Blind Protestors Call for Reinstatement
of Missouri Librarian
In St. Louis July 22, some 100 blind men and women picketed the office of Secretary of State Bekki Cook to protest the June 25 firing of Beth Eckles, director of the Wolfner Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
According to the July 23 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the protestors said Eckles, who is sighted, had done more than anyone to improve Missouri’s audio and Braille collection, calling her “an icon” and a “visionary.” They accused Cook with being out of touch with the blind community.
Cook said there was no chance Eckles would be reinstated, indicating that she questioned Eckles’s leadership abilities. She pointed to an investigation undertaken after the librarian was fired, showing that she had mismanaged a $300,000 bequest to the library by turning it over to the library Friends group.
Posted July 26, 1999.
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