal-setting, so anyone who is having difficulty or dealing with some things, then we come together collaborative as a group to help that person work through what it is that they' ; re going--what their struggles are. And we really become one family. You know, when one' ; s going through something we all do. So we try to come together and help. We have a great, great group. But Living Life Team is a wonderful organization. I practically eat, sleep, and breathe it. It is my baby. Everything I do, I' ; m representing Living Life Team. No matter what I' ; m doing. When I go to Africa, I' ; m going to a school for the blind and I' ; m going to be representing Living Life Team as well. That' ; s Living Life Team. Is there anything else I' ; m leaving out? I hope I' ; m not leaving anything out. There' ; s so much going on in my life right now. I do motivational speaking. I also had an opportunity on last month to go to a Montessori school and talk to the students as well on being visually impaired and overcoming challenges as well, so that was that was really interesting. We have a web site, which is www.livinglifeteam.net, as well as a Facebook page, which is Living Life Team as well. Thank you. IRVIN: Well, thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Rita. You' ; re a very interesting person. You have a good day. HARRIS: Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-003.xml RBRL451GLASS-003.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
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Madison, Georgia
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28 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Rita Harris, July 12, 2018
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RBRL451GLASS-003
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Rita Harris
Stephanie Irvin
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video
oral histories
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People with disabilities--Education
People with visual disabilities
Self-help groups
African Americans with disabilities
African Americans--History
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Rita Harris was born in Good Hope, Georgia. She worked in the school system assisting children with disabilities before she became visually impaired due to retinitis pigmentosa. Harris describes adjusting to life as a visually impaired person. A self-professed "adrenaline junkie", she has travelled extensively and gone bungee jumping and ziplining. Harris also talks about starting a support group, Living Life Team, for people who are visually impaired or blind.
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2018-07-12
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Georgia
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moving image
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-
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
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Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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2018
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RBRL451GLASS
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Georgia
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5.3 Interview with Empish Thomas, August 16, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-004 RBRL451GLASS Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Empish Thomas Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|13(7)|24(2)|36(11)|48(8)|59(15)|72(9)|82(12)|93(3)|103(8)|114(1)|123(3)|134(8)|145(11)|158(2)|170(7)|182(14) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_fqqdsd4q& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_vjkqjxo9" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 22 Life before blindness My name is Empish Thomas, and it's interesting how life's journeys take you around in a complete circle. Thomas describes her summer job working for the Office for Civil Rights Department of Health and Human Services where she typed investigative reports and compliance reports for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thomas describes being totally sighted at the time and interacting with disabled coworkers including someone who was blind. She talks about graduating from Florida A& ; M University before going to work at a public relations firm in Atlanta. Civil Rights Act of 1964 ; civil rights investigators ; clerk typist ; Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (Florida A& ; M University) ; Government agency ; journalism ; section 504 rehabilitation act 1973 ; Tallahassee, Florida 17 247 Losing vision And within six months' time of moving here, I start to lose my vision. Thomas describes losing her vision to uveitis which is a condition that causes inflammation in the back of the eye near the retina. She talks about losing her job and finding another where she was able to get accommodations for her worsening vision. Thomas describes going to a vision rehabilitation program to learn about screen reading technology, using a cane, braille, and mobility skills. CCTV ; closed captioning device ; eye doctors ; light sensitivity ; low-vision therapy ; magnification ; medical insurance ; medical treatment ; Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act ; white cane 17 551 Freelance journalism I went through all of that, came back to work successfully then I got downsized. Thomas describes losing her job due to downsizing and deciding to work as a freelance journalist. She talks about expanding her freelance business while also working for a small non-profit. She describes taking a position at a vision rehabilitation center where she worked for ten years before returning to freelance journalism. blind ; editors ; magazines ; marketing ; newspapers ; nonprofit ; public outreach ; public relations ; the stock market crash of 2008 ; writing 17 781 Entertainment and civic engagement Now outside of my work, because work is not all the things that I do, I'm a great lover of books. Thomas describes her love of books and talks about how she participates in multiple book clubs and uses the National Library Service (NLS) talking book library, Bookshare, and audio books. She talks about her appreciation for audio-described movies both at the movie theater and on Netflix. She describes her recent involvement in local government where she talks with the mayor and her city councilwoman about making changes locally. education ; family ; friends ; World Book encyclopedias 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Empish Thomas for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives" ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is August sixteenth, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Georgia Radio Reading Service in Atlanta, Georgia. THOMAS: My name is Empish Thomas, and it' ; s interesting how life' ; s journeys take you around in a complete circle. When I was sixteen years old, I worked at a federal government agency called the Office for Civil Rights Department of Health and Human Services. It was one of those federal government jobs that a lot of high school kids did during the summer and also during the school year for an internship where we worked part-time and went to school part-time. And I was a clerk typist. This is back in the ' ; 80s, so I' ; m kind of dating myself a little bit. So this was before PCs and personal computers and iPads and tablets and stuff where someone, or co-workers, rather, I should say, would give a clerk typist their work because they typed it all in longhand, and I would type up everything--memos, correspondence, letters, things along that line--and then hand them back to my colleagues. Well, in that position I worked with civil rights investigators. And so I typed up investigative reports and things along that line. And I also typed up voluntary compliance reports, things in that area where people would voluntarily comply with the civil rights laws which is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, section 504, Rehabilitation Act of things along that line. I had co-workers who were disabled. My supervisor was in a wheelchair. I had one co-worker who had cerebral palsy, and I had one co-worker who was blind. Now you may be asking why am I talking about all of that. Well, when I was sixteen years old I was totally sighted. I did not have any problems with my eyesight. I had no idea that later on, ten years later fast-forward, I would be totally blind. It was just a summer job, and it was a great opportunity to be able to work, get valuable work experience, but I had no idea that that experience at that particular agency would help me as an adult and would further me along my life journey later on. So, as I said before, it' ; s funny how life takes you a whole circle around in the different things that you deal with. So I really appreciate that experience, that time, the folks I worked with because they really helped me later on in life. Now fast-forward ten years later. It' ; s 1995, 1996. I just graduated from college. I went to school in Tallahassee at Florida A& ; M University. It' ; s May--yeah, I' ; m graduating in May--that' ; s correct--(laughs)--trying to remember when I graduated. And I just got my degree. I just got a promising job at a PR firm in Atlanta, Georgia, so I' ; m very excited about coming to the Atlanta area to work in my field. I got a degree in journalism, specifically in public relations. And so I' ; m moving here. I' ; m very excited starting my career, starting my new life. I' ; m young. I' ; m single. I' ; m ready to go. And within six months' ; time of moving here, I start to lose my vision. It starts off kind of slow but kind of fast where I have problems with sunlight. I' ; m like Dracula, you know, I can' ; t deal with the sunlight ; I have to wear dark wraparound glasses even indoors. I have to keep the shades down, the curtains. I can' ; t deal with indoor light. And my roommate is telling me, " ; Empish, you gotta go to the doctor and see what' ; s going on with your eyes." ; So I went to the hospital, went to the doctor' ; s office. And they couldn' ; t tell me exactly what the problem was so they referred me to a specialist who referred me to another specialist who finally told me, " ; This is what you have: You have uveitis which is a condition that causes inflammation in the back of the eye near the retina, and we' ; ve got to get you some medication to get the inflammation down." ; I had never heard of this condition before, didn' ; t know anything about it, had never had any problems with my eye site prior to that time. Nobody in my family had any types of vision problems. Didn' ; t even wear glasses. So I was quite in shock by this development, but was glad that I had found a doctor who knew what it was and could give me some medical treatment. So I started this journey of taking medication, going to eye doctors, surgeries, low-vision therapy--all of those kinds of things. I ended up losing my public relations position that I had gotten, and started temping and trying to kind of figure out what to do with my career. I was temping at a corporate company working in H.R. where they ended up hiring me on fulltime, and so I was able to get really great benefits, medical insurance, and that sort of a thing. And they also provided the accommodations that I needed. And, go back to that job I had when I was sixteen, I remember those laws I used to sit and type all day when I was a clerk typist--that section 504, that Rehabilitation Act, civil rights laws. I remembered all of that--accommodations and things like that--for people in the workforce. And I remember that co-worker that I had that was blind and the types of technology she used. Even though it was in the ' ; 80s, a lot of what she used at her job, I started to be able to use, too. And I was able to share with my supervisor that I needed a CCTV, which is a closed captioning device, that I needed magnification on my computer screen, handheld magnifiers, special pins and dark lined paper, even using a white cane because that' ; s what I saw her use. So I knew that a person with a vision impairment could work, could thrive, could live and function. I didn' ; t know all of the things that she had done to do it, but I saw her do it every day when I was a teenager. So my supervisor, I was very fortunate to work in an environment where my supervisor and my employer as a whole were very open-minded to working with me and helping me to stay in my position at work. But my vision got worse. So those low vision devices that magnification on my computer, the CCTV, those special pins and paper, it didn' ; t work anymore. I magnify my screen and I magnify my screen, and it' ; s not working. And so now I' ; m having to go to my supervisor and say, " ; Hey, you know, I need to go through a rehabilitation program. I need to take time off from work and learn more skills so I can come back to the job and continue to work." ; And she was still very responsive to that, very supportive of that. So I took off a year from my job and I went through a vision rehabilitation program where I learned how to use screen reading technology. I learned how to use a white cane. I learned some braille. I learned daily living skills. A mobility instructor came out to my job site, taught me how to catch the bus, how to get into my office building, how to get home safely from work--all of those kinds of skills so that I could be able to return back to work and keep working. I went through all of that, came back to work successfully then I got downsized. (laughs) Well actually we all got downsized, so it wasn' ; t anything personal. So then I' ; m out of a job, (chuckles) not sure what to do next. This is 1996--no, 1999. So I said, " ; Well what do I do with myself?" ; I was working. I' ; m now totally blind. I' ; ve lost all my vision. I' ; m what now, twenty nine, twenty eight years old and I' ; m not sure where to go next. But I still had a love for writing and journalism. I didn' ; t really get a chance to do much in it because I lost my vision right out of college. So I decided that' ; s what I wanted to do, but I wasn' ; t sure how well I' ; d be received because now I' ; m blind. And who' ; s going to hire a blind journalist? I didn' ; t think many people would really be receptive to that. So I went into freelancing where I could work from home and kind of do it a little bit behindthe scenes. I went online ; I learned about freelancing gigs ; I set up a Web site and I started pitching stories to editors in magazines and newspapers and kind of building up a little bit of a freelance business. And I was quite successful with it. I had a little part-time job at a small nonprofit, so it didn' ; t quite, you know, financially it wasn' ; t all of my earnings, but it wasn' ; t half bad. For a couple of years I did this along with the work I did with my nonprofit, and it was a great experience for me ; it was a great esteem booster--it helped me to feel really great about the fact that I could do this work. And it allowed me to use my degree that I had worked so hard for ; I was actually able to take advantage of it. And then a lot of the editors I worked for had no idea that I was blind (laughs) which I thought was kind of interesting. So, but then the market crashed--it was 2007, 2008--the economy tanked. Things were going kind of crazy. A friend of mine told me about a position at a nonprofit at a vision rehab center--the very place where I got my training. And I went there to work for several years--about ten years, actually--and I started doing public relations, marketing, public outreach to the community telling them about the agency and how they could access services and the programs that we had to offer at the time, and did a little bit of journalism there as well. So I stayed in that position for several years. And so here we are today and I' ; m back freelancing again at home. So I' ; ve come back around full circle again, as I shared before. It' ; s funny how life is--you go around in these different circles on your life' ; s path and life' ; s journey of constantly coming around and around again. And you learn these different valuable lessons about how life can take you topsy-turvy. But you come back around and you learn new things and you meet great people networking and building great relationships. And I' ; ve been really fortunate to have that. Now outside of my work, because work is not all the things that I do, I' ; m a great lover of books. I grew up going to the library all the time. My parents were great lovers of books and reading newspapers, magazines. When I was in third grade, my dad bought me my very first set of World Book encyclopedias. I don' ; t know if you guys remember those, but I had a set of World Book encyclopedias when I was in the third grade. And so I still love books and literature. I subscribe to the NLS talking book library, Bookshare, audio books--so I love the library. I' ; m in part of two different book clubs--one, we go out to eat once a month ; the other one is that my local community library where we meet once a month. So I' ; m always reading and checking out different things. I' ; m a big lover of movies. I particularly love audio-described movies, so I' ; m at the movie theater on a constant basis all the time trying to check out the latest and the greatest flick that' ; s out. I love Netflix audio-described movies as well, too. So I check those out at home if I' ; m not able to get to the local movie theater. And I love spending time with my friends, both sighted and blind. I' ; ve built up some really great relationships over the years, so I' ; ve been able to really enjoy spending wonderful time with friends. And my family, as well, has been very supportive of my life and the different things that I' ; ve been involved in. Lately I' ; ve gotten involved with my local city council--not so much being in a particular position there, but more so getting involved in the way of just becoming more aware and becoming more educated in how city government works. Sometimes you' ; re not always able to impact government on the higher levels, but local level government, you can make a difference. And so I' ; ve been able to get to know the mayor of my city, my city councilwoman--I' ; ve gotten to know her and attend her meetings. We' ; ve had many conversations about changes that can take place in my city, and really making a positive role and a positive impact there which has been really encouraging to me to learn more about how to advocate educating myself on how local city government works. I never would have thought I' ; d be involved in something like that, but I made a decision this year to really get involved in that. And it' ; s been a really great experience for me. So I' ; m real excited about that. Each day I try to learn something new, reach out to someone new, and take advantage of all the opportunities that exist for me. So it' ; s been a great journey. IRVIN: Well thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Empish. THOMAS: You' ; re welcome. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-004.xml RBRL451GLASS-004.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
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Atlanta, Georgia
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16 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Empish Thomas, August 16, 2018
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RBRL451GLASS-004
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Empish Thomas
Stephanie Irvin
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video
oral histories
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People with visual disabilities
Journalism
People with visual disabilities--Services for
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Empish Thomas grew up sighted before losing her vision after college to uveitis, a condition that causes inflammation in the back of the eye near the retina. Thomas describes navigating the workforce while blind, discussing her careers in human relations and freelance journalism.
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2018-08-16
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Georgia
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moving image
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
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Georgia Disability Archive
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Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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2018
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RBRL451GLASS
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Georgia
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5.3 Interview with Jarrett McNutt, October 29, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-005 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Jarrett McNutt Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|12(3)|23(4)|34(4)|42(17)|53(1)|60(12)|69(16)|80(2)|89(2)|98(2)|108(7)|116(5)|125(17)|134(16)|145(1)|155(4)|164(14)|178(9)|187(12)|197(1)|204(13)|213(14)|223(1) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_5dp2qatg& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_qn3cqqyn" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 25 Family history Well, it is a pleasure to be here. My great-grandfather, George Hanover McNutt moved to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1847. McNutt describes his family history, beginning with his great-grandfather who moved to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1847. He briefly talks about the lives of his grandfather, father, mother, and siblings. Billy McNutt ; chemist ; Civil War ; Confederate troops ; education ; Ershell McNutt ; farming ; George Hanover McNutt ; Grand Ole Opry ; MacArthur's army ; Maud McNutt ; Milford McNutt ; Mississippi State University ; moon dust ; moon rocks ; Nashville, Tennessee ; Noel McNutt ; Patton's army ; Paul McNutt ; Reynolds Aluminum ; the Battle of Shiloh ; Thomas Nebraska McNutt ; Vera McNutt ; Wernher Von Braun ; World War II (WWII) 17 303 Early life / Working on family farm My father died, and I was born in December, and we lost the farm that we were on. McNutt describes how before he was born, his family lost their farm because his father died. He talks about working with his siblings on multiple farms where he picked cotton and managing the family's farm as a twelve-year-old alongside his fifteen-year-old brother. Christine McNutt ; Columbus, Mississippi ; doctor ; education ; Erschell McNutt ; Mississippi University for Women (MSCW) ; mules ; Orville McNutt ; sawmill ; scholarship ; Sherben McNutt ; Tishomingo 17 518 University and seminary education And then I did all right in elementary school. I was valedictorian in my eight grade class. McNutt recalls being valedictorian in eight grade but then barely attending high school. He mentions joining the army and serving oversees in World War II. He talks about deciding to become a minister and to attend Mississippi College, and later, seminary. He briefly describes working as a minister in different hospitals. Augusta, Georgia ; Camp Gordon ; elementary school ; infantry ; Louisville, Kentucky ; minister ; Missouri ; Pineville, Louisiana ; Winston-Salem Hospital ; World War 2 ; WW2 ; WWII 17 657 Clinical Pastoral Care Organization I am a certified supervisor in the Clinical Pastoral Care Organization. This organization is designed to educate ministers so that they can be more effective in their churches. McNutt describes his work as a certified supervisor in the Clinical Pastoral Care Organization where he helps young ministers of all Christian denominations learn how to apply theological teaching and become more effective preachers. Bible ; gospel ; internship ; Southern Baptist ; theological education 17 851 Staring a family While in graduate school in Louisville, Kentucky, one of my friends was bragging about a pretty little nurse that he had discovered. McNutt describes marrying his wife, moving to Louisiana, and having two baby girls. He talks about his wife being diagnosed with tuberculosis which prompted him to hire a woman to run the household and care for the children. He talks about his wife's recovery and their baby boy. babysitter ; childcare ; hospitalization ; marriage ; physician 17 1105 Growing old / Legally blind And he's now and engineer in Kentucky, and his company had built a factory in China. McNutt describes his children's careers and their families, talking about his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He talks about being 92 and discusses his health difficulties, including being legally blind, having a lung deficiency, and requiring use of a walking stick or wheelchair. He thanks the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) for their Talking Books program and the Veterans Administration for his medical care. Association of Churches in Mobile ; engineer ; family ; handicap ; nurse ; teacher ; Women's Missionary Union (WMU) 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) English IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Jarrett " ; J." ; McNutt for " ; Our Stories: Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is November 29, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Columbia Library in Evans, Georgia. Thank you Mr. McNutt for being here today. MCNUTT: Well it is a pleasure to be here. My great-grandfather, George Hanover McNutt moved to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, in 1847. He died before my grandfather Billy McNutt was born. And my grandfather Billy was a nine-year-old boy in the schoolyard when he saw the Confederate troops marching into the Battle of Shiloh. He said the soldiers were--some of them were barefooted, some were crying, but he said the others of them were singing. And then my father was Thomas Nebraska McNutt. And my mother had a fourth-grade education, and my father was a farmer and logger. And my oldest sister, her name was Vera, and she spent her life helping raise the rest of us McNutt boys. There was only ten of us in the family. Then my second sister Maud was married to Charlie [indistinct] Wilson and they lived in an adjoining county. And then my oldest brother Paul, he went to high school and it was really expensive. It was a boarding school and the cost for tuition, room and board was ten dollars per month. But he didn' ; t have ten dollars, but a neighbor man loaned him ten dollars to start school. And then he graduated with honors at the high school, and then he got a chemistry degree at Mississippi State University. And then in World War II, well, he had a commission when he graduated from Mississippi State. The reason I can remember his graduation is that my mother got me dressed, cleaned up, and told me to not get dirty, and I spilled a bottle of ink on the front of shirt, and so from then on, I could tell whose shirt was whose because mine had the blue spots on it. But this brother, he was a lucky man because in 1941, thirty men by the rank of captain were scheduled to go to the Philippines to join MacArthur' ; s army but, at the last minute, they decided to send twenty five, and my brother Paul was number twenty six. Later he served as a commander of tanks in Patton' ; s army, but he got injured. And then he was a chemist and worked with Wernher Von Braun in developing, well, he wrote the manual for evaluating the moon dust and moon rocks. And then my other brother Milford McNutt was a man of many talents that spent his life in his own workshop building items. One thing that he built was a $3,000 wall plaque that was for an automobile agency. The owner had killed a moose out west and wanted a good board, and so my brother made this fancy wall mount. And then my next brother was Noel McNutt and he was the--he wasn' ; t a mean fellow, but he was tough. And he worked at Reynolds Aluminum and the government froze him on his job, and would not allow him to join the military because they needed the aluminum. But he played country music. He took his band to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. And then he ran a music show in a national armory. He never did tell us how much money he had, but I do know that he had money in eleven banks and savings associations. But he was a good man. Then my next brother was Ershell McNutt. He was the one who helped my brother find another place to live. My father died, and I was born in December, and we lost the farm that we were on. And a widow woman and a bunch of boys are not very welcome on a landowner' ; s land, but a club-footed doctor allowed us to move to his large farm in the back woods. And we moved there and made a good crop, but my mother wanted us to go to school. She had a, as I mentioned before, had a fourth-grade education, but she had a Ph.D. in determination. She was a quiet lady, but she knew how to manage boys and girls. So we moved to another farm. My eighteen-year-old brother Erschell took the mules and hauled logs to a sawmill and sawed lumber on our cousin' ; s farm about one mile south of Tishomingo which had a good consolidated school. So we moved there, and we went to school and farmed. And I was--when I was ten years old, I was picking two hundred pounds of cotton a day. And my sister Christine was one of the--my sister that worked along with us boys, and I' ; ll talk about here later. Then my brother Sherben took over the leadership of the family, and we bought a team of mules that had not been broken, but we--the neighbors said, " ; Those mules will run away with you kids!" ; But we taught the mules how to pull a wagon and how to pull a plow and got along with them beautifully. My brother Sherben and my sister Christine were in the same grade in school and they finished together. And then they graduated from high school, and my sister won a contest for writing the best paper on alcoholism. And then her paper won first place in the county among five other high schools. And the prize was to be a $100 scholarship for her to go to college on, but the officials in the county said, " ; We never have given a hundred dollars, and we' ; re not going to start with you." ; But my sister--I referred to as the " ; Unsinkable Molly Brown." ; She was not an obnoxious person, but she was very determined. She got the hundred dollars to go to college on, and she went to MSCW at Columbus, Mississippi, and played the bass fiddle in the orchestra. And we picked her up in a wagon at the train station and brought her home one afternoon after her first year, and the next morning she put her bonnet on and went to the field with us and chopped cotton. I was twelve years old and my brother was fifteen--my brother Orville--when we took over the farming, but it was no big deal because we had grown up on the farm. And then I did all right in elementary school. I was valedictorian in my eight grade class. But then we moved and my high school was very slight ; I didn' ; t go very much. I would go days when we had ballgames. And then Uncle Sam called me to go the Army, and I reported over here to Camp Gordon here in Augusta and took the infantry training, served overseas, and then came home, and I was going to be a minister. I decided I was going to be a minister when I was sixteen years old, but I didn' ; t know where to go to school. But I got enough information that I found out that I needed to get a college degree before I went to seminary. But in the hill country, the most education that we ever had over a minister was that his hound dogs treed a rabbit in a vacant school. That sounds ridiculous, but we just did not have educated ministers that I grew up with. But I went to Mississippi College, and didn' ; t take me four years ; it took me a little over two and a half. But it then I went to this seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and picked up another degree after three years. Then I took an additional year of training at the Winston-Salem Hospital. And then my first job was at the 3,100-patient mental hospital in Pineville, Louisiana, and we lived there nine years. And then I moved to Missouri. A psychiatrist that worked with us, I worked with in Louisiana, became the principal, the head doctor, at a hospital in Missouri, so I moved up there, and I was there for about ten years. I am a certified supervisor in the Clinical Pastoral Care Organization. This organization is designed to educate ministers so that they can be more effective in their churches. And I might say that it is somewhat like what you do in the medical field when a medical student gets a college degree, then four years of med school, then he takes an internship. We follow that same pattern in theological education. For example, my interns had to have a four-year college degree, a three-year graduate degree, plus experience, and pass the " ; McNutt Test." ; And the McNutt Test was very simple: Do you want to get in and work and study and make your reports and respond to the situation? Or, do you want to sit around drinking coffee and bat the breeze? And if they wanted to drink coffee nd bat the breeze, I did not and would not have them as students. And it was a rare privilege to walk along with young men and women who devoted their lives to Christian ministry--I had Jewish rabbis, Catholic priests, Catholic theologians. I' ; m Southern Baptist, myself. But what I did, I did not grant degrees ; their seminaries are the ones that gave them their degrees, but I could provide the training. This is a broader step in theological education. It' ; s simply taking a person who has read a lot of books and has a lot knowledge but, then, how does he apply to the people, real people? How does he get along with them? How does he relate to them? That' ; s--and many pastors are very effective and never had a day of CPE in their lives. They don' ; t need it because they know how to meet people ; they know how to greet them ; they know how to share what we call the gospel, or the good will, or the Bible. But it does help young ministers learn how to be more effective quicker. And so that' ; s been my career in theological education. It' ; s been a pleasure to walk along with men and women of different denominations. They didn' ; t try to convert me, and I didn' ; t try to convert them to be a Baptist. But it was a delight to see how many different people have so much in common. And this has been a wonderful career, and I' ; ve enjoyed it thoroughly. It' ; s hard work but very rewarding. While in graduate school in Louisville, Kentucky, one of my friends was bragging about a pretty little nurse that he had discovered. And I thought he was just bragging ; you know, boys do brag about their girlfriends. But sure enough, I found out he was telling the truth. And so I found out that he was an honest fellow. And so we started dating, and we got married after a short courtship of three and one half years, and we moved to Louisiana, and our daughter was born about a year later. And then a year later than that, the second daughter was born. And when the second daughter was five months old, my wife was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was hospitalized. And she was hospitalized for a period of eight months and would have been longer, but they made arrangements so that she could be followed by a physician at our own hospital, which she did. And this physician was excellent and helped her along real well. The thing that I discovered that there' ; s a lot of work involved in taking care of children. I was accustomed doing heavy labor back on the farm and could do that and did do it. But when you make bottles of milk and fold diapers and do a dozen other things taking care of babies, you wind up at about 10:30 at night exhausted, and you' ; d get up the next morning and fix breakfast and go to work and so forth. But we found a babysitter who was a large lady from Texas. And she and her daughter needed a place to live while the daughter finished at college which was nearby. And this lady came into the household and took over, but she never one time gave me advice as to how to raise my babies. And she was a lady of quality and stayed with us even a month or two after Vera came home to make sure Vera was well taken care of and that we made it all right. And one time, when I tried to find--I travel 45 miles to find a lady who needed a job desperately. And finally she said, " ; If your mother was living with you, I would come and live with you." ; We lived in a big house, and there was a separate apartment in his house where a lady or a family had lived and work for by--work for--taking care of the babies and providing meals for me. And this lady from Texas, if she ran short of food for the evening meal, she' ; d go to a neighbor' ; s house and borrow something. She was a delight. And one time, when he had visited a lady who needed a job, and she said--she' ; s the one that said, " ; If your mother was living with you, I' ; m come and live with him." ; Anyway, when this daughter was, I guess she was about three years old, and the younger baby was asleep--I had already put her to bed--and then this daughter spoke up and said, " ; Daddy, we do not need a lady." ; And that made me feel good. But we did need a lady to run the household and take care of things. But I thank my wife, she made a splendid recovery and, later, we had about a bouncing baby boy. And he' ; s now and engineer in Kentucky, and his company had built a factory in China. And our second daughter was the WMU, or the Women' ; s Missionary Union of the Association of Churches in Mobile. There' ; s 146 Baptist churches in Mobile. And the women' ; s organization, she was president of it for several years, and she works as a nurse. She' ; s a registered nurse and retired last year, but she' ; s continuing to work. And this daughter is a teacher and she takes care of Vera and I now and she and her husband and her two sons. And she has--she won' ; t tell you about it, but she has five-months-old great-grandsons ; they' ; re twins. And they have an older sister who is almost three years old now. So we had a wonderful time Thanksgiving. I told them that Vera and I had won the jackpot. And I said proof of it is these little ones and my daughters and my son and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I want to say that I' ; m only ninety two years old, and the Veterans Administration considers me legally blind. And I do take shots in the eyes once a month to maintain what little vision I have. And I am being treated also so for a lung deficiency. And I walk with a walking stick. And the V.A. is planning to give me a wheelchair, but I resist using a wheelchair, but I do need one when I stir around very much. But I' ; m fine that life can go on in spite of our difficulties. And fortunately, my daughter and her husband and her two sons and one of her grandsons is ten years old and the other one is four years old and they are a delight. And the ten-year-old assists me everywhere I go ; he' ; ll open doors for me and help me stand up and he' ; ll run and get my walking stick for me. He does things without me asking. He' ; s a pleasure to be around. He does well in his school work. He' ; s the son of her second son. And she has two sons. And the other son manages a restaurant for a living and he' ; s a delight, and he' ; s the one that has twin boys and the little girl that' ; s about three years old, and they live here in the area. So my wife and I do indeed feel blessed. And we think what--we thank the GLASS organization for their splendid cooperation with me. All I have to do is call in what books I want and they come within a day or two. And I usually have more books than I can read at one time. But I read them and put them in the mail box. And it' ; s a blessing indeed, and I deeply appreciate. And I find that Vera and I are not accustomed to being waited upon. But now, at this stage in our lives, we have to be waited upon. And it' ; s a different lifestyle, but we appreciate it very much. And she and her family does unbelievable things for us, and our neighbors do the same thing, and it makes life enjoyable, and helps us tremendously. So I want to say that if anyone has had difficulty with handicap, their injuries, or whatever, that life can go on. So I am very thankful for what the Veterans Administration and other organizations are doing to assist me and my wife in living more comfortably. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-005.xml RBRL451GLASS-005.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
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Evans, Georgia
Duration
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24 minutes
Repository
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Jarrett McNutt, October 29, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-005
Creator
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Jarrett McNutt
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
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United States. Army--Soldiers
World War, 1939-1945
Religious leaders
Blindness
People with visual disabilities
Description
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Jarrett McNutt served in the army during World War II before becoming a minister and working for the Clinical Pastoral Care Organization. He talks about his family history and his career as a minister.
Date
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2018-10-29
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
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Georgia
Type
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moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2018
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-006/ohms
OHMS Object Text
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5.3 Interview with Bridgette Suttle, October 09, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-006 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Bridgette Suttle Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|12(3)|22(7)|33(14)|44(2)|54(15)|66(8)|76(2)|86(3) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_o0wmgv8e& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_qpbljtn7" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 21 Family and education Thank you for having me. Well, I am an adopted and only child of what I thought to be the world's greatest parents. Suttle describes being adopted by " ; the world's greatest parents." ; She talks about how her grandfather was blind which made it easier for her to accept her blindness when she lost her sight as an adult. She mentions growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, graduating from Riverwood High School and then attending Savannah State University. She talks about having a child and working as a master corporate trainer at wireless provider company. adoption ; Grady Hospital ; New Jersey ; overachiever 17 121 Consequences of untreated diabetes And my life continued on beautifully until some years later. Probably, when I was about thirty-five, I started to notice some things--noticed things with my vision. Suttle recalls being diagnosed with type two diabetes as a young adult but not doing anything to treat or manage her diabetes for seventeen years. She talks about losing her vision at 36 to diabetic retinopathy, a condition caused by uncontrolled blood sugar levels. She discusses the trauma of having her foot amputated after she stepped on a nail and the depression she felt after losing her job. hospital ; legally blind ; wheelchair 17 290 Disability services And, at the time, I didn't know the change that was happening, but there was a change that was coming. Suttle describes how her mother helped her out of her depression by connecting her to disability services including the Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) and disABILITY LINK, two Atlanta-based organizations. She talks about learning how to adapt to her blindness as well as to advocate for herself. Suttle discusses talking steps to manage her diabetes and getting a prosthetic which enabled her to walk again. cross-disabilities community ; exercise ; independent living ; life skills ; mobility training ; rehabilitation ; therapy 17 English IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Bridgette Suttle for " ; Our Stories: Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is October ninth [2018], and this is being recorded at GLASS Atlanta, the recording studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you, Bridgette, for being with me today. SUTTLE: Thank you for having me. Well, I am an adopted and only child of what I thought to be the world' ; s greatest parents. I was certainly reared and trained to be a super-achiever. My grandfather was blind from birth, and my parents and I often joked about how God created and made things because my blindness came later on in life, and it was something that was already very familiar to everyone in our family, so it wasn' ; t it wasn' ; t as big of a deal as maybe it should have been or as big of a deal as others took it. Again, I was reared and trained to be a super-achiever. I did grow up right here in Atlanta, Georgia. And I often say that, although I was born in New Jersey, I came straight here to Grady Hospital, so I am a transplant Grady Baby. I went to high school here in Atlanta, Georgia ; graduated from Riverwood High School. I later went on to Savannah State University in the fall of 1990. By the mid-nineties, I had graduated college ; I had a baby and considered myself to be a young, up-and-coming corporate professional. I did eventually settle with a wireless provider as a master corporate trainer. And my life continued on beautifully until some years later. Probably, when I was about thirty-five, I started to notice some things--noticed things with my vision. I knew some, probably seventeen years prior to that, I had been diagnosed with diabetes--type two diabetes. And from that point of diagnosis, I did absolutely nothing to maintain or control my diabetes diagnosis. And I didn' ; t do anything because I felt fine. When I looked in the mirror, I felt like I looked fine--just really had no idea what was going on the inside of my body. Well, it certainly started to tell on me. At about thirty-six, my vision started to severely blur, and this was due to an eye condition called diabetic retinopathy which, of course, is a condition caused by uncontrolled blood sugar levels. This eye condition, to date, has rendered me legally blind. After that, at the age of thirty-seven, my right foot was amputated--I stepped on a nail. By the age of thirty-eight, I was absolutely broken. I was depressed and jobless. And I felt like, you know, how could a person with such wonderful parents and what I consider to be a beautiful life, you know, how in the world could I allow this to happen? I was totally devastated--just not devastated, but also in a wheelchair. And I sat in a wheelchair for three years just kind of allowing life and my weight and the fact that I had walked into the hospital but could not walk out--I had allowed those things to overtake me. And, you know, the medical profession, they all told me, " ; Hey! You' ; re healed!" ; You know, " ; Everything is back to normal." ; You know, but inside of my head I thought, well, how do you heal from going blind, like emotionally and mentally? And even, how do you heal from an amputated foot emotionally and mentally and even physically? I couldn' ; t figure out how to get back in the game, and it was a game that, you know, I had been taught to perfect. And so, just there I sat. And, at the time, I didn' ; t know the change that was happening, but there was a change that was coming. And I strongly believe it was due to what I call my " ; pushy, praying, meddling mama." ; She refused to allow me to accept defeat for myself. So what she did is she got me involved with resources, first, through the Center for the Visually Impaired--that' ; s also known as CVI, which is--it was a training and rehabilitation center for the blind. And there, I learned to cope, and I even learned to live with my visual impairment. I participated in various group and one-on-one therapy sessions. I also partook of courses that taught me to do things like launder my clothes, cook and prepare my foods, and even maintain and operate a computer, you know, with no sight. From there, I learned about another resource, and that was disABILITY LINK. disABILITY LINK was a center of independent living that offers services and resources to people of the cross-disabilities community. So that means, no matter what your disability is, this place has something there to help you. From there, I learned to advocate for myself. I learned to read a situation according to the different sounds and maybe even the cadence of a person' ; s voice. And that is just something that I did not have before losing my sight. So now, what you have before you, you have the voice of recovery right here. You know, this is the voice of independent living ; I certainly am hope. Again, I have a voice, and I' ; m determined to use it. I have learned to maintain my diabetes through what I eat, what I drink, and through exercise, which is something I absolutely hate, but it is absolutely--it is a necessary, especially in my world and in my life. I have now been walking with a prosthetic for over six years. I am no longer a crippled, below-the-knee amputee ; I am now able to stand tall and strong with the strut of a proud peacock. Again, I am recovery. And what I' ; ll say is my sight is extremely bad, yet my vision is crystal clear at this point in my life. IRVIN: Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today, Bridgette. SUTTLE: You' ; re welcome. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-006.xml RBRL451GLASS-006.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
8 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bridgette Suttle, October 09, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-006
Creator
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Bridgette Suttle
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Blindness
Diabetes--Complications
African Americans with disabilities
People with visual disabilities--Services for
African Americans--History
Description
An account of the resource
Bridgette Suttle was born in New Jersey, but she grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She became legally blind as an adult due to complications from type 2 diabetes. Suttle describes managing her diabetes, having to have her foot amputated due diabetes, and becoming blind.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-10-09
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
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Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-007/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with John McCarty, December 07, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-007 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. John McCarty Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|17(10)|29(14)|40(7)|54(4)|67(4)|81(15)|94(12)|106(4)|121(6) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_cys44kqo& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_t8anaqfb" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 29 Struggle to communicate You're welcome. Thank you for having us. Joan McCarty reads John McCarty's written account of his story. He describes his struggle to communicate with others as an autistic, non-reliable speaker. He talks about how he had trouble expressing himself before he learned new ways to communicate, including using spelling and the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). autism ; books ; chores ; exercise ; family life ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; motor skills 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 147 Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) Then I learned RPM. The world changed significantly for me in late 2014. That is when we found RPM, Rapid Prompting Method. McCarty describes learning to communicate with others through the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) which uses gross motor skills to point to letters on a letter board or keyboard in order to spell out words and sentences. He talks about going through RPM training and finally being able to express himself. 60 Minutes ; Cure Autism Now (CAN) ; Elizabeth Vosseller ; Helping Autism Through Learning and Outreach (HALO) ; motor functioning ; Soma ; speech pathologist 17 338 Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) My mom started getting me books on CD at the library mostly focused on the Civil War. I now had more interesting things to do. McCarty describes becoming part of GLASS due to his vision impairment. He talks about the benefits of using talking books offered through GLASS because of the large variety of materials available. Alex Haley ; audio books ; Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) ; In Her Own Words ; Michelle Obama ; The Autobiography of Malcolm X 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 411 Community Involvement Along with some of the others who have found RPM as a way to learn and communicate, we formed a book club. McCarty describes forming a book club with others who use RPM. He talks about taking two university classes and getting his GED. He talks about educational speeches he has given about his experience with autism to various organizations including the Boy Scouts, Creative Consulting Services, Drake House, and the Sangha Unity Network. < ; i> ; Angela's Ashes < ; /i> ; ; < ; i> ; Life of Pie < ; /i> ; ; < ; i> ; Station Eleven < ; /i> ; ; < ; i> ; The Martian < ; /i> ; ; < ; i> ; Glass Castle< ; /i> ; ; book club ; Darcy Elks ; Gwinnett Technical College ; Perimeter campus of Georgia State University ; Sangha Unity Network Self-Advocacy Planning Session ; University of Virginia ; Wheel Power 17 English IRVIN: Hello my name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Joan McCarty, the communications partner of John McCarty, for " ; Our Stories: Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, Georgia' ; s talking book and braille library. Joan will be sharing John' ; s story as written by him. It is December 7, 2018, and this is being recorded at the GLASS Atlanta recording studio in Atlanta. Thank you, Joan, for joining us today. JOAN MCCARTY: You' ; re welcome. Thank you for having us. " ; I am going to talk about my personal communication history and how I am working on building community. I' ; m also going to talk about how Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, GLASS, has helped me along the way. I have written this script for Joan to read. " ; I' ; m twenty three years old now, and I' ; ve only been able to communicate effectively for a short time. I am an autistic, non-reliable speaker ; I cannot use my mouth to say what is in my brain. In fact, my brain does not do a very good job of controlling my body. Because my brain does not do what most brains do, I appear totally checked out. My mouth and throat make noises that mortify me. I cannot smile like others though I am often happy and smiling inwardly. I cannot read to myself because my eyes do not work together, and I cannot track words on a page. " ; Not too long ago I learned to do spelling as a way to communicate and learn. Before I could communicate through spelling, I did not have a lot of options or intellectual stimulation. I am, and I always was, part of the family life through chores that I did: emptying the dishwasher, taking out the garbage, putting my clothes away. I learned how to bake, and I volunteered at church organizing the books in the pews. I exercised mostly on the rowing machine but also on the stationary bike. " ; I' ; m part of a large family and my mom always read to us. Even when she didn' ; t know how smart I am, she made me listen to age-appropriate books--Charlie Bone, Percy Jackson, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, among others. " ; Then I learned RPM. The world changed significantly for me in late 2014. That is when we found RPM, Rapid Prompting Method. RPM was developed by an Indian woman named Soma who worked with her son Tito. My mom knew about RPM in the early 2000s when she saw a 60 Minutes episode on TV. An organization called CAN, Cure Autism Now, brought Soma and her son to the U.S. " ; Soma was able to figure out how to replicate what was working for her son with other non-verbal autistics. In general, the theory goes like this: There' ; s nothing wrong with the language center in the brain--it' ; s the motor. A lot of autistic people have difficulty with their motor functioning, particularly fine motor. Speaking is the fine motor function of the language center of the brain. " ; Because gross motor is easier to train than fine motor, a person learning RPM harnesses and trains the gross motor function of the shoulder and arm to point to letters. Initially I used a pencil and poked it through a stencil while doing lessons. Eventually I moved to a laminated letter board. I now use a keyboard when I' ; m answering questions during presentations or doing my email. Using a letter board is faster and less exhausting than the keyboard because a keyboard takes a lot more motor control. " ; My day of freedom came on November 8, 2014, when my mom learned to use the letter board. It was during an RPM therapeutic workshop over the weekend of November 8, 2014, that I attended with my mom and dad. The person running the workshop, Elizabeth Vosseller, is a speech pathologist from Herndon, Virginia. Elizabeth started some lessons with me, and then taught my mom what she, Elizabeth, had been doing during the workshop sessions with me. " ; Elizabeth started simply. She said what RPM was and then asked me to respond to a simple question to which she knew the answer. In my hand was a pencil ; in hers, was a stencil. She used gestures and her words to coax my body to do the next-to-impossible: to insert the pencil through the letters on the stencil. It was the hardest work I had ever done. " ; Elizabeth and I worked intensely over six sessions during the workshop. As Elizabeth realized my control was getting a little better, she asked a question to which she did not know the answer: ' ; Tell me something you see in the sky.' ; " ; Somehow I was able to get out what was in my head: ' ; The big dipper.' ; " ; During our sessions, Elizabeth asked me about my interests, and I was able to spell that I liked books--in particular, books about history and the Civil War. " ; My mom started getting me books on CD at the library mostly focused on the Civil War. I now had more interesting things to do. One day, when we were working on a lesson on cephalopods that included a video, I got very frustrated, but I was able to tell my mom that I could not track the movement on the screen. She took me to an eye doctor who said that my eyes did not work together, and my vision was distorted. The doctor signed the papers so that I could become part of GLASS. " ; Using GLASS material is better than CDs ; they play from start to finish and there is an incredible amount of material. Almost any book and many magazines are available, especially through BARD. Braille and Audio Reading Download. I have a GLASS profile that automatically sends me books, and I have enjoyed books that I never would have chosen for myself such as Michelle Obama' ; s In Her Own Words and The Autobiography Of Malcolm X written with Alex Haley. " ; Along with some of the others who have found RPM as a way to learn and communicate, we formed a book club. A recently acquired ability to communicate broadened our opportunities to participate in meaningful and age-appropriate activities. Our first book was Life of Pi which I hated. We have done a broad range of genres from memoirs like The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and Angela' ; s Ashes by Frank McCourt to dystopian science fiction like Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and The Martian by Andy Weir. " ; Our activities through the book club led to a chance for those of us in the book club to take a class on the Perimeter campus of Georgia State University. The class was a remote Duke University House Course called " ; Beyond Christian Intentions: Colonialism, Evangelism and Reconciliation in Native American Communities." ; This was a six-week course that ended with a group project. From there, another class: physics. A retired physicist taught a University of Virginia course called " ; How Things Work." ; " ; At home I was working on preparation to take the GED, and then I went to GED prep classes on the Gwinnett Technical College campus. " ; Because I could communicate now, I was invited to speak to the Boy Scouts at our church. I presented with Darcy Elks during her meaningful day seminar about the value of social roles including my role as a book club member. I also presented to Creative Consulting Services direct support professionals. I have been able to have a positive impact on homeless families who have autistic kids by presenting a training for the staff at Drake House, a shelter in Roswell, Georgia, for homeless, single mothers. " ; I presented my Wheel Power through the Sangha Unity Network Self-Advocacy Planning Sessions, which is a topic for another day. These sessions are expanding the influence of self-advocates throughout the state of Georgia, hopefully like this GLASS oral history project. " ; I am honored to be able to share a small part of my history." ; IRVIN: And thank you, John, for sharing your story and, Joan, for sitting with us today. JOAN MCCARTY: Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-007.xml RBRL451GLASS-007.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
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Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
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9 minutes
Repository
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with John McCarty, December 07, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-007
Creator
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John McCarty
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
Autism
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Description
An account of the resource
John McCarty is an autistic, non-reliable speaker with impaired vision. In this interview, Joan McCarty reads her son, John McCarty’s, account of his struggle with communication before learning the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM), which enabled him to become involved in his community.
Date
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2018-12-07
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
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Georgia
Type
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moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2018
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-008/ohms
OHMS Object Text
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5.3 Interview with Chris Vandeford, December 11, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-008 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Chris Vandeford Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|12(7)|21(10)|31(13)|40(12)|52(6)|58(13)|69(10)|80(5)|88(10)|97(12)|111(11)|121(7)|129(10)|139(14)|148(3)|155(14)|163(12)|177(1)|186(8)|198(4)|206(15)|218(11)|228(7)|241(4) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_45s54o0e& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_l9fwipaa" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 27 Losing vision Awesome. Thank you for having me, Stephanie. Okay. My name, obviously you've heard is Chris Vandeford. Vandeford describes gradually losing his vision due to diabetic retinopathy, a condition caused by uncontrolled blood sugar levels. He talks about having eleven eye surgeries to improve his vision but that none were successful. He mentions becoming depressed because he no longer had the ability to drive or read books. anesthesia ; blindness ; comic books ; diabetes ; Emory University Hospital ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; laser surgery 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 631 Learning from others Another bit of advice I can have for somebody that may be listening to this that, yeah, I may be sounding a little bit down now telling you this, but it's also to tell you it may not be--it may not be the easiest thing in the world... Vandeford describes the importance of finding reliable friends and becoming involved in organizations for the visually-impaired or blind like the National Federation of the Blind. blindness ; community ; connection ; involvement ; motivation 17 782 Search for employment But getting back to what I was saying is I went through everything and basically after finishing up my last surgery, giving up my driving, starting to get used to how people are going treat you... Vandeford describes going through vocational rehabilitation in order to find work. He talks about working with Adam Hinchliffe at the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency. He discusses learning braille, cane skills, and computer skills at the Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) of Atlanta. He describes his current internship where he teaches people how to use Android phones, and he talks about his plans to attend Georgia State University to become a certified rehabilitation counselor. Anna Trotman ; family ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; Greg Akins ; keyboarding ; Lynn Miller ; National Federation of the Blind 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 1141 Importance of self-care and community involvement Also, what's been rewarding for me too, is the National Federation for the Blind--or, excuse--of the Blind ; Anna would correct me on that one. Vandeford discusses his involvement with the National Federation of the Blind where he works to pass better legislation for the visually impaired and blind. He describes being motivated by others in the disability community. He emphasizes the importance of self-care, both in terms of physical health by monitoring his blood sugar levels and emotional health by becoming involved in the community. advocacy ; Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) ; friends ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) English IRVIN: Hello. My name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Chris Vandeford for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, Georgia' ; s talking book and braille library. It is December 11, 2018, and this is being recorded at GLASS Atlanta' ; s recording studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you, Chris, for being here today. VANDEFORD: Awesome. Thank you for having me, Stephanie. Okay. My name, obviously you' ; ve heard is Chris Vandeford. I have been blind now or started to lose my vision in the beginning of 2015. What I can say is that it definitely took me by surprise when this all started happening. I was driving to work one day and noticed that the tire on a van was oval shaped. So this is a little strange, so you start to worry a little bit. You get to work, and I had my boss and his wife calm me down. I, later that evening, met with my wife discussed it with her and began the plans of what we were going to do. So the next day we ended up going to an eye doctor out in Lawrenceville--I forget the name ; please forgive me for that--but we went out there and not five minutes in they looked at my eyes and said that I needed to immediately go to an eye surgeon at Emory. And we tried to set up an appointment that day, but we were unable to due to being late in the evening, and Emory is one of the top eye facilities in the nation and it' ; s constantly packed, as we learned over the next three years to now, you know. We went the next day and I was told I was going--I had black spots on my eyes, and it was due to diabetic retinopathy and my blood sugar getting out of control. One thing I can say for people that are listening to this that if you ever go to an eye doctor and they tell you you have something going on with eyes and you should see a surgeon to have laser done to it to get rid of the spots, you should do it because, unfortunately for me, I had probably two to three years earlier been told when I was getting a new pair of glasses that I had spots on my eyes and I did nothing about it. I should have had the laser done. It' ; s not like the surgery that you hear about to fix your eyes. It' ; s to prevent your eyes from basically being ruined, your retina being pulled off. That is one thing that I can pass along to others that keep your sugars under control and, also, when your eye doctor tells you to do something, you should take care of it because it can change in a matter of no time. Well, we went in to see the doctor, and they told us that I would need the laser done and also possibility of other surgeries beyond that. Well, they put the anesthesia in my eye with a needle and they also coated my eye just to numb the pain before that. Well, unfortunately they didn' ; t warn my wife, who was in there, who saw the Q-tip sticking out of my eye and turns and looks and says, " ; Oh God!" ; It scared her but it made her laugh, too, and it freaked me out, but it' ; s also sort of a little bit of a comic relief right there in a tense moment. But after that, we sat around and we waited. And about an hour later, after the eye had numbed, we went and did the laser surgery. The laser surgery--I had several of them done over the next three years, but the first one always takes you by surprise because it feels like you' ; re being punched in the face by a professional boxer and your eye' ; s on fire, even if you have the anesthesia in your eye. Beyond that moment and that day and being scared, I slowly got into the habit of going to the eye doctor over the next two to three years, not by choice of any matter or sort like that. They basically did eleven surgeries on my eyes. They put bubbles in there to keep the retina up. They cut pieces of the retina out. They did anything that they could to save my eyesight, but what happened was like a slow train crash or car crash that you can' ; t stop. You' ; re doing everything in your power to prevent it from happening, but nothing seems to be working and you finally get in to a feeling of " ; OK, we' ; re going to do this surgery. I guess this will--we' ; ll try to stop it this time" ; , but it gets to a point of you don' ; t really have any faith in it because it' ; s just--nothings doing it. And I' ; m generally a very positive person. I generally always look at the bright side of things, but even in situations like this, if you' ; re going through something similar like this, you' ; re going to have your moments of depression ; you' ; re going to have your moments of feeling defeated at times. I continued on the surgeries and continued on trying to work, but the doctor told me that they didn' ; t want me doing any heavy lifting for fear of popping a blood vessel or for fear of tearing up the eye anymore, creating pressure on it, or anything like that. I did my best. I' ; m normally an active person, to try to stay busy with your mind with reading which turned out to be a good thing that my brother' ; s girlfriend, Stephanie Irvin from GLASS--I guess the word would be " ; serendipitous" ; --was in my life to provide a reader for me, and help my mind keep working during this time that I hadn' ; t learned how to use any sort of screen readers or anything like that ; very, very fortunate to have that happen in my life. But we continued on with the surgeries and nothing was working. I would recover for a month or two, go back to work, and something else would go wrong ; we would have to have another surgery. And this went on for about two years until I had to make the decision after one of the last surgeries, after I had some vision in my eye, and then I had a wreck ; I had an accident, and it was raining and I ran into the back of somebody. I had to make the decision that I couldn' ; t drive anymore. And when you get to that point in your life, you feel like things are going OK. You' ; re keeping it under control, your depression, you' ; re keeping under control how you' ; re feeling. You' ; re trying to put on a good face, but once your freedoms start getting stripped away, you don' ; t drive any more. You don' ; t--you can' ; t read a book. I used to love the feel of a book in my hand and turning the pages and speeding through a book and reading and never stopping. I was a huge comic book fan. I have three cases of comic books--no, make that five--that I can' ; t enjoy any more--not just for the art, but for the stories and how they compare to the real world out there and sort of escapism in the same sense. But losing the ability to drive and get yourself around and starting to depend on other people really was one of the straws that broke the camel' ; s back there for a while. After that happened, getting to work was more difficult. My wife would take me, but it was becoming more and more difficult. I was having to put my face closer to the computer screen, and I couldn' ; t lift stuff at the warehouse because of ruining my eyes. And people start looking at you differently, or you feel it. You know, somebody can tell you--my wife, for the longest time, says, " ; No, that' ; s just in your head." ; Well things change. Another bit of advice I can have for somebody that may be listening to this that, yeah, I may be sounding a little bit down now telling you this, but it' ; s also to tell you it may not be--it may not be the easiest thing in the world ; it may be the most difficult thing you can go through in your life. But, by the end of this, I' ; ll be able to tell you that there' ; s things that you can do to make your life better. You can get through this. You can survive, and you can create a life. But continuing on from what I was saying is you feel like people that were in your life to help you, that were going to be there for you, abandoned you. You' ; re going to learn that some people can' ; t handle you being blind. They can' ; t handle dealing--I guess is the best way to say it--dealing with your blindness, or it' ; s not so easy for them anymore to come and go. You feel like sometimes you' ; re a drag on them in your own mind. But you also learn that there' ; s people in your life that you didn' ; t think would appear that will show up that will be there for you, that will keep lifting you up when all you want to do is be down. Also this--you going through your blindness, however you lose it--mine was diabetic retinopathy--you' ; re going to find new people in your life if you look for them, if you put yourself in situations to meet them. I would say once you go through the initial shock, the initial depression, to put yourself out there, to put yourself in situations that you' ; ve never put yourself in before. Be involved with organizations like the visually impaired blind society, or the National Foundation of the Blind. Put yourself out there with other people that are going to teach you how to get through this. But getting back to what I was saying is I went through everything and basically after finishing up my last surgery, giving up my driving, starting to get used to how people are going treat you, I began to try to put myself in situations that would benefit me in the future because I want to still build a life for my family, for me and my wife. I' ; d love to still have kids. I want to get a house. I want to do all this stuff. But I can' ; t do that just by laying around and being depressed and " ; woe is me." ; So after we got through all of that, and continued on, I called in to--who did I call in to? I ended up calling a gentleman who directed me to Center for the Visually Impaired. I somehow ended up getting the number because I was trying to find a way back in to the workforce. His name was Adam Hinchliffe, and he worked for Voc Rehab, Georgia Vocational Rehab. He now works for CVI and he' ; s a fantastic gentleman with a quality organization. But he told me that I would have to throw myself in to the work ; I would have to put everything into it to learn the skills to be able to move forward and to be able to get to where him and others were, where they were contributing members of society, and also making it so people didn' ; t look at a blind person, or looked at blind people as " ; OK, they' ; re blind, so they' ; re not usable ; they' ; re not worth anything." ; Very good on my soul, very good on getting me moving in the right direction. So in November, after testing with CVI, Center for the Visually Impaired of Atlanta, I began--I began working with them. I worked on braille. I worked on that with Anna Trotman. I worked on my keyboarding with Greg Akins, who was the president of the National Federation of the Blind who got me involved with that, Earnest, Rasheeda, everybody at CVI who taught me my cane skills, my PC skills, my braille, Lynn Miller. Several people over there that are very interested in helping the blind out. I threw myself in to my work and into preparing myself for the next step. It' ; s been a huge journey for me to even get to this point because you think you' ; re going to just go through life and work hard, move on to the next thing, but you don' ; t expect something like this to jump out at you. And organizations like GLASS and CVI, they have really helped me prepare myself after, like I said, the initial shock and depression, to move forward. My grandfather went blind, but for different reasons ; he had a heart attack, and he went blind. And I always told my family that I hope that never happens to me, and you see what happens, you know, under different circumstances. But I' ; m rambling on a little bit. After I went back to CVI and I' ; ve been working on that, I finished up all my classes. I' ; ve built relationships with the instructors, the directors, and started building roads to other jobs, to connections, you know? Started talking to people because that' ; s the only way you' ; re going to move forward if you' ; re going through this. If you' ; re going to move forward in life, not just in your daily living skills but in trying to find work and trying to make it better for people in our situation and to be a part of the solution, you' ; re going to have to work hard at it and deal with these things that come your way. I have gotten myself an internship there now, and I' ; m working with teaching Android users--Android phones--to people that don' ; t know how to use smartphones and stuff and it' ; s been very rewarding. I' ; ve been very fortunate to be happy with the work that' ; s come my way through CVI. I' ; m hoping that once I finish school--I' ; m going back to Georgia State, and I' ; m going to get my certified rehabilitation counselor degree and, hopefully, move into a position with vocational rehab, CVI, the VA or something like that after about two or three years of school and can go from there. Also, what' ; s been rewarding for me too, is the National Federation for the Blind--or, excuse--of the Blind ; Anna would correct me on that one. It' ; s been very rewarding being involved in that and getting started with trying to work with them on better legislation for the visually impaired and blind, and working through that process and meeting new people and figuring how to live in this world as a visually impaired person. I would say that, even though this has been sort of like a, like I said earlier, a little bit of a down--talking down about this stuff, it' ; s not easy ; I' ; m not going to lie to anybody out there that' ; s listening to this. It' ; s not easy, but it can be done. And I' ; ve seen people that have it worse than I do who are blind, deaf, who have multiple sclerosis--they have all sorts of different diseases--that, every day, get up and go to work. They do what' ; s necessary to get through the day, and they don' ; t complain. They may have some aches and pains here ; they may have days that are just rough. But it' ; s just amazing for me, for someone that was just for a hot minute there was depressed about it and worried about things, to see these people do this, and do it well. It' ; s been very rewarding for me. For that, working with NFB, CVI, and GLASS and meeting all the interesting people that come into my life, and I can say that you, the listener, can do this, too. One thing else I can say is please, please watch your sugars! Take care of yourself as far as what you eat. Monitor it. Don' ; t just blow it off. Somebody can be diabetic and they can be the skinniest person in the world and still have high sugar and still have high risk for problems such as your muscles, such as losing your eyesight or other body parts. But monitor that religiously. I would also say throw yourself into the life. Get out there because if you don' ; t involve yourself with organizations and you don' ; t involve yourself with people around you, you' ; re not going to get the skills to move forward and you' ; re not going to--you' ; re only going to get more and more depressed and you' ; re going to have problems with that, and you can have a happy life. I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by good family and friends who have supported me, but you need to work at those relationships too, because this is a learning experience for them. When I first started that, I didn' ; t think that it would be. I think people would just adjust, and I' ; d be the one going through the tough parts of this, but I' ; ve learned a lot from this experience as far as personal relationships and knowing that it' ; s not just difficult on you, it' ; s difficult on the ones that love you and the ones that want the best for you. But you can help them get through it by helping them understand situations. Sometimes people can be ignorant about situations unless they' ; re going through it or unless they' ; re told, and that' ; s why I say advocate for yourself and advocate for those that are blind and around you and in the same situation as you. Other than that I would say just keep your head up ; it will get better. And if you ever need someone to talk to, look me up on Facebook or, you know, contact people at CVI or Stephanie at GLASS or Lamar behind the glass here ; I' ; m sure they' ; ll be willing to help. There' ; s plenty of people in this world that are willing to help you out. You' ; ve just go to know how to ask and to put yourself out there. But other than that, Stephanie, that' ; s about all I have to say. IRVIN: Well thank you so much for joining us today, Chris. VANDEFORD: Okay. Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-008.xml RBRL451GLASS-008.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
24 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Chris Vandeford, December 11, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-008
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Vandeford
Stephanie Irvin
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Blindness
Diabetes--Complications
People with visual disabilities--Services for
Description
An account of the resource
Chris Vandeford became blind as an adult due to diabetic retinopathy. He talks about losing his vision, going through vocational rehabilitation, and becoming involved in his community, both through his work at the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency and the National Federation of the Blind.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-009/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Brian Mosely, December 14, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-009 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Brian Mosely Kamesha Bradham oral history 1:|11(3)|21(4)|30(12)|40(4)|49(3)|56(11)|76(9)|84(7)|95(4)|106(2)|113(11)|122(15)|131(6)|141(9) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_vqw29x74& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_56iki5vk" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 32 Life story Well, I don't necessarily know where to begin except, perhaps, with my blindness. Mosely describes how he lost his vision, sense of smell, and got epilepsy from an accident as an adult. He talks about how he became involved with Walton Options for Independent Living which encouraged him to go to college. He mentions attending Augusta State University--now called Augusta University. He describes how assistive technology allowed him to be more independent, mentioning JAWS and iPhones. accommodations ; braille ; computer ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; guide dog ; independent living center ; Job Access With Speech (JAWS) ; voice-activated technology 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 389 Challenges / Assistive technology Okay. And you said you became blind because of an accident. Do you want to talk about that time? Mosely describes the challenges he faced after going blind, mentioning the difficulty of reading print and functioning in school. He also talks about avoiding people who try to take advantage of the blind by using a money reader and other technology. advocacy ; independence ; iPhone ; Job Access With Speech (JAWS) ; tape recorder ; tests ; Walton Options for Independent Living 17 594 Adjusting to becoming blind as an adult Okay. So do you want to talk about how you felt when you first became blind? Mosely describes the shock of suddently going blind as an adult. He talks about how the National Federation for the Blind and Walton Options for Independent Living introduced him to resources for the blind and helped him re-enter the workforce. advocacy ; Appling, Georgia ; braille ; computer ; disability community ; Job Access With Speech (JAWS) ; technology ; white cane ; Willie Jones 17 English BRADHAM: Hello. My name is Kamesha Bradham, and I am going to have a conversation with Brian Mosley for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 14, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Augusta Library, in Augusta, Georgia. Okay, Brian, thank you for coming and participating. You can start with your story. MOSELY: Well, I don' ; t necessarily know where to begin except, perhaps, with my blindness. I lost my sight during an accident that left me blind and with epilepsy and without the sense of smell. I, being blind, didn' ; t know what to do, where to go. I was new to Georgia at the time and learned about a place called Walton Options for Independent Living through another blind gentleman my mother saw. Through that independent living center, I was influenced to go, or consider going to, college. I went to Augusta State University which is now called Augusta University, and it was at that time that I learned how to use a screen reading program called JAWS. And it was at that point that everything changed for me. When I first went back to, or, when I first went to Augusta State University and met with the disability service department director, I was asked what accommodations I would need. And being newly blind, I did not know. And that' ; s exactly what I said: " ; I don' ; t know." ; And I was told they couldn' ; t help me if I didn' ; t know what accommodations I needed, and I asked for all of the accommodations for the blind. After playing around with braille and other options for the blind, again, I chose the JAWS screen reading program because it would allow me to use the computer, and it talked to me and told me what was on the computer, so it was a lot easier for me to picture the rest. I made it through Augusta State University with a 2.7 which is still a little bit above average grade point average. And my major was in psychology, but then I went on to work for an organization who helps other people with disabilities get jobs, and 80 percent of that job was data entry. And so I learned a lot more about assistive technology and how it could help me be more independent, especially in the workplace. Since learning JAWS, I' ; ve also fell in love with the iPhone because, even though it wasn' ; t made for the blind, it helps us in lots of ways, or at least it helps me in a lot of ways. I have an app on there that allows me to scan typed text, so I can pull my phone out of my pocket at any time and scan a document, and it will read it back to me. It helps me with navigating my way around if I' ; m walking with my cane or with my guide dog. So a lot of the voice-activated technology really helps me as a blind person. But during all of this, I never learned to read or write braille ; that' ; s something I still would like to learn, but more for professional reasons than personal because with the assistive technology that I just talked about, I' ; ve been pretty good with my independence. Like I said, I can read my own mail, navigate my way through the community, and get a lot of things done independently with that assistive technology. I also am a member of GLASS, so occasionally I can read a good book, and I like to enjoy that. And let me see--again, with the JAWS screen reading program, for me as a blind person, it opens up access to that worldwide web which, again, opens up access for me to what' ; s out there, what' ; s going on. There are still some glitches that they have to fix, some compatibility issues with different programs. Sometimes that' ; s on the developers of the other program, but it has been very helpful with working in the workplace, and it provides me with confidence when seeking employment to inform an employer that I can do something, and here' ; s how I would do it. So other than that right now, I' ; m looking to utilize some of that with the transition program with the youth with disabilities and trying to help them with preparing for post-secondary life. And that' ; s my story. (laughter) BRADHAM: Okay. And you said you became blind because of an accident. Do you want to talk about that time? MOSELY: No. It' ; s an unsolved mystery. BRADHAM: Okay. MOSELY: So yeah, it' ; s not something I really recollect too much about so, yeah. BRADHAM: Okay. And what were the hardest challenges you faced and how did you get through them? MOSELY: Well, some of the hardest challenges faced were the actual--my challenge with reading print and functioning in school. Say, for instance, when I had to take my tests: Before I became familiar, in fact, introduced to JAWS, I had to take my notes on a tape recorder, take my test using two tape recorders. And again, I was not able to access anything as far as the web or email or anything like that. And that' ; s where being involved with the independent living center, Walton Options, helped me because they provided me, not only with training using JAWS, but also a little bit more information regarding advocacy and knowing what it was that would best help me to overcome some of the barriers like all the time it would take to listen to the tape, to the questions on tape, record them on another tape, and then wait to find out what my score was going to be. I was able to actually introduce to Augusta State University how they could put my test on the computer. And by using JAWS, I could independently take the test and I could do it efficiently and effectively which was what helped me to end up graduating and actually not taking too much more than the four years required. BRADHAM: Okay. MOSELY: Now another challenge is always people in the community, of course, trying to take advantage of a person that' ; s blind, and that' ; s another reason why it' ; s good to have some of the technology like the money reader, which all of that comes with your iPhone, but it allows you to be able to make sure you' ; re getting your correct change or that you' ; re spending the right bill and, in some cases, that you can even look for certain products independently. So it becomes more of a help than anything. And when you don' ; t always have to depend on someone else to help navigate through the community, it helps with your independence and confidence. BRADHAM: Okay. So do you want to talk about how you felt when you first became blind? MOSELY: Yeah. When I first became blind, I was new to Georgia. I had been in Georgia for about eight months because my mom was here by herself and it was out in the country in Appling. And when I became blind, I really thought I was the only person in Georgia that was blind. I didn' ; t know anybody. I didn' ; t know anything about being blind other than Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. And so I didn' ; t know where to go for any type of resources or help or anything like that. I called my dad who was way out in Los Angeles, and he found someone from the National Federation for the Blind who, in two days, sent a FedEx truck to my house with the white cane that was donated and a pamphlet with information about resources in Georgia. And that was my beginnings because for about a year, I sat on the lawn every day kind of crying to God and just asking, " ; Why? Why me? What happened?" ; and finally realized, or God spoke and said, " ; Well, if you want something to happen, you' ; re going to have to get up and make it happen." ; And then I was--got out and that' ; s where I was introduced to an individual, who I don' ; t think would mind me mentioning his name, he was my mentor, Mr. Willie Jones, who introduced me to Walton Options. And it was from there, again, I was introduced to the world of the blind community, resources, and school. So before then, I really felt in the dark. And afterwards, I felt as if I had seen the light because it was after being introduced to Mr. Jones and in the resources that blind people could use. Like I never used a computer when I had my sight. I was a construction worker and a site supervisor training at-risk youth in landscaping. So I didn' ; t know how to type, I didn' ; t use a computer, so I really didn' ; t think being blind that this was something I was going to be able to do. But the moment I heard JAWS speaking and Mr. Jones telling me that' ; s what' ; s on the computer screen, I was motivated. So after that, I didn' ; t look back. And that' ; s like--I' ; ve been using JAWS now for the past 20 years and, like I said, I' ; m now motivated to try and start learning to read and write braille, more for professional reasons because I love the technology. I think that JAWS was a super, super invention for the blind. BRADHAM: Okay. Is that all you wanted to share with us today? MOSELY: I think that about sums up my story at this particular point because I' ; m--well, I' ; d like to add that I' ; m more about the disabled at large than the blind, period. I mean the blind is part of the disability community, so I like to say I' ; m an advocate for everyone with a disability--young, old, blind, or anything else. And I wanted to thank GLASS for this opportunity to archive our stories because I do think they' ; re important, and they may make a difference to someone in the future. Thanks. BRADHAM: Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-009.xml RBRL451GLASS-009.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Augusta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
14 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Brian Mosely, December 14, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-009
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brian Mosely
Kamesha Bradham
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Blindness
African Americans with disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
People with visual disabilities--Services for
African Americans--History
Description
An account of the resource
Brian Mosely became blind, lost his sense of smell, and got epilepsy in an accident as an adult. Mosely describes how assistive technology has helped him retain his independence, mentioning the use of the Job Access With Speech (JAWS) screen reader program.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-010/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.3 Interview with Candace Rogers, December 04, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-010 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Candace Rogers Georgina Lewis oral history 1:|11(15)|23(8)|43(7)|62(2)|72(13)|84(6)|104(3)|123(15)|134(1)|151(2)|169(2)|188(17)|205(12)|219(14)|233(13)|245(16)|256(15)|267(4)|279(12)|292(9)|312(17)|324(7)|334(5)|345(2)|356(6)|376(4)|401(13)|413(11)|425(4) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_myv0156f& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_g2es1xrd" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 29 Multiple sclerosis My story is what's brought me to this situation approximately fourteen years ago. I knew something was wrong with my body. Rogers describes having problems with her body and seeing multiple doctors before she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease that affects the nervous system. She talks about the dismissive nature of many of her doctors and her phobia of needles. Atlanta, Georgia ; Augusta, Georgia ; BellSouth ; hospitals ; injections ; spinal fluid 17 392 Receiving disability benefits I was looking, feeling normal then, and she asked me if I was on disability. Rogers describes her fight to receive Social Security disability benefits. She talks about hiring a lawyer after her initial claim was rejected. She discusses winning the case in two months and collecting disability benefits. back pay ; disability attorney ; lawsuit ; pride 17 592 Finding a house So--and with me getting disability, you know, that was like another label over me. And I thought about getting another apartment. Rogers describes her search for a house after renting apartments for years. She talks about how she eventually found a house she liked and bought it. 1993 ; church ; disability benefits ; God ; homeowner ; mortgage ; realtor ; religion ; son 17 915 Mobility problems and loss of vision But during these twelve, thirteen years, my M.S. progressed. Rogers describes her worsening multiple sclerosis symptoms, mentioning problems with her mobility and vision. She talks about how having to use a walker and to stop driving. bus ; car ; God ; pride ; religion ; Richmond County, Georgia ; visually impaired 17 1108 Remaining optimistic And so a lot with this illness is pride. Having to get over, having to let go of pride. Rogers describes having sympathy for other people whose MS is worse than hers. She talks about how her uncle encouraged her to remain grateful and optimistic. She mentions forming a group called called the M.S. Brothers and Sisters of the CSRA which supports people with MS. driving ; God ; Multiple sclerosis (MS) ; pride ; Religion 17 1385 Benefits of disability But I try my best to do whatever I can for people going through. And when I find out something, I don't keep it a secret like a lot of people do. Rogers describes the importance of sharing information about benefits for people with disabilities. She talks about all the services she is able to receive for free, and she provides an anecdote about how she mistakenly thought the free ticket policy at the movie theater under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was for her and not her caregiver. heating and air unit ; legally blind ; ramp ; roof ; scooter ; shower rails ; social security 17 English LEWIS: Hello. My name is Georgina Lewis, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Candace Rogers for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 4, 2018, and this is being recorded at Diamond Lakes Bridge in Augusta, Georgia. So what is your story? ROGERS: My story is what' ; s brought me to this situation approximately fourteen years ago. I knew something was wrong with my body. And I went twice, here in Augusta, to two different doctors, and they said they didn' ; t see anything ; it must be mental like I' ; m going crazy or something because I tell them I feel this and this, but they didn' ; t do tests to try to figure out why I' ; m feeling like that. So I' ; m like " ; Oh well," ; and I transferred my job, BellSouth, to Atlanta. I' ; m loving Atlanta. That' ; s where I wanted to be. And so I' ; m working at BellSouth, started doing comedy, and doing both of those. And then, all of a sudden at work--you know, I talk on the phone to business customers--and I reached up for something and my arm just felt numb. And I said, " ; That' ; s weird. How does my arm fall asleep during the middle of the day" ; , you know? So I didn' ; t pay it too much attention. Then I had to reach my arm up again to get something out of a cabinet, and it felt like a ton of bricks fell on my head. And so, you know, I' ; m thinking well, I' ; m going to take a Tylenol on my break, you know, and that will take care of this. And then, all of a sudden, I' ; m talking to a customer, and my speech changed. Instead of how I' ; m talking now, it was mumbled and jumbled. I was like (babbling) and I could hear the customer saying, " ; Excuse me? I don' ; t understand." ; I' ; m like, " ; I don' ; t understand either," ; you know? And so I called my supervisor over there, and she came, and me trying to explain what was going on to her, she could tell something was wrong. So they took me to the emergency room, and he actually did some tests, but he told me I would have to go to another doctor to have a lumbar puncture--I hate needles ; I knew that was a needle in your back. So I rescheduled it like four times because I didn' ; t want to have it done but, when I finally went, the doctor had no bedside manners. He was rude as I don' ; t know what, so that makes it worse, you know? And I was like crying, you know, because it hurt so bad and he said, " ; Don' ; t you have a child?" ; I said, " ; Yeah." ; He said, " ; You have a epidural?" ; I said, " ; Yes." ; He said, " ; Well it' ; s the same thing." ; I said, " ; No it' ; s not." ; Number one, I was already in pain when I' ; m in labor, so that was nothing. I wanted that help. I' ; m not in pain now. You' ; re causing me pain. So we went round and round about that, and then he said to my doctor that, in my spinal fluid, it was M.S., that I have multiple sclerosis. And now telling you how I hate needles, OK, so when I went to the doctor he told me, " ; Yes it' ; s MS, and we have three types of injections you can choose from." ; I said, " ; We can count that out because I don' ; t want any injections. What else do you have? Like a pill or something I could take?" ; And pills weren' ; t out then. And so I took the first one--I had to give myself a shot every other day, and it felt like every day because I hated it so much. I just hate needles ; I have a needle phobia. And so that was my life, you know, and I didn' ; t know about M.S., I didn' ; t know where it was going to lead me, what was going to happen, and so I decided to move back to Augusta to where I have family. And so my mom and dad live here--they don' ; t live together, but they lived here, and so somebody could help my son if I need some help, you know? And I learned a lot about multiple sclerosis and what it can do--it doesn' ; t have to, but what it can do. So I found--I mean I was fine for years. Nothing was different. I felt normal, you know, but I knew I had this. And so I was doing the same things I used to do. I moved back and everything and it was just hard because I had this like over my head, you know? I' ; m Candace, but MS is right there, too. And I lived--we lived with my mom for like a year, a little bit over a year because--I' ; m kind of backtracking--but I had the best M.S. doctor here. So I would enjoy talking with her and she would tell me all the ins and outs. And she cared more than other neurologists because her sister had M.S., so she had her heart in it ; she was wanting to find out what can we do about it, you know? And so I went and talked to her about this fear of needles and stuff, and she would try to help me through it but I still--I hated it. I blame it on my dad because he was military so wherever we went, I had to get a bunch of shots. You know, I had no choice that no, I' ; m not taking them. I had to take them, you know. So I just have a phobia of needles. And so talking to the doctor, and then when I--I' ; m going back and forth, I' ; m sorry, but I--you know, I talk to everybody where ever I am. My mom says I never see a stranger because I talk to everybody. And so I went to an appointment, and I went and sat down. There' ; s this lady, and we' ; re talking. And she said, " ; So you have M.S., too?" ; I said, " ; Oh, yeah, that' ; s what they tell me," ; you know. And she said, " ; You look pretty good." ; I said, " ; Well, thank you. You know, you too." ; I was looking, feeling normal then, and she asked me if I was on disability. And I don' ; t know why that hit me so hard because I hadn' ; t even thought about disability because I was driving, walking, everything, just living life. And somehow I felt like the devil spoke for me. I said, " ; Do I look like I need some disability?" ; You know? And she said, " ; Wow." ; She said, " ; Wow, that' ; s too much pride. You know that pride is a sin." ; I said, " ; Really?" ; She said, " ; Have you worked?" ; I said, " ; Yes, since I was fifteen." ; She said, " ; You paid into this." ; She said, " ; You don' ; t want your money?" ; And it was like a slap in the face. I mean she didn' ; t slap me, but I felt like that. That was my money, and I do have a disability. So I feel like sometimes that helps. You need to hear something like that. So the next day, I went and applied for disability. I wouldn' ; t have done it if I hadn' ; t talked to her. I wasn' ; t even thinking " ; disability." ; And so I went and applied. Four months later I got a letter telling me no, I' ; m not qualified for disability. And I had heard they do that all the time, you know unless they see me and I' ; m crippled, I' ; m in a wheelchair or something, you know. So I had to think to myself I don' ; t know a lot about disability. I mean I' ; ve been on the debate team and stuff like that ; I like to do that. I can' ; t do this fight. I don' ; t know enough to be in this fight. So I was flipping through the yellow pages and like an attorney just popped up for disability and he was right above--his office was right above the social security office. I was like, " ; Wow!" ; So I called and hired him, and two months later I had it. So it took me about six months, where some people it takes years and years, you know? And they say, " ; I don' ; t want to give the attorney my money. That' ; s my money. I' ; ll just wait and get it." ; To me, my story was they get 25 percent of your back pay. You can' ; t miss what you don' ; t have, to me. So it didn' ; t matter to me. You know, he got 25 percent of my back pay which was like maybe $4,000 or $5,000. I' ; m OK with that, because he helped me get disability for the rest of my life. That' ; s the way I feel. You know I know that check is coming every month. If I have to pay him 25 percent to get it started, I felt Oh well. It' ; s funny because they said that was so good I got it in two months. My mom said, " ; Candace, I' ; m sure you' ; re getting on his nerves," ; because if I had a question, I called him. If they sent me a paper, I called him. Whatever I didn' ; t know, I called him. She said, " ; Well, you just keep calling him." ; " ; Mom, I hired him. He' ; s my employee. He works for me. He gets paid when I get paid." ; So I didn' ; t feel like there was anything wrong about calling him all the time. If he got on my nerves and he got it in two months to be done with me, thank you. It worked. So--and with me getting disability, you know, that was like another label over me. And I thought about getting another apartment. And I thought even more I said I' ; ve had different apartments here in Augusta and Atlanta. Maybe I was getting ready to get a house in Atlanta but, after all this, I moved out--I mean I fell out of that but I said why not get the house, something that I will own? Because an apartment, I' ; m renting it. I' ; m paying their bills. I' ; m paying their mortgage, you know? Why not pay my own mortgage? And I would talk to people and say, " ; This is what I' ; m interested in." ; " ; Oh girl, you' ; re not going to be able to get a house on disability." ; I was like, " ; What do you mean?" ; " ; Because you' ; re on disability." ; I said, " ; I think if I had a job, that would be harder because a job they can lay me off, fire me, whatever, and my money is gone. But disability, that' ; s coming every month. They know that' ; s a guarantee. As long as I' ; m living I' ; m getting that check every month." ; And so I talked to my father and one of his friends was a realtor. So we got together and she started showing me houses and things like that and I' ; m thinking I want a brand new house, you know because I want this and this and this in it. And my mom told me, " ; Candace, what you need to think of, you' ; ll probably never get everything you want in a house unless you have it built from the ground up." ; And I didn' ; t have the money to do all that. So I made a list of what I wanted and what I was OK not having. And so then, when I looked at brand new houses, I was like hmm. And she said, " ; Well maybe I' ; ll show you some other houses, you know?" ; I said, " ; You mean some used houses?" ; She said, " ; It' ; s not like a used car, Candace. They' ; re previously owned houses." ; I said " ; OK, same thing." ; So I went and looked at a couple of used houses. And, the one I' ; m in now, it was for me. I walked in. I knew I wanted grapes. I like grapes in the kitchen. It already had a grape border. A nice grape border in the kitchen. I wanted the chair rail, or whatever that chair rail, but the different colors up to a certain point and in the living room it had that already and I like both of the colors. I went in the hallway bathroom, it had a window up top. You know, the only people that could see through it is people that are on your roof or flying or something like that. And I like that. And I was like, " ; Oh God, but how old is this house?" ; She said--she checked--she said, " ; It was built in 1993." ; I said, " ; Wow." ; She said, " ; What do you mean?" ; I said, " ; That was the year the best thing in my life came to me: My son was born in ' ; 93." ; I said, " ; Okay. This is it. I want this house." ; And so she started on the paper and I went to church. You know people say you pray to God ; you don' ; t worry about it. When you pray you give it to him. You have to leave it there because you gave it to him. If you worry again, you took it back because you don' ; t have faith that he' ; s going to do what he' ; s going to do. And so this time I went to church with my mom and my son, and I went to altar call. And I went down to the altar, and I prayed. You know, I said " ; God if this is a house for me and my son, then it will be. If not, I know you have something bigger and better for us so I' ; m not going to worry. You got it." ; And I just got a good feeling. I didn' ; t think--I never thought I wasn' ; t getting the house. You know people would say, " ; You talk like you already got the house." ; I said, " ; I' ; m just waiting on the key." ; You know, that was my answer. And when I went to closing, the people who owned the house and the closing attorney, you know, we were all in the room, and their family and the attorney said, " ; People are not usually this happy, you know? They' ; re stressed, you know, about doing this." ; I was like, " ; It' ; s been done. You just want me to sign a thousand papers, that' ; s all." ; And it felt so good because I have heard that all my life. You know, you give it over to God, you just let it go. And that' ; s hard. That is hard. For the first time in my life I did it with the house. I' ; ve been in that house almost thirteen years, you know? And I' ; m happy about that. I' ; m extremely happy. I' ; m not paying nobody rent. I' ; m paying mortgage for my house. And I love when people ask me, " ; Are you a homeowner?" ; At first I was like, Am I a homeowner?--because I don' ; t own it ; it' ; s not paid for yet. But I' ; m paying the mortgage on it and so now I just say, " ; Yeah. Yeah. I have a home and it' ; s in my name." ; And I say that so I feel good about that. But during these twelve, thirteen years, my M.S. progressed. My walk started giving me problems, and I ended up having to get a walker which I never thought I would have to do, but my mom' ; s boyfriend, man friend, he had one that he didn' ; t use anymore, so he just brought it to the house and told me that was for me. And so I had a hard time with that, but I realized it helped more than it hurt, so I started using that. And then it continued to progress. I was going to work one day. I was driving, and I got to a traffic light that I have been like every day, you know, and I couldn' ; t tell if it was red, yellow, or green. And I prayed for somebody to come blow the horn telling me to go or something but nobody did. And so I just talked to god. I said, " ; God I have to be to work in like twenty minutes, you know, can you please take the wheel you know, and get me there safe and sound?" ; And then I just pulled out and turned and got on the expressway and made it to work. And when I got in to my job and the room that I work in I just got on my knees and talked to him and said, " ; I' ; m sorry for taking my vision for granted." ; You know, I just thought that was something I would always have. And so I drove a little bit more, but then I realized it' ; s not fair to the people that can see driving for me to be driving and having trouble. So I just told myself I' ; m not going to do it anymore because, if I drive--because I have a car--I had a truck and what if you hit somebody and you killed them? That' ; s like a drunk driver, you know? And I always talk about that. And so I chose myself to stop driving. Nobody told me I couldn' ; t drive anymore. I just told myself that I would not be able to live if I hurt somebody because I was still driving and I know I shouldn' ; t. So I stopped driving and that was so hard, you know, because whew, very humbling having to ask everybody for a ride here, a ride there--very humbling. And then somebody told me, " ; Well now, there' ; s a bus that will come to your house and pick you up and take you wherever you need to go." ; I was like, " ; What do I look like riding this little bus?" ; You know what I' ; m saying? So I had to let me pride go because that was something to help me. So I signed up to ride the bus, and I' ; ve been riding the bus for years now. And I appreciate they come straight to my house, pick me up, and take me straight to work or to the doctor, anywhere I need to go, you know in Richmond County area. And so a lot with this illness is pride. Having to get over, having to let go of pride. Not being able to drive? Oh my God! Not seeing like I used to see? Humbling. Humbling! But I thank God I' ; m doing better with it now. And I felt like I' ; m doing better with it now. It' ; s just a struggle. You know, you just have to get up and go, and take every day as a day--a new day. And so I speak sometimes at the M.S.--some of the M.S. function is to tell people how to stay positive and just keep looking for another day. And one thing I say--and I offended somebody one time and I didn' ; t mean to offend anybody--because with M.S., we' ; re all different ; we all have different problems ; you know? And I said the main thing that helped me is that, " ; OK, Candace, you' ; re going through all this, but I promise you somebody has it worse and would love to take your space. So you need to get over it and just keep on going." ; And the person said, " ; Are you talking about me?" ; I said, " ; I don' ; t even know your situation. I' ; m sorry. I' ; m just saying that I know if you watch the news, you see people that have it a lot worse than you. Everybody thinks whatever they' ; re going through is the worst. Somebody got it worse. Somebody got it worse." ; And I' ; m happy I talked to my uncle. Gosh, about four or five years ago we had a family reunion in Mississippi--deep, hot July in Mississippi! And heat can cause me to have a relapse if I get overheated, you know? And so my uncle, he came up he said, " ; Candace, how you doing?" ; And I said, " ; Today is a bad day." ; And he like jumped on me: He said, " ; I don' ; t ever want to hear you say that!" ; I said, " ; Excuse me?" ; He said, " ; The fact that God woke you up, you' ; re already on top of things. A lot of people didn' ; t wake up this morning." ; He said, " ; What I want you to say, and promise me you' ; ll say this--" ; I said, " ; What is it?" ; He said, " ; Say ' ; It' ; s a good day!' ; Maybe not as good as yesterday, but it' ; s still good." ; And so now that' ; s what I do and I pass it on to other people, you know? You may be going through something, but it' ; s still good because God woke you up. You watch TV and watch the news--everybody didn' ; t wake up. So if you' ; re above ground you just take it from there, you know? And so at first I didn' ; t think--I said yeah, " ; Okay, okay." ; But I took it in, and I believe it. The fact I wake up and I' ; m able to get out of bed myself, that is a blessing. A lot of people can' ; t do that. You know and I think about this one lady. I formed a group called the M.S. Brothers and Sisters of the CSRA, and she' ; s one of the sisters. And she always grabs my heart because she has it so much worse. And I think about her and I' ; m like, " ; How dare I complain?" ; She' ; s bedridden. You know, she has to have people do everything for her from MS. That could be me, you know? She has--this was so hard for me: She has to have somebody bathe her, and I just couldn' ; t imagine somebody having to bathe me. She has to have somebody feed her like she' ; s a baby, pretty much. You know and she--it' ; s just whew. I' ; m like, " ; I could be there." ; So since I' ; m not, I need to do better and appreciate it more because who knows, tomorrow that could be me you know? So, but my heart just goes out to her and hate when--I wouldn' ; t say I " ; hate," ; but I don' ; t like the fact that I' ; m not driving because when I was driving, I would go and see her often and just sit and talk with her, and I' ; m not able to do that now and I hear things that she' ; s going through and I hate that I' ; m not there to talk to her and stuff like before. But I try my best to do whatever I can for people going through. And when I find out something, I don' ; t keep it a secret like a lot of people do. It' ; s like crazy because when you get your award letter for disability saying okay yeah, you got disability ; you got approved. They should have a letter with that telling you all the things you can do that are out there for you, but that would be too right, I guess. So the only way you find out is to know somebody that knows something. But when I find out, I' ; m so happy to pass it on. I said I' ; m not going to keep this secret ; that' ; s not fair at all. And I' ; ve been blessed with so many things because I' ; m disabled. Disability don' ; t tell me that. Social security doesn' ; t tell me that. I have a brand new roof that I got for free. A brand new heating and air unit I got for free. I have a ramp built on my porch and some shower rails put in for free. Social security wouldn' ; t tell me about it. And so if I know anybody, I see anybody that is disabled and think that they may be in need, I' ; m so happy to tell them because I feel like I' ; m paying it forward. Some people, it' ; s crazy to me--they act like they' ; re scared to tell somebody like they' ; re going to come and take whatever you got back, which makes no sense, you know? But just don' ; t like to pass it on. And I feel so happy from that. Like somebody told me about three years ago that with me being disabled, I thought he said I get into the movies free. But my guy, my mister, he was with me, he takes me--I' ; m so blessed--he takes me to all my meetings and appointments and stuff. And he said " ; No, Candace, that' ; s not what they said." ; I said, " ; Well, what did he say then?" ; He said that whoever takes you to the movies, like your caregiver, they get in free. I said but the caregiver' ; s not disabled. I don' ; t understand. He said because you are disabled and we' ; re taking time to take you to the movies and stuff so that' ; s like a treat to us that we get in free. I was like " ; Whatever. You don' ; t even know. You didn' ; t hear it. You didn' ; t hear it." ; And so we went out ; we was going to a movie. We had been before and I just said, " ; All you have to is say ' ; ADA' ; and you only buy one ticket. There' ; s two of you, just pay for one ticket." ; And so we went out to eat and then we knew we were going to the movies and we had a little debate about it. He said, " ; Yeah let me go ahead and go to the movies for free." ; I said, " ; It' ; s not--you' ; re not free. It' ; s good for you because you don' ; t have to pay for my ticket." ; He said, " ; I don' ; t pay for my ticket, Candace." ; I said " ; No, no." ; So I thought I' ; m going to show him. We got to the movies, so I went up and asked the lady. I said, " ; Could you please straighten out this debate? OK, I' ; m disabled. OK, I come and I use the ADA and I get in free, right?" ; And she says, " ; No. No ma' ; am. Your person who brings you gets in free." ; I said, " ; Okay can I talk to somebody else then, because you' ; re not working with me. You as a woman, we' ; re not eye-to-eye." ; He' ; s like, " ; See, I told you." ; I said, " ; Whatever. First of all, what you should tell me is ' ; thank you' ; because if I wasn' ; t disabled and didn' ; t know about the ADA, you' ; d buy two tickets. So you' ; re welcome!" ; [laughing] I said, " ; I don' ; t ask to go in and spend all the money on this expensive candy and stuff, you know? I have stuff in my purse that I can snack on and stuff so you' ; re welcome. How about that?" ; He said, " ; But you know what the lady said." ; I said, " ; I don' ; t even know what you' ; re talking about, but you' ; re welcome. [laughing] You only paid for one ticket instead of two." ; So it' ; s crazy because I look, it' ; s like a blessing in a way because I get things I wouldn' ; t get if I wasn' ; t disabled. So I try to just be--just have to deal with it and go with it, you know? And I got a scooter, you know that I drive. It' ; s kind of like the ones in Walmart and Lowes and stuff at the grocery stores that people sit in that can' ; t walk as well, but I have one of my own and it' ; s better. It looks so much better. It moves so much better than those, and I didn' ; t have to pay for it. And the good thing I was thinking, " ; Oh God, I got to buy a lift to sit it on to attach it to his car if I need to take it anywhere." ; But when they came and brought it to the house, they showed us you take it apart in four pieces ; it can fit in your trunk. And then when you get where you need to go, you take it out and snap, snap, snap, and you put it back together. And I call it my Escalade because my next car--I' ; d already said my next car was going to be an Escalade. And since I don' ; t drive anymore, that' ; s my Escalade. And I get it and drive it, and I just love it. So that' ; s my life with multiple sclerosis and being legally blind and all the good that has brought me. I don' ; t think about the bad things it' ; s brought me anymore ; it' ; s brought me a lot of good. And like I said, as far as the doctor told me I was legally blind, I still don' ; t understand that. And he started laughing at me because I asked him, " ; Well, who' ; s illegally blind?" ; He said, " ; What? There' ; s nobody that' ; s ' ; illegally' ; blind, Ms. Rogers." ; I said, " ; Well I don' ; t believe that because I see how a lot of people drive, and they cause all these accidents and stuff. They' ; re illegal. See, I don' ; t get tickets. I' ; m legal." ; LEWIS: Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-010.xml RBRL451GLASS-010.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
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Augusta, Georgia
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30 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Candace Rogers, December 04, 2018
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RBRL451GLASS-010
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Candace Rogers
Georgina Lewis
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audio
oral histories
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Blindness
Social security
Self-help groups
Description
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Candace Rogers was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) which caused her to become legally blind and have issues with mobility. Rogers describes fighting for disability benefits, purchasing a house, and encouraging others people who have MS.
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2018-12-04
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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sound
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Georgia
OHMS
-
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
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Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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2018
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Oral histories
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RBRL451GLASS
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Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-011/ohms
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5.3 Interview with Daryl Rootledge, December 07, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-011 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Daryl Rootledge Carol Waggoner-Angleton oral history 1:|12(6)|21(14)|32(9)|44(5)|55(1)|67(12)|80(10)|90(11)|102(7)|113(10)|125(2)|132(14)|141(11)|153(12)|163(1)|170(12)|180(14)|191(5)|204(11)|215(1)|225(13)|234(13) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_pctprekw& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_lwddkdou" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 28 Early life OK. My name is Daryl Rootledge. I was born in 1969 in New York, the City of New York. Rootledge describes growing up visually impaired due to aniridia, an illness that impacts the development of the eye during birth. He talks about having numerous unsuccessful surgeries to fix his vision. He mentions how his family helped him adapt to mainstream society because of not lowering their high expectation of him despite his disability. addiction ; cataract removal ; childhood ; colors ; corneal transplant ; detached retina ; heroin ; military ; parents ; siblings ; Vietnam War 17 236 Education I went to public school, elementary school, and I went through to my first year of high school in public school. Rootledge describes attending public school until ninth grade when he transferred to the New York School for the Blind. He talks about utilizing accommodations like large letters and recorded material to navigate the mainstream school system. At the New York School for the Blind, Rootledge describes learning life skills, mobility skills, and independent living skills. He talks about attending New York University (NYU) before going on to obtain numerous graduate degrees. braille ; clinical psychology ; cooking ; encouragement ; fraternity ; Georgia Council for Developmental Disabilities (GCDD) ; hearing ; itinerary teacher ; Kappa ; rehabilitation therapist and counselor ; rehabilitation therapy ; tandem run ; theology ; track and field ; University of Alabama 17 768 Parenting After I came out of college, I met a young lady and experienced the nuance of being a father and being a husband. Rootledge describes becoming a husband and having a daughter. He talks about raising his daughter as a blind parent after his wife died. He mentions using braille, large print and audio material as well as scanning technology to read to his daughter and help her with her homework. children ; education ; Georgia House Bill 891 ; granddaughter ; marriage ; widower 17 992 Career / Travels / Faith After college and having a family, I worked at vocational rehab for the blind and physically handicapped in Alabama. Rootledge describes working as a vocational rehabilitation counselor for the blind and physically handicapped. He talks about being an active member of the National Federation for the Blind and traveling around the world. He discusses having his own ministry and emphasizes the importance of his Christian faith in his life. Arabic ; audio ; Augusta, Georgia ; braille ; Hebrew ; homeowner ; Jerusalem ; Jesus ; large print ; property ; Somalia ; South America ; success ; Sudan ; support ; the Bible ; therapy ; University of Alabama Medical Center 17 English WAGGONER-ANGLETON: Hello. My name is Carol Waggoner-Angleton and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Mr. Daryl Rootledge for Our Stories, Our Lives: An Oral History Project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is the seventh of December, [2018], and this is being recorded at the Augusta-Richmond Library main branch. Well, Mr. Rootledge, we' ; re very interested to hear your story. ROOTLEDGE: OK. My name is Daryl Rootledge. I was born in 1969 in New York, the City of New York. I grew up with [an] illness called " ; aniridia," ; which destroys some of the development of the eye during birth. My father was--my father was in active duty of the US military during the time of Vietnam where there was very high heroin drug use in the early to late ' ; 60s. That was a result of being born with aniridia and also with an addiction to heroin, which led to a lot of complications with my vision as a young child growing up. As a young man, I had some vision and got a chance to experience sunshine and got a chance to experience what real moonlight was, and there' ; s some people in the world that don' ; t get this opportunity to even see the beauty of this world. And we find ourselves, as human beings, taking the beauty of this world for granted, because sight is truly a gift that God has given mankind to cherish the colors, the flowers, and the beauty and the uniqueness of things that were built and developed by the hands of man, guided by the wisdom of God. Growing up, I had struggles with vision coming and going. Over a course of years, I' ; ve had sixteen surgeries, ranging from cataract removal to corneal transplant to exploratory surgery to detached retina surgeries. The list would have went on and on, but at some point you get very tired of waking up with the disappointment of still not seeing. Still had an interesting childhood. My brothers and sisters, you know, they didn' ; t give me any slack. You know, I have two sisters and one brother who is older. They didn' ; t give me any slack. Growing up in the household, my mom and dad didn' ; t give me any slack, you know? I had to still pull my load and didn' ; t mind if I was visually impaired or the language up to date, blind. They really wanted to make sure that I stayed as normal and as grounded as possible. So I didn' ; t have many pity parties. I wanted to have some pity parties, because there was a lot of things that I couldn' ; t do being visually impaired. Sometimes after a surgery I would have pretty decent vision and I would get a chance to ride a bike, and then the next month the aniridia takes over and I' ; m not riding a bike. It was a depressing thing, but it was something that my siblings helped me get through over the course of time and life. I went to public school, elementary school, and I went through to my first year of high school in public school. When I went to my first year of high school, I was having incidents of misjudgment with stairs until one day I just misjudged the turn on the stairs and had a fall and my mom said, " ; That' ; s it, that' ; s it, we' ; re going to go to the New York School for the Blind." ; I went to the New York School for the Blind. It was kind of different, because I was so used to being around sighted individuals, so used to doing extra work in order to keep up. And what I mean by extra work, I mean if somebody hit a baseball, I had to really concentrate being visually impaired to try to hit the same baseball. I had to really listen and pay attention and create different nuances that helped me to adapt to the kids playing football around. I had to do a lot of listening, and some kind of way I got through it. I got through it and I had a pretty decent drama-free childhood. When they went outside to play, I went too. I was there too. Sometimes my vision was pretty good where I could kind of get around, and other times I had my best friend, Jerome Martin. He--I would hold on to his shoulder and we would go. We would go. I fall, I get up, and these were the challenges that took place in my youth. But when I went to elementary school, I had to come up with solutions. So I worked with an itinerary teacher and I worked with my teachers in elementary school to create large letters. I had a recording device that helped me to get the notes that the teacher put on the board, and I had a person who was my itinerary teacher who read everything on my recorder where I could get assignments, and I found ways to adapt. So you know, my story is that of encouragement, because I want people to know that it is important to not give up on yourself. Self-belief is the most important thing that you could ever deal with when you' ; re dealing with life issues and life struggles. Blindness just happens to be one. There are several different stories that you can find out here, from multiple sclerosis to GCDD, Georgia Council for Developmental Disabilities. There' ; s a lot of things that' ; s happening in this world, but my story tells people who are blind and low vision that there is hope. There is a rainbow and a pot of gold at the other end if you persevere and do the best that you can to achieve all your goals. They' ; re reachable. And then I set up a system where I could get into the hallways by not giving up on society. This world has people and things that are bad, but for the most part people are still good. They still have a great heart. Be encouraged to speak to people who are your peers, because they will help you out and they helped me out a whole lot by going from class to class in the beginning of high school and elementary school, helping me out with getting gym equipment and playing games and still becoming active in the sect that we call society mainstream education. I was very fortunate to not give up and to be encouraged by my teachers and peers to be normal as can be. I went to high school and I had this same system in place. The teachers were familiar with me. I joined the track team and found ways of doing the two-mile run. I did a tandem run with another gentleman and we teamed up together and we won a state championship for two-mile run. I had a wristband on my wrist that tied me to his wrist and hey, we ran. We ran. We got it done. So it' ; s a real encouraging thing to know that being blind is not the end of the road. I went there to--from Westbury Senior High School to New York School for the Blind, and that' ; s where I learned my--some of my life skills that I would need being a blind individual. Growing from an adolescent to [an] adult male. I learned braille. I also learned home cooking skills and independent living skills, how to prepare my own food, how to live in a home environment by myself. I also learned academics that allowed me to graduate with honors and to get prepared for college. When I graduated from New York School for the Blind I was well prepared. I was well prepared with braille, being able to communicate. I was well prepared with independent living skills and my most important thing, but maybe the least to some people, is my mobility skills. My ability to be independent and travel and go to the places that I want to go when I' ; m ready to go. I was not a dependent person. My mobility skills that I learned allow me to become independent, and that' ; s very important when you' ; re blind and living the life that we have to live in the society that we live in. I went to college after I graduated with honors. I went to NYU and I studied clinical psychology. And I graduated from NYU with my master' ; s in clinical psychology, and then I said, " ; What else can I do? What else can I do? Can I do something else? Yes." ; I said okay, so I went to the University of Alabama and studied rehabilitation therapy and became a rehabilitation therapist and counselor for the blind and physically handicapped in Alabama. Got my master' ; s in that and then my understudy degree was in theology where I have a master' ; s in theology. I just continue to persevere, and my story is a reflection of someone growing up in the city and beig blind and also having different society strikes that they place on what you can be and what you should be and what you can achieve, but that didn' ; t apply to me being blind. That didn' ; t apply to me being in the city. It did not apply to me because I don' ; t use those nuances as excuses for success. Success is determined by the determination and the wit and your ability to fight through adversity, and as a blind person, I challenge you to be able to say, " ; Hey, I want to be the difference and not the problem." ; And doing that, I was able to go to college and get the help from my peers, join fraternities. A fraternity, Kappa. First blind person to do that in New York. So I didn' ; t put boundaries on myself and I had my braille skills. I had my audio skills that I learned more of in college and I began to achieve success in that. After I came out of college, I met a young lady and experienced the nuance of being a father and being a husband. I have a daughter. Her name is Javashia Rootledge and she' ; s my little princess. Her mom passed when she was four years old and I raised her as a blind parent. One of the bills that we' ; re championing here in Georgia is House Bill 891. It supports the right for blind parents to parent. We have that ability to do that. Just because you' ; re blind doesn' ; t mean you can' ; t be a successful parent and take care of your child. I' ; ve raised my daughter from four as a blind individual to now being twenty six years old, graduate of Spelman, and she' ; s a physical therapist now in Alabama. With my pride and joy she has, my little heart, my grandbaby and she' ; s eight years old and she' ; ll be nine and we just love each other. So it' ; s important to know being a granddad and being a father and had the opportunity to be a husband and do it all blind using all of the braille and large print and audio material to read to my grandbaby and to also read to my daughter. Using scanning technology to scan my daughter' ; s homework in where I could read it and check it. So it allowed me, with technology and with braille and large print technology, the ability to become a successful parent and grandparent. When society says how in the world are you doing this? How can you do this? Perseverance and the will to be successful in life and not give up. Also, my faith in God and my ability to minister this to blind and the physically handicapped individuals all over the world allows me the ability to tell my story and be very candid about it, because hopefully with this story being told it will give people the opportunity to know that success is just one step away. Just reach out and grasp it because it is there for you to have and to achieve. Print material and large material allows you the ability to read and to get out in to the world and hear and also read about stories and places that you just imagined in your mind. Braille is a successful thing when you' ; re doing business and you' ; re communicating. It allows you to become a part of mainstream society. And the reason why I keep reiterating about braille and print material and audio material because you want to be successful in the society and in the community that you live in. You don' ; t want to be a hindrance, because most people say, " ; Well, what can a blind person do?" ; Just as much as somebody that' ; s sighted can do. With the proper opportunity, anything is possible. Anything is achievable. After college and having a family, I worked at vocational rehab for the blind and physically handicapped in Alabama. I had a side practice of counseling that I did for the University of Alabama Medical Center where patients came in and I had my braille and I had my charts and I had a nurse who helped me fill out the physical forms that needed to be filled out, and I got the job done there with counseling and therapy. Doing that also and becoming an active member of the National Federation for the Blind, our motto is " ; To live the life that we want to live," ; but we have to be a part of it. We have to be in the room when there' ; s discussions about people who are blind and the things that they need to make their life and lifestyles better. Went in to ministry and I have my own ministry here. One step closer to God. Minister to a lot of people about change and change in the heart and the power of Christ and his love. Being blind, doing that, a lot of people wondered, " ; Well, how did you get a chance to read the Bible? Large print, audio, braille. It all goes back to [an] accessible format that' ; s created to help us to live better, successful lives. The story I always tell people is that Jesus told a story about a blind man. The disciples asked him a question. They said, " ; Lord, why is this man blind? Did his parents sin? Who sinned that caused him to be blind?" ; And Jesus simply said, " ; No, not the parents. No one sinned. He' ; s blind to show and prove the glory of God." ; So--and that' ; s been an important thing in my life that I can' ; t sit and have a pity party about being blind, because Christ said it' ; s for God' ; s glory, and I want to be that example of God' ; s shining glory in the society that we live in that from darkness can come light. A shining light as an example that success can be achieved if you apply yourself and read the accessible material that' ; s available for you. Educate yourself on things that are available for you to help you achieve a higher quality of life because God wants you to have life and he wants you to have it abundant and just so many other achievements. Being a homeowner here in Augusta. At first, I could not read the material that they had on the house and had to go back and fight for the rights for accessible material, large print, braille, but perseverance. I won. They had the proper equipment for me to have accessible reading material and now not only do I own one property but I own two properties in Augusta. It' ; s just--sky' ; s the limit if you apply yourself. And my story has lead me to so many places. To travel to Jerusalem, to learn Arabic, to learn Hebrew fluent, to travel to South America, to travel to Somalia, Sudan. Just to go to different places in the world as a blind individual. A lot of places that you go there' ; s braille. A lot of places that you go there' ; s braille magazines and large-print magazines and you can just get out there and live the life that you want to live as a successful person. I' ; ve traveled and I' ; ve educated myself. I' ; ve served God. I have been a father. I have been a grandfather and still is a grandfather and still is a parent. So life is achievable, a successful life being blind. And that' ; s, you know, the gist of my story and the success that I achieved. Overcoming surgeries after surgery. Overcoming the depression state and having supportive family and supportive peers, supportive teaching staff, and supportive people in the community that seen my goals and helped me to achieve my dreams. So the promise is put your hands out and try. Just take one step towards success and watch the outcome. You will definitely be blessed and be encouraged to live a happy successful life and my story proves that success is in the hands of the beholder. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-011.xml RBRL451GLASS-011.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
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Augusta, Georgia
Duration
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22 minutes
Repository
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Daryl Rootledge, December 07, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-011
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Daryl Rootledge
Carol Waggoner-Angleton
Format
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audio
oral histories
Subject
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People with visual disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Parents with disabilities
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
People with visual disabilities--Services for
Religious leaders
Families
Description
An account of the resource
Daryl Rootledge is a vocational rehabilitation therapist and minister. He was born with aniridia, an illness that impacts the development of the eye during birth. Rootledge describes navigating the educational system and raising his daughter as a visually impaired person, emphasizing the importance of his Christian faith in his life.
Date
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2018-12-07
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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sound
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Georgia
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-012/ohms
OHMS Object Text
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5.3 Interview with Anna Trotman, December 14, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-012 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Anna Trotman Stephanie Irvin oral history 1:|17(9)|32(1)|45(6)|58(11)|72(14)|83(1) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_pmqezegi& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_xe0dpifc" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 24 Early life and education You're welcome. I was born in 1981 in Montgomery, Alabama. Trotman describes having numerous health problems as a child including jaundice, spasmus nutans from chickenpox, retinitis pigmentosa, and kidney failure. She talks about her worsening eyesight due to pseudotumor cerebri, a false tumor that puts pressure on the right optic nerve. She mentions attending the University of Alabama for a bachelor of arts degree in communication studies and a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling. She talks about attending the E.H. Gentry Technical Facility where she was introduced to braille. blood clots ; Centerville Elementary ; deaf ; depth perception ; disability community ; Gwinnett County, Georgia ; hearing aids ; hospitals ; kidney dialysis ; kidney donor ; Montgomery, Alabama ; optic nerve ; Shiloh Elementary ; Shiloh High School ; Shiloh Middle School ; speech therapy ; spinal taps ; surgery ; visual impairment 17 263 Career From there, I didn't really know what to do. My parents had always taught me that, even if you have obstacles in your life, you don't give up. Trotman describes teaching braille to adults at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. She talks about attending the Louisiana Center for the Blind in order to train to be a vocational rehabilitation counselor and then working for the Iowa Department of Blind. She discusses her current job at the Center for the Visually Impaired where she teaches adults braille and helps them apply for programs offered through Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS). Bookshare ; Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) ; braille books ; braille instructor ; home management skills ; mentors ; talking books ; white cane skills ; work experience 17 http://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) English IRVIN: Hello, my name is Stephanie Irvin, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Anna Trotman for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, Georgia' ; s talking book and braille library. It is December 14, 2018, and this is being recorded in the Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you, Anna, for being with me today. TROTMAN: You' ; re welcome. I was born in 1981 in Montgomery, Alabama. I was born with jaundice and spent the first three weeks of my life in two different hospitals, mainly because they thought I was going to be retarded. But it turned out that I had blood clots in both of my kidneys that that would continue to decline until I was sixteen years old when they finally failed. When I was learning to walk, my parents noticed that my eyes would go back and forth, so I had spasmus nutans from chickenpox. They also noticed that I couldn' ; t tell the difference from where the carpet started and the tile ended. So they knew that I had some depth perception problems. We moved to Gwinnett County in 1985. They also knew that I had some problems with speech, so I started speech therapy when I was four years old. I went to public school--Centerville Elementary, Shiloh Elementary, Shiloh Middle School, and Shiloh High School. At the age of seven, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which is an eye condition where light doesn' ; t come in and you can' ; t see some colors, and you also have depth perception and no night vision. I continued to live a healthy life in school. I would sit very close to the board. I' ; d wear thick glasses and use my listening skills to get through towards high school. At age eleven, I had to have surgery for--some surgery. And then at thirteen, I had eye surgery to strengthen the muscles in my eyes, but it didn' ; t work. Like I said, when I was sixteen years old, my kidneys failed, and I was on dialysis for six months, and then my father was tested to be a donor and he gave me his kidney when I was--on October 22, 1998. And I have been rejection-free for almost twenty years. In 2000, I got black spots in front on my right optic nerve, and a neuro-ophthalmologist at Emory diagnosed me with pseudotumor cerebri, which is a false tumor that puts pressure on your right optic nerve. So I' ; ve had four spinal taps to relieve the fluid. When I graduated from high school, I went on to attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham and earned a bachelor of arts degree in communication studies with a concentration in communication management and a minor in health education. In 2003, my eyesight got worse. From the second spinal tap, I lost my hearing. So I use digital Bluetooth hearing aids. I graduated from college. In 2007, I went to the E.H. Gentry Technical Facility. It' ; s a residential adult training center for people who are blind, deaf, and who have general disabilities. So I got to be around other blind people, other deaf people, other people who had general disabilities, and I learned a lot from there. That is where I learned braille in about four months and use it every day since. In 2008, I decided to go back to school. And in 2009, enrolled in the University of Alabama for my master' ; s degree in rehabilitation counseling and earned my master' ; s degree in 2011. From there, I didn' ; t really know what to do. My parents had always taught me that, even if you have obstacles in your life, you don' ; t give up. So after my master' ; s degree, I did some paid work experiences and found the love of braille again and teaching it to adults who are blind at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. But there was no jobs in teaching braille, so I decided that I needed some more training, especially in cane travel and home management skills. So I attended the Louisiana Center for the Blind in 2013. Under sleep shades for eight hours a day, learning alternative techniques and everything. Then in 2015, I got a job as a vocational rehabilitation counselor at the Iowa Department of Blind. But that didn' ; t really work out, because it was isolation and it was with people that were not very friendly or nice. It was just very isolated, so after that, came home, started looking for braille instructor jobs and found this incredible, amazing opportunity at the Center for the Visually Impaired teaching adults in braille. And one thing that it allows me to do is to, once a student learns braille and sees what it can do for their lives, I also help them apply for GLASS, Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services, so they can get talking books, braille books, BARD. One thing that I love about the State of Georgia: You get a free Bookshare membership, which is not very known in other states. You usually pay for the membership. My message to other people is, there may be obstacles and other things in your lives, but don' ; t ever give up. And always find mentors and people that can help you and show you the way. IRVIN: Thank you so much, Anna, for taking time to talk with me today. TROTMAN: You' ; re welcome. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-012.xml RBRL451GLASS-012.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Atlanta, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
7 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Anna Trotman, December 14, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-012
Creator
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Anna Trotman
Stephanie Irvin
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Teachers of the blind
Description
An account of the resource
Anna Trotman was born in Montgomery, Alabama and experienced numerous health problems as a child that caused her to become visually impaired. In this interview, Trotman talks about her education and career as a braille instructor at various organizations, including the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind and the Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) in Atlanta.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-14
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Oral histories
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
Contains the OHMS link to the XML file within the OHMS viewer.
https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-013/ohms
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
Latinx
5.3 Interview with Alina Garcia Ravelo, December 14, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-013 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Alina Garcia Ravelo Catherine Vanstone oral history 1:|18(15)|30(2)|42(14)|54(9)|67(3)|79(8)|90(9)|101(9)|113(12)|125(10)|140(1)|155(13)|169(15)|182(14)|198(7)|209(5) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_7f72omz3& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_1nux39dh" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 23 Cone rod dystrophy / Education experience Ravelo talks about how her diagnosis of cone rod dystrophy has impacted her educational experience. Ravelo explains that during her grade school and high school years, her small hometown in Cuba did not offer much technological assistance for people with disabilities. Ravelo talks about her difficulty as a university student because she had trouble seeing the board but was embarrassed to use a telescope in front of her classmate. She eventually started using telescope during class, and was very successfully academically, completing her industrial engineering degree. cone dystrophy ; University of Habana 17 317 After college / Coming to the United States I used to take, like, two buses to get to the school and two buses to come back home. Ravelo talks about Cuba's lack of public accommodations for people with sight disabilities. Ravelo explains that she momentarily had to live with her parents in Cuba after graduating due to the lack of employment in the area. Ravelo says that she eventually moved to the United States where she lived with family in West Palm Beach, Florida. She recalls her initial difficulty in finding a job, before she was eventually began working for the Division of Blind Services. Ravelo talks about moving to Bainbridge, Georgia to work as an industrial engineer at the Georgia Industries for the Blind. assistive technology ; Banbridge, Georgia ; Cuba ; Division of Blind Services ; Georgia Industries for the Blind ; Luis Narimatsu ; Six Sigma Green Belt ; West Palm Beach ; ZoomText 17 https://gvs.georgia.gov/georgia-industries-blind Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB) 630 Challenges growing up / Technological-assistance for the visually-impaired Growing up what were some of the challenges... Ravelo talks about some of the challenges she faced as a result of growing up with a visual impairment in Cuba. She explains that she often had trouble reading bus signs and would have to ask assistance from those around her. Ravelo explains the cultural differences between the United States and Cuba--in the United States, a white cane is a symbol of blindness, while in Cuba, no such signals exists, which makes it harder for blind people to inform those around them of their disability. Ravelo talks about the ways in which the technology available in the United States for the visually-impaired has helped her in her career as an industrial engineer and in her everyday life. technology ; ZoomText 17 English VANSTONE: Hello, my name is Catherine Vanstone, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with-- GARCIA RAVELO: Alina Garcia Ravelo. VANSTONE: --for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; an oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 14, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Georgia Industries for the Blind in Bainbridge, Georgia. What is your story? GARCIA RAVELO: Hello, like I say, my name is Alina Garcia Ravelo. I [was] born in Cuba with cone dystrophy. I [was] born with that disability. It' ; s a really not common disability. Not a lot of people have that. What happened to me is I received, like, more light than I' ; m supposed to, so the light bothered me a lot. I always wear sunglasses when I go outside. Even inside the room, I have difficulty to see well because of the light. The light really bothers me. I [was] born in Cuba. I went to the school for the blind over there. We didn' ; t have assistive technology, so it was really hard. My classroom was about the size of eight students, more or less. We really had very good teachers, but like I say, no assistive technology. I didn' ; t have anything to help me with the materials or anything like that--just magnifier glasses ; that was the only thing. I went to the high school. It was a high school just for kids with disabilities, different kind of disabilities. The school was very far away. The school had a bus that used to go to our house and pick up us, but I spent every day, one hour and a half, going to the school and come back to the school, another hour and a half. I started to get interest in going to college and an engineering degree, so I start college in the University of Habana, studying industrial engineering. And that was the really hard part, because when I get out of this school for kids with disabilities was when I start to really feel the real world, put it in that way. Even my parents always treated me like a regular child. It was difficult when I just started the university. I remember the first day at the school. I was in physics class and the professor started to write on the board, really, really small, and I couldn' ; t see it. The only thing I had at that time was a small telescope that my doctor gave me. But it was my first day in the school, so I didn' ; t want everybody to know that I was legally blind, because, you know, you are young and you don' ; t want to look weird in the class. So at the right time, I talked with the professor and I told him, " ; Please, can you write a little bigger for me?" ; And he said, " ; I have to think about it." ; That was his reaction. When we came back in the room, he started to write even more small. So that day was terrible. I get out of the school and just cry because I was like, I' ; m not going to get my degree because if all the professors are like him, I' ; m not going to be able to do it. But I decided that I was going to start to use my telescope, and I was not going to care about what the other people say about it. So the next day at the school, that' ; s what I did--I started to use the telescope. It was [to] my surprise that that professor started to write bigger in the board. I guess he thought about it. I started to use the telescope when the other--in my room, the other students in the class saw me wearing that. They started to go away from me. They didn' ; t want to be with me. I was by myself probably the first two, three months of the school, because nobody wants to talk with me or anything, I guess because they thought they will have to help me with school and all that. But I started to study so hard and I started to get A' ; s in all my classes. When the other students saw that, they came back. And at that time, they start wanting to talk with me and they want me to explain the classes and whatever. So yeah, that was hard at the beginning. The other thing is in Cuba we didn' ; t have markers to write on the board. The school board was like, blue and the board was green, and I' ; m colorblind so I couldn' ; t see the difference. The contrast was really hard for me, and you cannot find those kind of markers in the stores in Cuba. So my family from here used to send me the markers to Cuba, and I go to the university with the markers in my backpack and give it to every professor every day, because we didn' ; t have any. I used to take, like, two buses to get to the school and two buses to come back home. And in Cuba, you don' ; t have privileges. You are--if you have disabilities, it' ; s long lines waiting for the buses. You have to wait and the people doesn' ; t care if you cannot see or not. You just have to make your way and just jump into the bus and push everybody like everybody else. (laughs) But I graduated top of my class, and after that, I started to think that I want to leave Cuba because as an industrial engineer, the school offered me a job in the school, in the university, as a professor, but what I was going to make was twenty-five dollars a month. So it' ; s no way that you can live with that. So the only possibility for me was to stay at home with my mom, my father, and live with them because I couldn' ; t afford to buy a house or anything. Thank God, my father has a good job so he could support me, but I didn' ; t want that for me. So I have family in Mexico, family here in United States, and I started to talk with them and told me that I wanted to come here. My mom and my dad at the beginning, they didn' ; t like the idea because, first, they want to be with me and, second, with my vision impairment, that was really tough. At the end, I found a way. I went to Mexico, I crossed the border. Because I' ; m Cuban, I got my paperwork to be ready to work and all that. I moved with my family in West Palm Beach, near West Palm Beach, and I applied for the service at the Division of Blind Services in Florida. And they started to send my résumé to different places. But my counselor told me that she didn' ; t have a job for me, because I was an industrial engineer and she didn' ; t have anything to offer me. And she say, " ; Well, you know what? You can work in McDonald' ; s." ; (laughs) But thank God, Georgia Industries for the Blind--and Luis Narimatsu was the recruitment HR person at that time--he received my résumé and they called me, they interviewed me, and I came here for the interview. They offered me a job as a junior industrial engineer. So I moved to Bainbridge by myself. I left my family in West Palm Beach and moved to here. I didn' ; t know nobody ; that was a hard part, too, because this is a small town. So coming from Havana to Boynton Beach--that' ; s where my aunt lives--and I was just there for six months, and after that, just come here--I didn' ; t know nobody--was really hard. Plus, on top of that, I didn' ; t know any English, just a little bit. I' ; m still working on it. I' ; m not that good now, but at that time, I just knew the basic sentences. I' ; m really thankful of GIB because they accepted me, you know, with my English problems, and they really helped me. I came here. I used to work for the other engineer that was here. I rent an apartment, start to live here. And after that--I think it was two years after that--I bought my house. And now, I got promoted to industrial engineer, not a junior industrial engineer anymore. I start my master' ; s degree and I finish my master' ; s degree this year. And I got my certification in Six Sigma Green Belt ; it' ; s for quality. And now I live in my house. I was able to bring my mom and my sister from Cuba. They are here with me now. That' ; s what I have been doing here. VANSTONE: So where do you find your support here in Bainbridge? GARCIA RAVELO: Where did I find support? Basically, here at GIB. Here, you know, you can talk with everybody, and everybody is going to try to help you in the way that they can. Luis helped me a lot with assistive technology. Like I say, I didn' ; t know anything about it. So he was the first person that told me you need to know about ZoomText and MAGic and things like that, because I didn' ; t have [any] idea. So he really helped me. Like I said, the Division of Blind Services helped me to come here, and he paid for the ZoomText for me. That' ; s what really helped me. VANSTONE: You talked about getting on the bus in Cuba in Havana and some of the challenges of that and the markers, things we take for granted here in America. Growing up--and you said it was--what were some of the challenges as a kid? You were going to the disability school but-- GARCIA RAVELO: Yeah. Really, like I say, my mom and my dad, they didn' ; t treat me like I had a disability. But for example, the kids used to play in Cuba in the streets and all that--I couldn' ; t do that because I wasn' ; t able to see the cars, of course, and bicycles and all that. So I always stayed close to my house. They were playing hide and sight [sic], I think you call it here, and I was just staying close to my house. In the school, for example, I didn' ; t like the--you know, the buses stopped close to my house but not really my house. So I didn' ; t like--you know, regular kids go to the school. The just walk because they don' ; t have problems. They just walk. But my mom and my dad, they always go and get me, because, you know, they worried about my visual impairment. And in Cuba, we don' ; t use a lot of canes, like for the blind. I don' ; t know. I guess because we don' ; t have it. I grew up in the school for the visually impaired, and don' ; t remember kids wearing the canes. Just blind kids. They just don' ; t wear it, I guess because in Cuba we don' ; t have those. In the school, it was really hard when I went to the university, because the elementary school and high school, the school has those buses, so I didn' ; t have to worry about go to the school by myself. But in the university, it was really hard, because I couldn' ; t see the numbers on the bus. Like, I know I have to took Number Nine, bus Number Nine, but I couldn' ; t see the number, and I couldn' ; t see the color, either, because they go by the numbers and by colors. But I' ; m colorblind, so I was all the time asking people, " ; What is that bus? The one that' ; s coming, what is that bus?" ; And that bothered me, because people look at me like, you know, you don' ; t have a cane. When you don' ; t have a cane, you look like you are, you know, a regular person. That' ; s why I think that it' ; s important when you go out, you know, if you are able to use your cane so that people are aware that you have a disability. But in Cuba, we didn' ; t have it. So I all the time ask, " ; What is that number? What is that color?" ; And the people are like, " ; Why is she asking me that?" ; But that was a challenge because I didn' ; t like to be asking people about it. And because the sun bothers me a lot, that was another thing on top of that. I used to wear regular pairs of glasses, a regular pair of glasses that you can buy in the store, because in Cuba we don' ; t have special glasses. So now that I came here, I have very good glasses that is for people with my condition. And that really changed my life, because now I can go out with my glasses and I can walk. You know, I don' ; t feel afraid and nervous about walking because the sun made me blind. The sun made me like, blind. But now with these glasses, I can do it. In Cuba, that was not possible. In the school, in the room, more than markers and all that, the professors, when they get to know me and they understand the disability because they never had another student with my disability, it is not very common in Cuba that people with disabilities go to college. That' ; s not really common, because like I say, we didn' ; t have the help and assistive technology, so the kids just don' ; t go to college. VANSTONE: So at this point, was it hard adapting to the assistive technology? GARCIA RAVELO: No, it wasn' ; t hard for me. I really like ZoomText. It really helps me with the computer. I can put my phone on my contacts the way I want it. I really like it. Magnifiers have been helping a lot. So it wasn' ; t really hard. I think it was one day of training and I was fine. VANSTONE: Just more excitement of having the opportunity-- GARCIA RAVELO: Having the opportunity, yeah. VANSTONE: --to use it, from before. Your story really goes from not having any assistance outside of family support, the professors once they understood, but no technology, and then coming here and having all these opportunities. GARCIA RAVELO: And not only that, just the opportunity to find a job and be successful, because in Cuba, yes, I was going to be a professor in the university, but I don' ; t know what else I was able to do, you know, if I want to move to another job. I don' ; t know, because we don' ; t have the assistive technology and we don' ; t have anything like that. So I wasn' ; t sure, if I moved to another job, if I they will accept my disability. And here, we have all the opportunities. You just want to get that opportunity and move forward, and you can do whatever you want. VANSTONE: An exciting story and a very different story from what we' ; ve been hearing. So thank you for sharing! GARCIA RAVELO: Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-013.xml RBRL451GLASS-013.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
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Bainbridge, Georgia
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16 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Alina Garcia Ravelo, December 14, 2018
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RBRL451GLASS-013
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Alina Garcia Ravelo
Catherine Vanstone
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oral histories
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Latinos with disabilities
People with visual disabilities
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
Latinos
Latinas
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Alina Garcia Ravelo was born in Cuba and attended the University of Havana, graduating with a degree in industrial engineering. She eventually moved to the U.S. and currently lives in Bainbridge, Georgia, where she works at Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB) as an industrial engineer. In this interview, Ravelo talks about the challenges she faced growing up as a visually impaired person in Cuba, explaining the lack of public services available for those with visual impairments there.
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2018-12-14
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Georgia
Cuba
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moving image
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-
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
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Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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2018
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RBRL451GLASS
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Georgia
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5.3 Interview with Gaylon Tootle, December 10, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-014 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Gaylon Tootle Kamesha Bradham oral history 1:|11(5)|23(1)|32(2)|44(7)|53(16)|64(3)|73(9)|82(17)|91(13)|101(6)|112(5)|121(6)|130(12)|139(2)|151(9)|162(8)|174(1)|185(2)|193(9)|204(5)|213(12) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_tp5r8miz& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_7ny6e31f" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 28 Early life and education I was born in a small southeastern town to two blind parents... Tootle talks about how his parents sent him to study at the Georgia Academy for the Blind as a child. He explains that the school taught him the skills he needed for independence and eventually prepared him to attend the University of Georgia. After college, Tootle worked for twenty years at Fort Stewart and then ten years at Moody Air Force Base. Tootle later moved to Georgia where he married his wife, who he'd originally met at the University of Georgia. Tootle talks about how, during his younger years, he would often be in denial of his blindness and would often fake being able to see due to his pride. Department of the Army ; Georgia Academy for the Blind ; Macon, Georgia ; Moody Air Force Base ; National Federation of the Blind ; University of Georgia 17 335 Helping the community And then I started looking at statistics where a lot of our blind kids... Tootle talks about how he realized that many blind children in the United States were not receiving a quality education, which led him to want to give back to the community. Tootle recalls that, as a result, he joined the National Federation for the Blind. Tootle describes how his present job in the Center for Independent Living in Augusta, Georgia positively impacts the lives of his consumers, many of whom are disabled. He explains that he developed a competitive spirit through playing, which he claims has been on his greatest assets in being successful despite his disability. Army ; Augusta, Georgia ; Center for Independent Living ; National Federation for the Blind ; University of Georgia 17 631 Challenges Matter of fact, right now, if somebody offered me 20/20 vision... Tootle talks about how programs like Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS), and technologies have helped people with disabilities have access to knowledge and information. Tootle recalls how, growing up, one of the biggest challenges that he faced was being accepted by peers and by himself. He explains that throughout his youth, his temperament often proved a challenge when he was offended by the rude things people sometimes said. Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 992 Challenges (cont.) / Concluding thoughts The barriers that I faced... Tootle explains that the largest barrier he faced in his youth was himself. He explains that in college, he often would sit in the back of the classroom, where the " ; cool kids" ; sat, despite the fact that doing so often prevented him from learning. He expresses his gratitude at the fact that he eventually came to accept himself for who he was and that he now dedicates his time to helping others. Tootle explains that his mission is to educate other blind people, so that they don't let pride get in the way of the resources available to help them. fitting in ; mentoring ; pride ; self-acceptance ; social acceptance ; University of Georgia 17 English ï" ; ¿BRADHAM: Hello. My name is Kamesha Bradham and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Mr. Gaylon Tootle for " ; Our Stories, Our Lives," ; An oral history project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 10, 2018, and this is being recorded at Walton Options Independent Living. Okay, Mr. Tootle, you can go on with your story. TOOTLE: Okay. I was born in a small Southeastern town to two blind parents. My parents were both--they--my father never finished high school. My mother she went to the ninth grade. and we grew up in a situation where there was you know there--it was totally not designed for us. My parents recognized that early on. So what they did was they sent me off to a blind school in Macon, Georgia--Georgia Academy for the Blind. And they put me on the bus at the age of six years old. My mother put a tag on me with the address where we were going, and I would get on a railway bus, and we would ride off to Macon. And it was probably one of the best things they ever done for me because, as I said, they recognized in that small, rural town where we were born that it was not designed for folks with disabilities or anything like that. But they were, as I said, they didn' ; t have a high school education, but they were smart enough to recognize that they wanted to put their child in a better situation than they had. They had two kids that were blind--my younger brother and myself. And then we had four other brothers and sisters. One of the great things about the blind academy was that they taught us braille and they taught us how to travel. And so at an early age I learned what I needed to learn in order to be independent. It' ; s possible. Now, the education component of it was great. They prepared me to go off to the University of Georgia, which I did. And I can remember picking tobacco, loading watermelons, and all that kind of stuff. And all of that kind of stuff was the driving force behind me wanting to get the heck out of there and go to a place where, you know, I could make a living. I thank my parents for, I love them for, and I know it was hard because my mother used to cry every time she would put me on the bus. She' ; d make me cry because she cried. But all in all, after my graduation and they saw what they had done and how they had made my life so much better, you know, they were--we used to laugh and talk about it when we got older. Went off to the University of Georgia. And from there, I went to Fort Stewart, Georgia, worked with the military ; I worked with the Department of the Army for twenty years. Spent ten years down at Moody Air Force Base, worked down there for ten, and thought I was going to retire until I moved here and got married. Got a great situation. The mother of my son--I met her at the University of Georgia--we had a child while we were in school. And we separated for thirty years, and then we got back together kind of like a fairy tale. My life as a blind individual has been great. I live the life I want. I' ; m the president of the National Federation of the Blind here in the CSRA area, and I' ; m also the vice president of the National Federation of the Blind Georgia Affiliate. So I' ; ve been very active in the advocacy side of things, working with the National Federation to educate the public as well as our own people about blindness and letting them know that they can live the lives they want. Now, for years I did not participate in the blind movement as we called it, because I was one of those guys who also wanted to fake it till I made it. I did not want to come across as being someone who was special who needed special treatment. So what I would do a lot of times in my younger days is I would pretend that I could see different things. You know how it is when you' ; re young: You want to be with the in crowd. I wanted all the women I could have. So I faked it. I wanted to participate in all the, quote, " ; normal things." ; And I didn' ; t start recognizing that it was cool to be blind until I probably got about forty years old, forty-five years old. And then I started looking at statistics where a lot of our blind kids, they were going to school but they weren' ; t really getting an education. And when I say an education, an education so they could go off to college or anything like that, and so I started wanting to give back. So I joined the National Federation of the Blind and that' ; s where my giving back started, and I found out that I like the advocacy side of things. I majored in political science and English in college, so politics and speaking out and wanting to be a part of movements, that was kind of in me. So the National Federation was a great place for me to land. I' ; ve been blessed with this job here. Probably the best job I' ; ve ever had. Now I worked for the Army, I was an O3 Charlie, which was a support specialist, and I worked in ammo and I ended up family counseling. It' ; s a heck of a move, but that' ; s how it happened through reductions in force. You know a lot of people, when they work for the federal government, when you say " ; reduction in force," ; that kind of shook a lot of people. That was one of the best things that ever happened to me because I ended up moving from a mundane, rudimentary job to a counseling job which allowed me to work with people and again that' ; s what I like. We' ; re here, we' ; re Center for Independent Living here in Augusta and, as I said, it' ; s probably the best job I' ; ve ever had because I work with disabled people. Our consumers all are disabled and I like seeing an individual come in and, you know, they may be all torn up or not knowing what' ; s next and you know two or three, six months later, you know, I see that change, that movement and I enjoy that. I mean I don' ; t think that, you know, I' ; m not too much like any other guy, person. I love life. I volunteer, you know, for different things. I coach recreation football and basketball for years, and I coached with the recreation department. So there wasn' ; t nothing special about it. I coached regular kids. And I was good at that. I was a winner. I like to win. And so it was one of the best times of my life: coaching recreation football and basketball, young kids from the age of nine to twelve. And I attribute a lot of that to the fact that I was a wrestler. I wrestled at the blind academy. I started out in the fourth grade, wrestled throughout high school, went to the University of Georgia, wrestled there, wrestled AAU. I did about seventeen years' ; worth, so I' ; ve always been a natural competitor. Somebody tell me that I can' ; t do it, I' ; m going to tell them that I can. And not only will I tell them, but I will show them. I believe in me. And that was one of the greatest things about coaching recreation sports: You get a kid who comes in and he can' ; t even hold a basketball or football, and by the end of the season, you know, you see that kid, you know, he' ; s maybe not the star but, you know, you see the confidence level improve ; you see the inner strength. And I think I attribute a lot of that to the fact that I was born blind, and I' ; ve always felt like, not so much that the deck was stacked against me, but that the system wasn' ; t designed for me. I was poor ; I was black, blind, in a small little town where, when I was born, we had separate this, separate that, you know, and I was always a fighter. And my mentality has been that I' ; ll kick the door in because I want to get in, and I want to be a part of. And, as I said, my life as a blind individual, I can think of a whole lot of other things I would rather be--I mean that I wouldn' ; t rather be--than blind. Matter of fact, right now, if somebody offered me 20/20 vision, I would turn it down because I' ; m cool where I' ; m at. I' ; ve been this way all my life. Hasn' ; t stopped me from doing, you know, I' ; m not a millionaire. I' ; m not a rich guy, little bitty rich guy, but so most of America so--and we know there are only what, maybe 10 percent? So I feel like I' ; m just like any other individual. I' ; ve got what I need and it' ; s great to know that we have places like this, like GLASS, like you know, because what they do is they allow my people accessibility to information, knowledge, and power. We live in a world where technology is here, so, you know, I just about can do anything that you guys can do. So I feel like, you know, it' ; s really nothing special to be blind. It' ; s just one of them things. We' ; ve got people walking around here, quadriplegics in wheelchairs and, God knows, I would rather--I wouldn' ; t want to be in that place. We have people who are deaf, can' ; t talk. Certainly would not want to do that because I' ; ve got a lot of things I want to say, so I want to be able to hear. So I' ; m blessed. I feel I' ; m blessed that I' ; m where I' ; m at and, again, I promote independence, living the life you want. And blindness is a characteristic that certainly doesn' ; t define me ; it' ; s simply a part of who I am. And, as a blind individual, every day I raise the bar on what it means to be blind. So that' ; s--I' ; m a happy guy. Content with where--who I am. And I' ; m just going forward, living the life that I want, and that' ; s it. BRADHAM: Okay. Can you think back at any challenges that you faced while growing up? TOOTLE: Oh yeah. I think one of the biggest challenges was wanting to be accepted. And, you know, kids can be cruel. So one of my biggest challenges coming along was, you know, when folks say stupid stuff and with the temperament that I had and the physical attributes that I had, you know, I would probably--I was one of those folks that, you know, would take it to you if you crossed the line. And when I say " ; crossed the line," ; if you said something, it was stupid. So one of my biggest challenges was to understand that human beings, human nature, is what it is. And a lot of times, people, they make fun of or say silly things about stuff that they simply don' ; t understand. So maintaining a temperament of " ; Hey, we' ; re just trying to get along" ; --I had to work on that. Some of the barriers were--I think one of the reasons that I did not have as many barriers probably as some other blind folks was that my daddy put me in a tobacco field at the age of six years old. He said, " ; Hey, listen. You know, this is what they do here. This is how we' ; re going to buy school clothes. You' ; re going to buy your school clothes. This is how we' ; re going to survive." ; So, you' ; ve got to get in where you fit in and this is what--so I worked in the fields. And he always stressed that this is not where you want to be, so you want to make sure you do your school work, do well in school. So with him putting me out there, and when I was fourteen, he told me that you know you' ; re going to go out like your older brother and you' ; re going to hang out, you know go to--we used to call them cafés and gyp joints, you know, he made me participate in life ; I couldn' ; t sit around inside the house. You know, as I said, he was blind. At one point he could see. He got shot when he was like eighteen years old. This guy shot him in the face. And so he had seen before so he knew what sighted life was all about and he did not want me to be in the house, a vegetable or just, you know, sitting around. So, as I said, he made me get out, and I appreciate that. It allowed me to mingle with other folks. And as I said, I hung out at the gyp joints just like everybody else. Now we didn' ; t have all that kind of technology back then so, you know, again, we had to do what we had to do. I had to put my face up on the papers to read them. And like I said, I learned braille and various--and then I was always aggressive. I could always advocate for me even before I knew what the word " ; advocate" ; meant. You know, I knew that I was one of those guys who would, you know, you' ; re not going to do me. And if I felt like you know that I earned it or if I had a right to it or whatever, I just wanted to be treated like everybody else. Wasn' ; t looking for nothing special. So the barriers that I faced--another barrier--probably one of the more bigger ones I faced was me coming to grips with who I was as a blind person. You know, in school I would like to sit in the back of the class, like everybody, you know, like where the cool folks sat, you know? Couldn' ; t see the board, but I' ; d rather take a B--rather make a B than an A because I didn' ; t want to be up on the front row acting like I need--like I was special ed, needing special attention. So I guess that was another big barrier, coming to grips with the mind--getting my mind right. It cost me, too, because I could have did a lot better in college, especially, if I would have, you know, taken advantage of the opportunities that was there like using the disability office or instead of you know sitting up front--instead of hanging back there with Dominique Wilkens and them guys, because all of us went to school together so we were all buddies and, you know, they were bigtime jocks. And I, I know I should have been up front of the class but I wanted to be cool so I would hang out there with them. And like I said, it took me three times to pass math 100 because I was too bull-headed. So that was a barrier ; that really was: Coming to grips with who I was and what I was as it relates to being a blind individual. But most of the barriers that I faced, honestly, were the barriers that I put there. Because of my mindset wanting to be cool, wanting to fit in, wanted to be that guy, and it cost me. But you know, all of us probably could be at a different place, but there was something or someone that came along and would get us off track. And I' ; m sure I can be a lot further along than I am, but I am comfortable in my own skin. And you know, when you change your life because I' ; m a man who believes in God, got saved, and that helped me be comfortable with where I' ; m at and who I am. But basic barriers, as I said, were ones that I placed there. And I thank God that I moved past that. I carry a cane now. I didn' ; t carry a cane for years. And whereas I can see, the cane is an identifier and it gives me confidence. I' ; m out there--you know, you' ; re out and you can' ; t see a sign or the bus comes up and you can' ; t read the banner so, you know, there were--in the old days I would say you know I might walk up to a young lady or something because I preyed on them: " ; Can you tell me what that sign says--where that bus is going?" ; Now a lot of times they' ; ll look at you: " ; Man, you can' ; t read the sign? You can' ; t read the bus?" ; With that cane there--I carry my cane--people are more apt to help, they' ; re understanding. And so I had to learn that. And it' ; s--to be blind is--in my scheme of things, I don' ; t even think about it as far as I' ; m concerned. I advocate hard though for my other brothers and sisters in the struggle who are blind because I do know that blindness is looked upon by a lot of people as being something that' ; s mental. And when they think with that mindset, they cripple our people. So I' ; m about the business of educating the public about blind folk, blindness, and giving back whereas as I said, so they don' ; t end up like me, you know missing out on some things in life because of pride or because of a mindset that' ; s only conducive to low expectations. But that' ; s me, my life story. BRADHAM: Okay. Thank you so much. TOOTLE: I don' ; t know how disjointed that was, but that' ; s it. Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. video Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. 0 RBRL451GLASS-014.xml RBRL451GLASS-014.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
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Augusta, Georgia
Duration
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22 minutes
Repository
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Title
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Interview with Gaylon Tootle, December 10, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-014
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Gaylon Tootle
Kamesha Bradham
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video
oral histories
Subject
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People with visual disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
United States. Army--Soldiers
African Americans with disabilities
Blindness
African Americans--History
Description
An account of the resource
Gaylon Tootle was born in Georgia and attended the Georgia Academy for the Blind, before attending the University of Georgia. After graduation, he worked for the U.S. Army at Fort Stewart and the Moody Air Force Base. Presently, Tootle works at the Center for Independent Living in Augusta. In this interview, Tootle talks about some of the challenges he faced throughout life due to his visual impairment. Tootle talks about the ways in which his family helped him gain independence and how assistive technology aids him in his everyday life. Tootle explains the importance of his self-acceptance when dealing with his disability.
Date
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2018-12-10
Coverage
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Georgia
Type
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moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2018
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-015/ohms
OHMS Object Text
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Latinx
5.3 Interview with Luis Narimatsu, December 14, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-015 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Luis Narimatsu Catherine Vanstone oral history 1:|18(3)|28(6)|41(6)|55(8)|68(3)|78(9)|90(4)|102(2)|116(4)|128(15)|158(6)|176(14)|192(8)|208(7)|226(5)|238(11)|253(4)|270(7)|287(4)|302(2)|314(4)|329(16)|346(1)|358(1)|376(9)|388(9) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_rj00uobd& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_kw4z1ols" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 40 Diagnosed with Glaucoma I was born, actually I was born overseas... Narimatsu talks about his childhood and young adulthood growing up in the Panama Canal Zone, since his father was in the military. Narimatsu explains,as an adult, he began suffering from headaches during the day and night, a common symptom of glaucoma. Narimatsu explains that he was eventually diagnosed with glaucoma, a condition that leads to excessive pressure in his eyes, and a result, eventual blindness. Narimatsu explains that after his diagnosis, he lost many of his friends and his job as a DJ. Narimatsu explains that he dropped out of college momentarily due to to his diagnosis. He reflects on how the self-denial of his condition as a young adult resulted in isolation and depression. Boscon Palmer Eye Institute ; glaucoma ; Panama Canal 17 408 Blindness rehabilitation services / using technology And then one day... Narimatsu explains how his faith helped him overcome his initial depression after his diagnosis. He recalls meeting his wife, who helped him to receive rehabilitation services for his sight loss. Narimatsu highlights the importance of the rehabilitation services, including learning how to use a cane and gaining independence as a result. He explains his siblings' help in introducing him to contacts who helped him get a computer specifically made for the visually-impaired. Narimatsu recalls that he eventually applied to the military again and was hired as a telephone operator. blindness ; computer ; Panama Canal Company ; United States Embassy 17 828 Teaching computer basics to the blind I worked there six years until the they closed down... Narimitsu recalls working for six years as a telephone operator for the 94th Signal Company as a telephone operator, until the Panama Canal was shut down. Narimitsu talks about his move to Georgia in 1999 with the hopes of working at the Warner Robins Air Force base . He recalls that in Georgia he had difficulty finding a job, though he eventually found a job in Bainbridge, Georgia teaching people with sight disabilities how to use computers. 94th Signal Company ; Bainbridge, Georgia ; Department of Defense ; Job Access with Speech (JAWS) ; National Industries for the Blind ; Panama Canal ; Ted Henter ; Warner Robins 17 1203 Georgia Industries for the Blind / Concluding thoughts So, I did the learning center... Narimatsu talks about how his work enables him to help other visually-impaired people in finding jobs, which he says is the most rewarding part of his job. He shares how Ted Henter, the creator of the Job Access With Speech (JAWS) screen reader program, helped him to get the career he has now as the Services Director of Georgia Industries for the Blind. Narimatsu ends the interview by sharing his belief that blindness should be used as an asset rather than seen as a weakness. Georgia Industries for the Blind ; National Industries for the Blind ; National Industries of the Blind Milton Samuelson Career Achievement Award ; Ted Henter 17 https://gvs.georgia.gov/georgia-industries-blind Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB) English VANSTONE: Hello. My name is Catherine Vanstone, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Luis Narimatsu for Our Stories, Our Lives: An Oral History Project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 14, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Georgia Industries for the Blind in Bainbridge, Georgia. So Luis, what is your story? NARIMATSU: First of all, I want to thank the library for considering me for this project. That' ; s very interesting when--you know, when a lot of people lost their sight and their experiences dealing with blindness. I was born--actually, I was born overseas in a little place called--you know, a country called Panama, and if anybody knows anything about history, they know the United States went down there in 1903 to build a canal. So my dad was in the military in World War II, went to Korea, and then was stationed in Panama, so I was born overseas. Born and raised in a little place called the Panama Canal Zone run by the United States. And went to school and college down there and had two jobs, was working for the military, had my own business, going to college, and then--actually I was a DJ. So worked late at night, came home in the morning, went to school, went to my other job, and did that every day for three or four years until, you know, I was studying accounting. My major was accounting, and I started noticing at night, I started getting headaches, and then when I drove at night I started seeing halos around lights on cars and started getting headaches. I' ; d wake up and go jogging. I' ; ve always been a little big boy, so I used to go jogging at lunch time, and I thought maybe, you know, going jogging, you know, in the hot sun and working at night and these headaches. I started realizing I needed more and more light to see spreadsheets when I was doing accounting homework. I needed--one day I got home in the afternoon from work, and I decided I was going to go lie down and take a nap, see if I could shake my headache, and when I woke up, I had no central vision. It was like if you' ; re driving in the car and someone splatters soap suds on the windshield and they spread out. That' ; s where everything in the center was gone. Went to the eye doctor, they looked at me. They said, when I went there, my pressure in my eyes were sixty-four in one eye and sixty-five in the other, and if anybody knows anything about pressure in your eyes, the normal pressure of the eye should be around twelve to fourteen to sixteen. That' ; s normal pressure. I was up in the sixties. They diagnosed me with glaucoma. I did a couple of studies and realized it was a strange form of glaucoma. It' ; s glaucoma that usually doesn' ; t happen because glaucoma usually happens in older adults, not young. I was about twenty, twenty-one years old when I was diagnosed. Came to the United States. My dad brought me right away to Miami to the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. They did testing there. They didn' ; t want to do surgery on me because they said if they touched my eyes they could just damage more than what it was already damaged. Eye doctor back in Panama told me, " ; Get ready. Prepare yourself. You' ; re going to go blind. Five, six, ten, fifteen years, but you will go blind." ; That was a rude awakening for me. They tell you you' ; re going to lose your sight and I was not going to be able to recover what I had lost. They had me on all kinds of medications to keep the pressure down. The pressure was under control, but the damage was already there and it was going to be progressive. So there went my ability to drive. My DJ musical job started to be affected, because I wasn' ; t able to--you know, I was in charge of everything. I managed, I set up, I did the music, everything, and I was not being able to do that. So it started to get tough. It' ; s hard to depend on all those friends that you had when you were famous and everybody liked you because you were a DJ? All of a sudden, you didn' ; t have those. All of a sudden, they were busy and then next week someone else was busy and before you know it, they just tell you, " ; No, I can' ; t, I' ; m busy right now. I can' ; t help you." ; So I went through that phase where my friends started disappearing little by little. People that hung around me didn' ; t want to hang around me, because I wasn' ; t cool anymore. I was the one that needed to be helped out now. So that was very depressing. Had to drop out of college for a bit. I did graduate, but you know, after that I was trying to continue my studies and that was tough. I was still trying to deal with the emotional issues of having three vehicles in my front yard and I couldn' ; t drive any of them. I think that was one of the toughest things was to lose my independence. So that was tough. I got depressed. Very depressed. Started going to less places, because I couldn' ; t see well. I used to go to the clubs and hang out, and I stopped doing that because I used to bump in to things and play it off. I didn' ; t look for any kind of blindness skills training. I was trying to play it off like--I was low vision, legally blind, and I tried to play it off for a while, and that started getting bad and, you know, bumping into things and knocking things over. And I just started just going into a little shell, to the point where I didn' ; t leave my house very much. I just went around the neighborhood where I had a couple of friends who hung out with me and that was it. Got very, very depressed. I considered doing--you know, I considered a couple times just calling it quits and ending it all right there, because I just--I felt I wasn' ; t, you know, I felt I would never be myself again. Then one day, I don' ; t know. One day I woke up and something came to me. I started thinking about all the people in the world that were blind and who were successful, and I said, " ; I want to be like them, but what do I do?" ; So I just started looking for help. When I put that in the hands of the good Lord and said, you know, " ; Please, I need some help," ; and I put it in his hands, and all of a sudden people started appearing in my life. Strangers started appearing in my life to help me out. The first one was the person who is my wife today. Out of a prank phone call that she was making with her friends one night. Started a friendship and I ended up telling her that I was vision impaired and she helped me to go the United States Embassy and go to the library and I started looking up places where I could get some rehab. And I wrote a couple--she helped me write a couple letters to people, to agencies up here in the States to see who could help me get some rehabilitation. A lot of these places went and referred me back to a little place back in Panama, out in the country. So I decided to give it a try. So I went to a center for adults. And for those who don' ; t understand, outside of the military bases in Panama, we' ; re talking about a country that back then it was like a third-world country. And this rehab center was out of the center of the city. It was out in the country. And people that went there were a lot of people from--blind people that are from the country. People that, you know, they cook with wood stoves, they don' ; t have electricity, they don' ; t have irons. So my rehabilitation consisted of learning how to cook using wood stoves, ironing with--back in the 1800s when you ironed with a big old giant iron that you heat up over the stove. Learned how to do that. But I think the biggest thing I got out of there was learning how to be independent with a cane. That was my--that was my biggest gift they gave me. They taught me how to use a cane, how to get around with a cane. And that was for me--when I was able to use that cane, that gave me--that opened so many doors. I finally learned to embrace my blindness and started seeing that it could be--blindness could be my asset. Could be something that was helpful for me. Instead of, as I thought, something that was holding me back, it actually could open doors for me. After that I went back home. My dad got really sick. I had to go back home and help my mom take care of him. He was in the hospital. My sisters came down. He was--and my brothers. All my siblings were living in the States. I was the only one still living in Panama with my parents. So when my dad passed away in May, that December my brother came down to see me and he brought me a computer, and he goes, " ; Here Luis, I brought you a computer for you to use," ; and I sat there and I looked at him and I smiled. " ; That' ; s great, but I' ; m not going to use it? I can' ; t see the screen." ; And he goes, " ; We' ; ll figure something out." ; My brother was one of those computer wizzes, you know, back in the â80s. He came up with stuff and he managed to rig that computer so when I touched the letters on the keyboard it would say something. thought, " ; That' ; s nice, but how am I going to be able to use it to apply to other things that I used to do before?" ; My sister was living in the States and one day she called me and she said, " ; Luis, I went to the library and I saw this guy! He' ; s blind and he was using a computer. Do you want me to talk to him and ask him what he uses?" ; And I said, " ; Please do!" ; And so she did and he told her, " ; Tell him to call me," ; and, you know, she relayed that I' ; m in Panama overseas, I don' ; t have no work, I don' ; t have no money. I can' ; t--you know, I don' ; t have the money to make a phone call, you know? Back then you had to pay for those phone calls. You didn' ; t have cell service or anything like that. And he said, " ; Don' ; t worry. Tell him to call me collect." ; And I did. And he was living in Ohio, and he told me, " ; What do you want to do on a computer?" ; I go, " ; Everything I used to do before." ; One of my backgrounds in college was accounting and computers. So I was learning how to program and stuff like that on computers back in the old days when computers were just coming out. And he goes, " ; Okay, I' ; ll tell you what. I' ; ll talk to--I have a friend that lives in Florida, and I' ; m going to ask him and see how we can help you out." ; And he talked to his friend. He goes, " ; Call me back in about a week," ; and I did. And he goes, " ; I talked to my friend in Florida. He is very excited about helping you out. He told me to give him a call," ; and I did. And I called this guy in Florida and he tells me, " ; You know what? I was born in Panama. So I know exactly where you were born and I was born in the same place. I know all your neighborhoods. As a matter of fact, my cousin lives about two streets down the road. I' ; m going to tell him to go by your house." ; And about a week later, I had a knock on my door and the gentleman comes in and he goes, " ; Hey, my cousin Teddy--Ted told me to come and see you and to talk with you," ; and he came in and sat down and he read Ted' ; s story about all the accomplishments Ted had. Ted was an engineer and was a motorcycle racer and all this stuff that he had done before he lost his sight due to an accident and all the stuff he had done afterwards. You know, he was a Special Olympics skiing champion and gold medalist and this and that. So at the end of the day he goes, " ; I' ; ll tell you what. Let me get a hold of Ted and we' ; ll see what we can do with you." ; Two weeks later, I have another knock on the door and it' ; s Bert. Bert is Ted' ; s cousin. He came back. " ; Luis, I got you a box. Ted sent you a box." ; And inside that box was the JAWS screen reader program. And that' ; s an external box and all the training cassettes I needed to learn a computer again. And he goes, " ; Here, Teddy sent you this. He says he' ; s very happy to be able to help." ; And then I started corresponding with Ted after that. I' ; d record microcassettes, you know, back in the day when you had the little teeny microcassette recorders, and I' ; d record back. So Bert came back. Bert happened to also be the director of the Panama Canal Company, the IT department in the Panama Canal Company, so he was way up there in the Panama Canal Authority. And he brought his engineers. They hooked up all my software and all the peripherals that my brother had left me, and they made that thing talk to me. And I had WordPerfect on there and Lotus and I learned and I taught myself how to use a computer. About six months later, I applied for a job with the military again and I was reinstated working for the 94th Signal Company as a telephone operator. I worked there six years until they closed the canal down and the United States closed all bases. And I had to come, of all places, I ended up in Georgia. One of my good friends, my supervisor, had moved to Georgia and he said, " ; Come on up here. I live over here in Warner Robins. There' ; s an air base here. Stay with me. You can see if you can get a job on the base. It will be a snap. You already worked for the Department of Defense. Hey, come on up." ; And I did. Me and my wife, we didn' ; t have any children, we sold a lot of stuff, boxed some other stuff, sent it in the mail, and we came up here in 1999 a couple of months before they shut down the canal. I lived in Warner Robins about a year and a half looking for work and I couldn' ; t find work. Lot of job interviews. I did start working for--I did start doing some contract work for the vocational rehab services, teaching people how to use computers--blind people how to use computers. And then one day my counselor says, you know, " ; Luis, there' ; s a little place down in Bainbridge, Georgia, and they hire people who are blind, but I don' ; t know if--with all this, you know, your background and your experience and your education, I don' ; t know if you want to do that." ; I said, " ; Yes, I do." ; I don' ; t care. I was ready to wash dishes. I was ready--but I didn' ; t care. I just wanted to be able to work and I wanted to have that feeling. And my wife, when we got here, she had to go to work because I didn' ; t have a job. I had Social Security, SSI. The first time I ever applied for, you know, for assistance from the government. And then you know, I went to get some food stamps and they gave me twenty-four dollars a month because my wife was not a citizen. So here I am living off of $500, off my savings, and trying to find a job, you know, barely getting... She had to go flip hamburgers at a mall. You know, we were very--what, 1992? Came up in 1999. 2000. We didn' ; t have any children. She was--we had difficulty having kids, and God and behold, here we are, me without a job and I' ; m sitting at home cooking and cleaning while she' ; s working and boom, she gets pregnant. Lord have mercy. And so--and she had a bad pregnancy, because my daughter attached in the wrong place and it was a high-risk pregnancy, so she had to quit her job, and here we' ; re thinking about what we' ; re going to do, and all of a sudden, the good Lord answered my prayer and said there' ; s a place down in Bainbridge, you want to go down there, and I said yes I do. So she wasn' ; t able to make that first trip with me. That was October of 2000, and I came down and I toured this plant here in Bainbridge. One of the things that struck me was the folks here. The folks were happy and excited, and I said, " ; You know what? If they can be happy here, why can' ; t I?" ; That was in October, November. On Thanksgiving Day, with a couple of volunteers from the Perry office, VR office, I was heading down south to Bainbridge, Georgia. Doesn' ; t that sound like a country music song? Heading down south on my--it' ; s so weird. I was in my little red pickup truck pulling a U-Haul. I had fifty dollars in my wallet. I said, " ; One day I' ; m going to write a country song about that, you know?" ; And then I started thinking, " ; Well, that red truck is a Nissan, it' ; s not a Chevy or a Ford," ; so there went my country song. But anyways, I ended up here in Bainbridge, Georgia, in this little town called Bainbridge and the rest is history. I came in here and I looked around and I saw this scene, the things that the blind people were going through and the things that I could--I could either complain about how bad things were or I could make a difference. And one of the things that I saw was that blind people would have to go home to get someone to read their mail or something. I went and told the director and I told him, " ; Hey, if you give me the tools, I can teach these folks how to use computers." ; Back then we only had two computers in this plant. And he goes, " ; You sure?" ; I go, " ; Yeah, that' ; s my background. I can teach these folks how the computer--" ; and he allowed me--he got the computers and he allowed me to set up the training module and all the training material, and I started training people, all blind people and sighted people how to use computers. So I trained over 126 people at this plant how to use JAWS and all that stuff. And ZoomText and sighted people how to maneuver through Windows and better do tasks, basic, simple tasks, the beginning tasks that they could later use their eyes to do on their own. A lot of those folks right now are supervisors. I have two supervisors I taught computers that are out there. A lot of my blind people that I did teach are either not here or either in some kind of upward position in an office. But I did that, and I thought to myself--I remember when Ted did that for me. He sent me that box of tools for me and he told me, " ; Luis, these are the tools that are going to open doors for you. As far as you take them, that' ; s up to you." ; And I always told my students the same story. I always tell them, " ; I' ; ll tell you what Ted told me: These are tools that will open doors for you and it' ; s up to you how far you want to take it." ; And just so people out there who don' ; t know what I' ; m talking about, Ted, I' ; m talking about Ted Henter. Ted Henter is the one who invented JAWS, the screen reader. Back when I met him, he was struggling--they were a struggling company. He had not gone to Windows. So when he sent me that software, he said, " ; Luis, I' ; m not rich but I think these are tools that will help you out." ; So I have a lot to be thankful to Ted and his cousin for what they did to me. I see Ted every July when I go down to the Zonian reunion. We have a reunion in Orlando where all the folks from Panama get together and I see him, and I always make sure I give him a hug, him and his wife, and make sure to let them know that I' ; m really thankful for what he did for me. He didn' ; t know who I was. I mean, he was a total stranger and so was his cousin, and he gave me that opportunity to be where I' ; m at today. So I did the learning center and I was working production and they allowed me to come to--to take a lot of classes with NIB, the National Industries for the Blind, had some leadership courses and some business management courses. I took all those and the next thing I know, I' ; m in a corporate office helping Ms. Betty do recruiting, public relations, recruiting. I did that for a while. And in 2015, I was awarded by National Industries of the Blind Milton Samuelson Career Achievement Award, which for me was a big thing, you know, that--I have awards on the wall, you know, that I' ; ve won throughout my years working for the military and when I was here at GIB, I was nominated for employee of the year here and there, about six times. I have been able to travel all over the United States because of that. But winning the actual national award was a big thing, because that not only told me that I was good but that those people like Ted Henter and my wife and other people that I met along the way, Professor Lopez at the center for adults who gave me the benefit of--you know, allowed me to do things, a lot of things in my training as a blind person that those people, you know, it was--those are the people that that award is for, not for me. So you know, one of the things that I always say is I am here because of people that have been able--that have given me that opportunity and have seen in me that I may have the potential to do something. I' ; m not the smartest or the best or the giftedest, but I always say if what I do can open doors for other people with a lot more talent and a lot more things, then that' ; s all I care. I will never be able to pay Teddy back for the things, Ted back for the things--I call him Teddy. But I' ; ll never be able to pay him back. You can make a check for a computer and for software, but for what he did for me--so what I do is I try to pay it forward in anything that I do. When the phone rings and someone is on the other line saying, " ; I' ; m trying to find a job, I' ; m blind," ; and you know, I sit there because I remember when I was that person on the other side of the line looking for that help. So I make sure I listen to them and I try to give them the best advice of how to handle that and where to go and who to talk to. At the end of the day, if GIB is one thing they want to do, that' ; s fine. So now I' ; m a director here at GIB, one of the directors. I' ; m a services director. I run the services department where I have a call center--two call centers. I' ; m over the warehouse side on Robins Air Force base. I' ; m always looking for new contracts where I can bring talented blind people in to do services or work on the plant. So I' ; ve had a very long and interesting double-triple life. I had to invent myself a couple--reinvent yourself. But that' ; s the thing about being blind. You know, I tell people blindness--the way I view that is that--and I tell people, you know, " ; Use your strength to leverage your challenges to your greatest asset," ; and to me my--blindness was my challenge, but it' ; s also my greatest asset, because if it wasn' ; t for my blindness I would not be where I' ; m at today. I would not be able to travel all over the country and represent GIB and represent NIB, meet all those legislators and all those things I do when I deal with public policy and go to Washington, DC, travel all over the country to talk about GIB, talk about NIB, talk about opportunities and just talking about in general about things that people who are blind who think that I went blind or I won' ; t be able to do anything else. That' ; s not true. There' ; s--I tell people, " ; Open the door and look outside. That all belongs to you. It' ; s just a matter of you wanting it bad enough and going get it. Just like Ted told me, here' ; s your tools. How far do you want to take it?" ; And so for me, my blindness is my greatest asset. Just two things, I like to run my mouth. If you all can tell I haven' ; t shut up yet. I like to run my mouth. And my weakness is mobility. As I' ; ve gotten older, mobility has not been, you know--you don' ; t get around too much here in Bainbridge. There' ; s no sidewalks. You kind of depend on people. So running my mouth and traveling has always been beneficial, because you get to meet people. " ; Sir, do you need some help?" ; " ; Sure," ; and then you get to make a friend, because that person helping you, you can talk to them and they' ; re going to go help somebody else. Next time they see another blind person, you know, " ; I remember I met Luis." ; And I' ; ve made a lot of friends like that on planes and at airports and all places because it' ; s all about networking. But that' ; s kind of like my story of my blindness and my experience. I always tell people I am... I am the end result of the vocational rehab system here in Georgia. I know there' ; s a lot of people who have had challenges with them. But for me, my experience with them, from when I got here in 1999 to where I' ; m at here in 2018, when I got here in ' ; 99, when I moved down to Bainbridge, I just had a couple of dollars in my wallet and they started me out with paying for my house and utilities and stuff like that to where I' ; m at today as a director. It' ; s because of those folks at VR who had a passion and for what they do and saw in me someone that they could--they were willing to give their Thanksgiving to bring me down here and my family and my wife, you know, so that I had the opportunity to bring in a check. My first check I remember was for a couple of days. It was like for twenty-four bucks and that was like one of those happy days of your life because you' ; re finally making a paycheck again. So for me that was--that was a very emotional day. A lot of emotional days in my life. VANSTONE: Yes, a lot. And I want to thank you for sharing your fascinating story. I think it' ; s a great lesson on paying it forward and helping others. NARIMATSU: Thank you so much, Catherine. VANSTONE: Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-015.xml RBRL451GLASS-015.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
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Bainbridge, Georgia
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26 minutes
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Luis Narimatsu, December 14, 2018
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RBRL451GLASS-015
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Luis Narimatsu
Catherine Vanstone
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video
oral histories
Subject
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People with visual disabilities
Latinos with disabilities
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
People with visual disabilities--Services for
Latinos
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Luis Narimatsu was born in the Panama Canal Zone. He began losing his vision in college as a symptom of glaucoma. After his diagnosis, Narimatsu eventually found work in the 94th Signal Company as a telephone operator. Afterward, Naritmatsu moved to Bainbridge Georgia to work in Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB), where he is presently the Services Director. In this interview, Narimatsu talks about the challenges he faced after his initial glaucoma diagnosis, the change of career paths as a result of losing his sight, and learning to use computers with his disability, eventually working in a role with (GIB) where he teaches others. Narimatsu talks about how his visual impairment has enhanced his life and career satisfaction in that it allows him to help people with similar disabilities.
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2018-12-14
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
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Georgia
Panama Canal Zone
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moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
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Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
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Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2018
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Oral histories
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
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Georgia
Oral History
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-016/ohms
OHMS Object Text
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5.3 Interview with Robert Woodward, December 10, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-016 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Robert Woodward Catherine Vanstone oral history 1:|13(10)|22(8)|31(9)|38(9)|46(3)|53(5)|62(4)|76(3)|85(11)|92(18)|102(13)|110(5)|118(1)|128(7)|139(2)|147(2)|161(12)|171(5)|179(12)|188(8)|198(4)|205(7) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_4ydt21u4& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_lbndifs4" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 25 Switching career plans I grew up here in Decatur County... Woodward talks about how he lost eyesight in his right eye after a water-skiing accident, which caused him to cancel his plans of becoming a jet pilot in the U.S. Air Force. Woodward explains that after being diagnosed with a detached retina, he would eventually lose his sight in his left eye. After his Air Force plans were no longer possible, as a result, Woodward applied and was accepted into Georgia Tech as an intended aeronautical engineering major. Air Force ; Decatur County ; Georgia Tech ; Lake Seminole ; Mexico Beach 17 281 Finishing school / Working as an ambulance inspector At ABAC, I meta young lady who eventually became my wife. Woodward explains that he eventually left Georgia Tech after he decided he did not want to become an aeronautical engineer, though he eventually came back to attend school at the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC). Woodward recalls that after many major switches, he eventually came to major in environmental health at the University of Georgia. Woodward explains that he began working as a health inspector for Dalton, Georgia in Whitfield County before he eventually was certified as an ambulance inspector for all of northwest Georgia. Woodward explains that he came to work in Gwinnett County as the overseer of the county's food services. Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) ; Atlanta ; Dalton, Georgia ; Whitfield County 17 538 Jobs in northeast Georgia / Losing sight in left eye I went to work for the state... Woodward talks about how eventually came to work in Gwinnett County as a health inspector in the food service programs for the rapidly growing county, while also working as an EMT specialists for northeast Georgia. Woodward explains that he retired once the vision in the left eye was severely diminished as a result of retinal detachment. Woodward explains that the Talking Books program offered through the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) helped him to deal with his eyesight loss. He mentions that his sight was eventually restored in his left eye enough to be able to read large print. Bainbridge, Georgia ; Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta ; GLASS ; retinal detachment 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 852 Talking Books program / Georgia Institute for the Blind At that time I started walking from Faceville to Bainbridge... Wood ward explains that after the partial restoration of sight in his left eye from surgery, he would often visit a library in Bainbridge, Georgia which offered large print text. Woodward recalls that he would often walk the fifteen miles to the library from Faceville, Georgia before he eventually got his driver's licence back due to his sight restoration. Woodward explains that the large print program of GLASS helped him to deal with his loss of sight and that he does not want the GLASS program to move to Atlanta, and that he has fought for the GLASS program to stay in Bainbridge, Georgia. Woodward explains that he eventually came to work at Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB), a company with the mission of providing employment opportunities for people with sight disabilities throughout Georgia. Woodward explains that all of his previous education allowed him to work positions throughout the Georgia Industries for the Blind. Atlanta ; Blind Federation ; Georgia Council for the Blind ; Georgia Institute for the Blind ; Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) ; Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency ; University of Virginia 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 1207 Hobbies and interests Do you have any other hobbies or outside interest outside of reading? Woodward talks about his hobby of animal rescue and rehabilitation, which he does at his non-profit, Woody's Gopher Hole Farm. He explains that while being on the Board of Directors for the Humane Society, he also took care of goats, cows, donkeys, emus, horses, and llamas. Woodward also mentions volunteering once a week at the Saint Francis Wildlife Sanctuary in Tallahassee. Humane Society ; Saint Francis Wildlife Sanctuary ; Woody's Gopher Hole Farm 17 English VANSTONE: Hello, my name is Catherine Vanstone, and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Robert Woodward for Our Stores, Our Lives: An Oral History Project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 10, 2018, and this is being recorded at the Decatur County Gilbert H. Gragg Library in Bainbridge, Georgia. So, Robert, what is your story? WOODWARD: I grew up here in Decatur County, born in Bainbridge, and then spent the first five years of my life in Mexico Beach. Then we moved back to Bainbridge. As the year of my graduation approached, 1969, it was the middle of the Vietnam War, and that' ; s when my blind story starts. I had plans. I had been appointed by Maston O' ; Neal, our congressman at the time, to the Air Force Academy and my plans were to become a jet pilot and go to Vietnam and kill communists. God had other plans for me. The week before I graduated from high school, I was involved in a water-skiing accident out on Lake Seminole and consequently lost the sight in my right eye. I didn' ; t realize it at the time, but the week after graduation is when I went to the eye doctor because I thought I needed my glasses changed, and he said I had a detached retina and that I needed surgery immediately and at the time there was only three places in the country that could do the surgery: One was Emory, one was MIT, and one was a medical school in California. So my parents chose Emory, of course. (laughing) This was on like, a Thursday. They operated on Tuesday. They were not able to save my right eye, so I was blind in that right eye. They told me that I would eventually lose my sight in my left eye, but they didn' ; t know when. The Air Force does not accept half-blind jet fighter pilots. (laughing) So my scholarship to the Air Force Academy was gone. I decided that since I couldn' ; t fly, that I could build them though. So I consequently--I hadn' ; t applied to any other schools at the time, but I applied and was accepted at Georgia Tech. I was the, I guess you would say, " ; valedictorian" ; here at Bainbridge High School. I received an [award] for the most outstanding student. I thought my future was planned, going to the Air Force Academy, but then everything got disrupted. After a year at Georgia Tech, I decided that I did not want to be an aeronautical engineer, but I didn' ; t know what I wanted to be. I came home and I had become a hippie by that time. And my father convinced me that if I would cut my hair and go back to college, that he' ; d buy me a new car. And so I took him up on the offer and I went to ABAC [Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College]. At ABAC, I met a young lady who eventually became my wife. And I kept trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I first majored in forestry. I switched to library science. I switched to social science education and then history, and I was almost graduating by then from the University of Georgia with a degree in social science education. But my girlfriend at the time was planning to stay in Athens and work on her master' ; s degree. So I said oh, " ; I can' ; t leave Athens," ; so I changed majors again. But going back, because of my blindness I was able to go to college on a Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation scholarship. They paid my tuition and they bought my books and supplies. I did part-time jobs to pay the rest, because my family could not afford it. So that was part of the reason I kept going to school, because I didn' ; t know what I wanted to do. And then from being [an] avid American wanting to fight communists, I had become very much an environmentalist. And so I changed my degree to environmental health. And I was--by that time, I had more creditable hours than any student who had not graduated at the University of Georgia. My degree required 195 hours and I had 315. (laughing) I was sitting on the steps of the microbiology building one afternoon and my major professor, Dr. White, was walking up the steps and said he wanted to see me after class that afternoon. And I said, " ; Yes sir, we need to talk about what I' ; m going to take next quarter." ; And he said, " ; Okay, but you' ; ll understand more when you come in this afternoon." ; I found out that afternoon that he had already signed my papers that I had graduated. (laughing) He said that I was educated enough. He also introduced me to a man who worked for the Georgia Department of Public Health, and he wanted to talk to me about going to work as a health inspector up in Whitfield County, Dalton, Georgia. And I said, " ; Sure. I' ; ll talk to you about it. I' ; m not sure what I want to do." ; Well, this was in the early part of December 1975, and I went to see the man, thinking it was an interview for a job, and he showed me where my office was and asked me when I could start. So I never had an interview. I did not " ; officially plan to graduate from the University of Georgia." ; They just mailed me my diploma. (laughing) But I graduated. I went to work for the state, and the state decided after about a year that I needed more education, so they sent me back to school and I became a certified emergency medical technician. What it was, was they needed an ambulance inspector. So after a year of school--I was still working for the state while going to school--I became the ambulance inspector for all of Northwest Georgia, from Atlanta north to Chattanooga and west. A few years later, I decided to quit the state and move back home and I did. And I went in to work in construction and started building houses here in Bainbridge. After a couple of years, that same man that I met at the university called me one day and said he needed me back and that there was a county in Atlanta called Gwinnett that was, at the time, the most rapidly growing county in the United States and they had a food service program that was deplorable and he needed help. I said, " ; Okay, I' ; ll be there." ; I went and became head of that operation, but then the state also knew of my EMT experience, so they put me in charge of all of Northeast Georgia ambulance inspections, from Atlanta, all of Atlanta, east to Augusta and down to Savannah. So I worked as a health inspector in Gwinnett County for three days a week, and then I covered all of Northeast Georgia for two days a week checking ambulance services. In the late ' ; 80s, the vision in my left eye had started to deteriorate. And driving in Atlanta, one eye to start with and then with a diminishing left eye, can be quite dangerous and I decided that I needed to quit. I retired from the state in ' ; 93 with a medical disability because of my eyes. My vision decreased, and I finally went to an ophthalmologist surgeon in Tallahassee and he diagnosed that my left eye had then become detached. My vision was down to--I could tell light from dark. I shouldn' ; t have been driving, period, but I continued to do so. But he convinced me that I needed to stop, that that was the end of it. They operated again and saved what vision I had left in my left eye. I moved back to Faceville and that' ; s where I became acquainted with the GLASS program. I' ; ve always been an avid reader. That was the only thing that kept me sane during those first months when I couldn' ; t work, I couldn' ; t do anything else. So I started doing the Talking Books program thing, but I found that they just put me to sleep. I can' ; t just sit and listen to something without some visual input. Through several operations, through doctors at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta and a doctor in Panama City, they were able to restore the vision in my left eye enough that I can read large print. At that time, I started walking from Faceville to Bainbridge, which is close to fifteen miles, and I would come to the library and I would check out two or three books and I would go by a local establishment here in Bainbridge and drink a beer and then I would walk back to Faceville. And that was my weekly routine. I had a friend who would bring me to town on Saturdays and we could get groceries. But I got my driver' ; s license back. The library has been a salvation to my sanity. As Catherine knows, I am a frequent visitor, at least once, twice a week. I try not to take too many books, because somebody else may be needing to read them also. So usually I limit it to two, unless it' ; s a holiday weekend and I know I won' ; t make it all weekend with just two books. So I' ; ll go to three. And that' ; s my story. The large print program has been a lifesaver to me. I' ; ve been able to financially help that program. And it means so much that I do not want this library GLASS program to close and move to Atlanta. And I have fought in many ways, both statewide through the Blind Federation and the Georgia Council for the Blind and GVRA and the library system, advocating to keep this library open. Thank you. (laughing) VANSTONE: Thank you. WOODWARD: If you want to ask anything else, that' ; s it. VANSTONE: So I do have one other question, though your story is fascinating. When you did get your license back, did you start working again or--? WOODWARD: Oh yeah, I forgot that part of the story. (laughing) Actually, before I got my license back a friend who is blind was telling me that he worked at the Georgia Industries for the Blind, GIB, here in Bainbridge. And he says, " ; With your education, we need you." ; And I thought about it and I was bored at the time and I said, " ; Okay." ; So I applied, and of course they accepted me, because that' ; s the mission of GIB: to provide employment opportunities for any blind person. I went to work as a standard production worker. Two years later, I had moved from several different jobs. There' ; s different jobs within GIB production-wise and I had mastered, I guess, all of them. The only thing I can' ; t do is sew. I am not good at the seamstress job. But then I became a production supervisor, and when I retired two years ago now I was production manager. GIB had--and GVRA had helped me again go back to school and get my master' ; s degree in business administration. So again, I was thankful for the state for educational assistance. I did this at the University of Virginia, which involved flying to Washington. It was a correspondence-type deal, but I flew to Washington for a week every six weeks, and I did that for two years and the state of Georgia paid for all of these expenses. So I was obligated to them again for an additional degree. (laughing) So all of my degrees from Georgia, my EMT schooling, and University of Virginia have been helped by GVRA in one form or another. The program has been renamed several times as the state reorganizes. We' ; ve been the Department of Public Health, then we' ; ve become Vocational Rehab. GIB was once part of the Department of Labor. And now we' ; re back with the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency. So that' ; s the last part of that. (laughing) VANSTONE: So is reading about the only--do you have any other hobbies or outside interests outside of reading? WOODWARD: Other than animal rehabilitation. I started a non-profit little farm called Woody' ; s Gopher Hole Farm and I rescue gophers, tortoises. There' ; s about 50 that live on my farm. But then I branched into other animals, all domestic animals. I' ; m on the board of directors of the Humane Society and animals that the Humane Society accepts are dogs and cats. They don' ; t know what to do with rabbits and pigs or donkeys or horses that have been mistreated. Sometimes even a cow, goats that somebody has escaped and is bothering some neighbor. So I started taking in these. And I' ; ve had--I have had up to like, fifty animals. I' ; m now down to about twenty, but there' ; s still goats, llamas, an emu, more goats because they keep having baby goats, and donkeys. Donkeys have become a problem for people and they just abandon them. I' ; ve taken in horses from the Humane Society in Tallahassee. Then they would find them a home later, but that' ; s my passion is from my environmental sentiments and recycling and so forth, now to animal rescue. I also work with Saint Francis Wildlife Sanctuary in Tallahassee. I volunteer down there one day a week, so another passion is animal cruelty and preventing it and rescue. (laughing) VANSTONE: Well, I' ; m glad you' ; re there to help them. Well, I want to thank you, Woody, for coming in and sharing your fascinating story and your many degrees with us. (laughing) So thanks, Woody. WOODWARD: Thank you. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-016.xml RBRL451GLASS-016.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Bainbridge, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
23 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Robert Woodward, December 10, 2018
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS-016
Creator
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Robert Woodward
Catherine Vanstone
Format
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video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
Environmental health
People with visual disabilities--Services for
Nonprofit organizations
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Woodward grew up in Decatur County, Georgia. He worked in a variety of jobs, including as an ambulance inspector, food services inspector, and as an employee of Georgia Industries for the Blind (GIB). After retirement, Woordward opened his own animal rehabilitation farm called Woody’s Gophers, and he also serves on the board of directors for the Humane Society. Woodward talks about his career and the impact that his partial blindness has had throughout his life. He talks about the ways in which he managed to cope with his disability by using assistive technology, such as large print text books and talking books.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-10
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
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Georgia
Type
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moving image
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) Oral History Project
Subject
The topic of the resource
Georgia--History, Local
People with disabilities--History
People with disabilities--Services for
Georgia Disability Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Our Stories, Our Lives is a collection of stories gathered by the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) to preserve and document a more complete history of the disability experience, specifically that of people with print disabilities who are living in Georgia. This is an oral history project that works to both preserve and document the varying experiences of those with print disabilities through the stories of people who have lived/are living with a print disability, including visual impairment, physical impairment, blindness, or an organic reading disability such as dyslexia.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2018
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
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RBRL451GLASS
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS-017/ohms
OHMS Object Text
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5.3 Interview with Cornelius Butler, December 07, 2018 RBRL451GLASS-017 RBRL451GLASS Our Stories, Our Lives: Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Thank you to the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services for recording and donating the interviews in this project. Cornelius Butler Catherine Vanstone oral history 1:|20(2)|31(6)|43(3)|62(10)|77(4)|91(12)|107(13)|123(1)|136(9)|152(13)|171(4)|184(10)|199(2)|213(7)|227(3) 0 Kaltura video < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_8eeswyzl& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; & ; wid=1_qfoteb43" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; English 26 Dealing with retinitis pigmentosa / Learning with a sight disability When did your experience with disabilities start? Butler talks about how he came to terms with the inevitable nature of his condition, retinitis pigmentosa, which would eventually progress into total blindness. Butler talks about how he presently uses the Talking Book Service provided through the Georgia Libraries for Accessible State Service (GLASS) to keep up to date with the world. Butler talks about how his family served as his support network when he encountered discrimination due to his disability during grade school. Butler talks about his work as a website developer and the CEO of an internet marketing company. Butler recalls how he overcame discrimination and bullying as a child, during which times, he claims that he relied on faith and focus to accomplish his goals. Butler further elaborates on his grade school experience and recollects that though he was taught in mainstream classes, he had specialized, large-print books that were provided to him through his school. American Print House for the Blind ; Bainbridge High School ; Decatur County ; GLASS 17 https://georgialibraries.org/glass/ Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) 357 Support networks throughout life How did the vision teacher help you through your schooling and/or life in general? Butler talks about how his vision teachers helped him to get through schooling by providing technological assistance to counter his progressive loss of sight. Butler talks about his present hobbies, including going to the beach, listening to audiobooks, and listening to the news. Butler describes how his friends and family have served as a support network throughout his life. Butler shares his belief that there exists a support network for every person. family ; Google Home ; support network 17 656 Learning to code / Technology and disabilities Just to go back to the coding... Butler talks about his introductory classes in coding at Southwest Georgia Technical College (now the Southern Regional Technical College) and about how taught himself to code. Butler talks about his belief in the idea that technology serves as a great equalizer in society. Butler explains his present work in teaching himself the code used to develop the AI for picture recognition, which he hopes will be developed further for those with sight related disabilities. Butler talks about how the use of technologies such as a CCTV cameras, and programs such as Talking Books and Talking Language Master throughout his childhood helped him to overcome the hurdles he faced with regards to his disability in school and later in life. Application Program Interface ; artificial intelligence ; Bainbridge State College ; Eclan-King Elementary ; Visual Basic ; WordPress 17 English VANSTONE: Hello, my name is Catherine Vanstone and I' ; m going to have a conversation with Cornelius Butler for Our Stories, Our Lives: An Oral History Project with the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services. It is December 7, 2018 and this is being recorded at the Decatur County Gilbert H. Gragg Library, in Bainbridge, Georgia. So, Cornelius, when did you--when did your experiences with disabilities start? BUTLER: Actually, I was born with retinitis pigmentosa. I' ; ve been disabled all my life. Fortunately, it' ; s a disease that anybody who has it knows what the outcome is going to be and normally the vast majority of people who have it end up going totally blind. VANSTONE: So you' ; ve--it' ; s what you' ; ve always known? BUTLER: Oh, yes. It' ; s inevitable. VANSTONE: So tell me about growing up. BUTLER: OK. I' ; m from--initially, I was born in Dawsonville, Georgia, but I live in Bainbridge, Georgia. Throughout my life I used the Talking Book service, which is GLASS, to provide me with information on--actually provided me with a method to stay up to date on books and what' ; s going on in the world, because basically, I am fully print-disabled. I do not even use pretty much--going throughout my school career, I pretty much used large print books, but over the years my vision has basically waned to an extent and I' ; ve had to rely a lot now like on audio or basically voiceover content, such as like when it comes to like using things like Bookshare, using things like audiobooks, when it comes to my cellphone, my tablet, and things like that. But going back to that--going through elementary, middle schools, and all that, I basically faced a lot of the discrimination that someone who has a visual disability often faces: I was called " ; retard." ; I was put down a lot when it came to--basically because I was different. So I actually had to face a lot of animosity, and I actually rose through it by just basically having a really strong support system when it came to my vision teachers, when it came to my mom, because basically I was raised--my dad actually died when I was 5 years old. So basically, essentially you can say I grew up with a single mom, essentially, me and my brother. And I' ; m actually the one that has a disability ; he does not have one. He actually is fully--fully 20/20 vision. I' ; m actually the one that actually has the RP, but basically, I' ; ve had a strong support system that' ; s basically been there with me because I know without them it would have been even rougher and I wouldn' ; t even be where I am today. VANSTONE: And where are you today? BUTLER: I actually run my own web development and internet marketing company. I also focus heavily on developing websites that are accessible to people with disabilities. It' ; s been my vision to do this, and one of the reasons I do this is because of what I actually have had to endure. And not being able to use regular print, I didn' ; t want people to have to go through some of the same things that I have had to go through. So I basically started a company whose mission is to create a more accessible world. VANSTONE: That' ; s amazing. What were some of the hardest challenges you faced and how did you get through them? BUTLER: Ooh, some of the biggest challenges. So many. (laughing) Some of the biggest challenges I faced is basically when I was younger I had a lot of self-esteem issues, because I was--when someone is--when people are constantly beating you down and telling you what you won' ; t amount to anything and basically calling out your name because you actually have a disability, because you have a visual disability, it can get to you over time. So it was rough. I ain' ; t gonna lie to you. It actually was rough, but basically, I' ; m a very faith-based person and I am a very focused person. And there have been times when I' ; ve basically felt like giving up, but I' ; ve chosen not to. I' ; ve actually persevered. I' ; ve actually really pushed myself and I' ; m very happy with where I' ; ve ended up. VANSTONE: So where did you go to school? BUTLER: I went to school at Bainbridge High School in Bainbridge, Georgia. Basically, attended Decatur County school system. I was mainstreamed. I was not actually--I had a vision teacher throughout my entire process from--all the way from K through 12. Basically, I stayed with various vision teachers, but basically, I was not actually put in any specialized classes. I actually was mainstream. I actually had regular courses. Now, I did tote large-print books, which looked like--they were massive, basically. Multi volumes. We got them from American Print House for the Blind and what we (laughing) basically, you had to be very careful because sometimes my books were like five, six copies, and sometimes if you got the wrong one for the particular chapter that was going to be covered today, had to go all the way down to the room and go get the correct one. So that' ; s another reason why I' ; m actually happy that there was like more audio-focused books with searchability these days. I didn' ; t have that back then. So I' ; m very happy. VANSTONE: How did the vision teacher help you through your schooling and/or just life in general? BUTLER: She was my rock, really. She was one of my rocks, because she was on the ground there with me basically. A lot of times people don' ; t realize. They feel like your vision teacher' ; s just basically her main job is to basically make sure you have the tools that you need, you know, the books and stuff that you need, but I was actually blessed to have vision teachers who I could basically turn to that were able to counsel me. Basically, when I was actually having a bad day I knew I could always go to them and actually talk to them and tell them about what I was going through and they would actually be there for me. So basically, you could say they' ; re like--they were like a second mom to me. So they--I can actually owe a lot of my academic achievement to them being there. And I actually had about, let' ; s see, at least two throughout my career here. Yeah, Sherri Rye and (indistinct) Ajack were the two I dealt with heavily. VANSTONE: Do you still stay in contact with them or have you seen them? BUTLER: I lost contact with Ms. Rye because she moved back--she moved away. She moved to Michigan. I do stay in contact some with Mrs. Ajack, yes. VANSTONE: Outside of work, what are some of the activities you like to do? BUTLER: Well, actually I' ; m a hardcore techie. I' ; m actually really geeky, so one of the things I love to do in my spare--one of the things I have to do as part of my work is I actually do coding, quite a bit of it. And for fun I like to go to the beach. My favorite beach, unfortunately, doesn' ; t exist anymore right now. Well, it doesn' ; t exist like it used to. Like we used to go to Panama City Beach and Mexico Beach, and our area, you know, got hit by Hurricane Michael. We were really devastated, and we' ; re all in the recovery process right now. Hope to return there again someday, but I' ; m giving it time to recover. But spare time is basically, most people find me to be boring in my spare time, because I like to read. I like to listen to audiobooks. Not really that exciting. I' ; ll go listen to an audiobook on the beach. That' ; s pretty much my idea of fun. And I' ; m a news buff, so I watch a lot of your traditional news stations. And I' ; m loving--I recently got my first smart speakers, so I' ; m loving them. I' ; ve got both of them. I' ; ve got--I call her Madam A because I know people who hear this are going to basically--I don' ; t want to trigger her. (laughing) And I also have the Google Home. So I' ; m actually really discovering a whole new way to listen to audiobooks. VANSTONE: You talked about your support system growing up. Do they play just as important role today? BUTLER: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I' ; m very family-oriented and I' ; m very close with my mom. Basically, as she' ; s been there with me through thick and thin and yeah, my support system is still--whenever I' ; m having a bad day, they' ; re the people I can go to and complain to and they' ; ll just sit there and listen to me. They always have encouraging words to say and I' ; m proud of them and I know they' ; re proud of me and it' ; s worked out pretty well. (laughing) VANSTONE: And you mention your family in that they' ; re--is the family the close-knit part of your support group or does it extend outward? BUTLER: Oh no, it extends farther outward. I basically have a very close-knit group of friends. Someone who I dated for basically more than ten years, she' ; s always going to be a fundamental part of my life and she' ; s very close to me right now, even today there' ; s someone who--basically I can always say I can count on no matter what (laughing) basically. But I do have a very large network of people around me. VANSTONE: Has there been anything that' ; s surprised you over the years? I mean, you' ; ve talked about some of the hardships, but any things that are positive or anything that sort of surprised you throughout life? BUTLER: Something--one thing that actually has surprised me is that basically no matter how much negativity that you encounter in life, there' ; s always going to be a group of people that want to see you succeed. It may not be a large group at times. It may be just like a small group of people that' ; s always--don' ; t basically give up on humanity. There' ; s always going to be a group of people that want to see you do better. There' ; s always going to be a group of people that' ; s going to push you. I' ; ve been blessed to meet some of those people throughout my life. I' ; ve met the negativity too, (laughing) unfortunately, but I must say that basically the positive people that I' ; ve met, they' ; re still a part of my life and I continue to meet positive people. I' ; m all about positivity. That' ; s what I really am about. Basically, I really want to live a positive life. VANSTONE: Just to go back to the coding, I' ; m sort of jumping around here. BUTLER: Oh, no problem. VANSTONE: Where did you learn to code? BUTLER: Actually self-taught. And (laughing) actually self-taught. I have some education in it at our local college, but primarily self-taught, because see, we --you can actually say I graduated from a ghost college, because my college does not exist anymore. The facilities are still there, but the college I actually went to was Bainbridge State College. It does not exist anymore. We' ; re now Southern Regional Technical College and we were starting to get some of those coding-related classes like Visual Basic back then, but basically some of the things I know we didn' ; t teach here. So I basically just self-taught. Trial and error. Yup. So basically, yeah. VANSTONE: Do you think the technology opening doors for you and--did that help develop a love in wanting to learn how to code? BUTLER: Oh, yes. I' ; d say the technology industry basically in our society--well, actually in any society is a great equalizer. Some of the things that you can actually do with technology, you pretty much can write your own future essentially. Code allows you to literally basically create something from scratch that did not exist. And I' ; m loving where things are headed with artificial intelligence. I' ; m actually teaching myself some--basically how to do AI-related projects and I' ; m basically going to be using that as a jump board to be able to make more money over time. Because basically, I really do think--and especially in our community, the disability community and the blindness community, I really feel that basically AI is going to be able to play a major role in lifting up people who basically have visual disabilities. And the reason being is, for example, let' ; s say that you actually have--one of the things I' ; m actually experimenting with is basically technology that' ; s going to automatically describe images for people who are blind who use--who visit websites that are based off of the WordPress platform. Which you know WordPress is the largest web development platform on the planet right now basically, but a major issue with the internet is basically lack of accessible sites. So with WordPress being a significant chunk of the web, we' ; re going to take advantage of the fact that it has a very powerful API where you can build on top of it, which is application program interface, you can literally basically build a system that' ; s going to be able to auto-describe images, similar to what Facebook does with its auto-tagging. And what it' ; s going to allow you to do is basically automatically describe these images so someone who' ; s blind is going to actually be able to know that that is a vehicle, that' ; s a red car, with a person sitting in it on the corner. They would be able to actually know that. And see, that' ; s going to basically do a lot to really make things equal. VANSTONE: Technology--we' ; ve talked about how--technology' ; s role as an adult and Talking Books as a kid. Was there any technology that stands out, outside of Talking Books, when you were a kid that made your life--made a world of difference? BUTLER: Oh, yeah. One of the things that--while I was actually in school, basically when I was there, they actually bought me--it was called a Talking Language Master. It actually helped me do a lot of my work when it came to my English-related work when we had to do like definition work, we had to do English related look-up work. It' ; s actually a full-scale system that they actually bought for me. The school system bought it for me, and I still actually have it today. It played a pivotal role. And I also used some other AT when it came to doing--being able to do my work. I actually had a CCTV where I could basically put my books under it and it basically would auto-enlarge it. So I could basically easily read. I actually had that in elementary, middle, and high school actually. I had access to one. VANSTONE: So which elementary school did you go to? BUTLER: Elcan-King Elementary. VANSTONE: And then middle school? BUTLER: It was Hutto Middle. VANSTONE: Hutto. BUTLER: Sorry, I' ; m jumping around a lot. Oh, bless you. VANSTONE: Are there any other stories, you want to share anything special? BUTLER: Not off the top of my head. VANSTONE: We' ; ve covered a lot. BUTLER: Yes. VANSTONE: You shared a lot. So well, I want to thank you for coming in today and sharing your stories and what growing up here in Bainbridge was like visually impaired and the way technology is taking you in the future. BUTLER: Thank you. VANSTONE: Thank you, Cornelius. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. video 0 RBRL451GLASS-017.xml RBRL451GLASS-017.xml http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL451GLASS/findingaid
Location
The location of the interview
Bainbridge, Georgia
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
16 minutes
Repository
Name of repository the interview is from
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Cornelius Butler, December 07, 2018
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RBRL451GLASS-017
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cornelius Butler
Catherine Vanstone
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video
oral histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
People with visual disabilities
Blindness
Self-help devices for people with disabilities
Businesspeople with visual disabilities
African Americans with disabilities
People with disabilities--Education
Business enterprises
African Americans--History
Description
An account of the resource
Cornelius Butler was born in Dawsonville, Georgia and currently lives in Bainbridge, Georgia. At a young age, Butler was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which has caused progressive loss in sight throughout his life and will result in eventual blindness. Butler relates his educational experience in relation to his disability. He also explains how assistive technology has enabled him to pursue learning, a career as a computer coder and CEO of an internet marketing company, and various hobbies.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Georgia
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
OHMS