Atlanta Daily World

Atlanta's Blind Citizens
The recent application for a charter of incorporation, to be known as the "Metropolitan Atlanta Ass'n for Blind. Inc., by a body of public spirited leaders here, betokens an organized interest and effort in a group-long forgotten and sadly neglected among us--Atlanta's blind citizens.
"Scattered throughout the large Negro population in Atlanta," finds Mrs. Annie L. McPheeters and reported in the April Wilson Library Bulletin, "live a goodly number of blind citizens whose afflictions range from 'being born blind' to 'having been blind only a short while."
Mrs. McPheeters, who has and is still doing a rather creative service to the blind in connection with her work as director of the Carnegie Library on Auburn Avenue, points out a number of other significant facts about Atlanta's blind, which may well serve as a fitting background around which increased support and understanding can be secured for these citizens. "The majority of this group are adults," she says further, "many of whom inspite of their loss of sight, dislike idleness and inactivity, or standing around the street corners with chewing gum and pencils for sale." The report goes into details and has been enlarged and reprinted in a current issue of the Journal of Negro Education. It should have a wide reading by those of us engaged or interested in service to these blind citizens.
The object given for the application for incorporation, indicates the laudable efforts being made by Mrs. Wallace Van Jackson, the director; Rev. John C. Wright, the President, together with Miss Janet Clark, L. D. Milton and A. T. Walden. "The object of said corporation shall be to maintain a complete register of the colored blind and near-blind; to promote their welfare through training, education, social adjustment and recreation: sight conservation and restoration of sight and to prevent unnecessary blindness," the application pleads.
There is an instinctive crave in the heart of every normal human being to count for something. The more we see of life the more convinced we become that the things which really defeat people are not hardships and adversity and suffering, so much as the inner futility. Life for many of these blind citizens has lost its zest and meaning. We can render a significant service to them by responding to the call of these directors and help induce a new meaning of life for each of these blind.