H. R. 2872
One Hundred Ninth Congress
of the
United States of America 
AT THE SECOND SESSION 
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday, 
the third day of January, two thousand and six 
An Act 
To require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of Louis 
Braille.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Louis Braille Bicentennial—
Braille Literacy Commemorative Coin Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds as follows: 
(1) Louis Braille, who invented the Braille method for 
reading and writing by the blind that has allowed millions 
of blind people to be literate participants in their societies, 
was born in Coupvray, a small village near Paris, on January 
4, 1809. 
(2) Braille lost his sight at the age of three after injuring 
himself with an awl in the shop of his father Rene, a maker 
of harnesses and other objects of leather. 
(3) A youth who was both intelligent and creative and 
was blessed with dedicated parents, a thoughtful local priest 
and an energetic local schoolteacher, Braille adapted to the 
situation and attended local school with other youths of his 
age, an unheard-of practice for a blind child of the period. 
(4) At the age of 10, when his schooling otherwise would 
have stopped, Braille—with the aid of the priest and school-
teacher—was given a scholarship by a local nobleman and 
went to Paris to attend the Royal Institute for Blind Children 
where he became the youngest pupil. 
(5) At the school, most instruction was oral but Braille 
found there were books for the blind—large, expensive-to-
produce books in which the text was of large letters embossed 
upon the page. 
(6) Soon Braille had read all 14 books in the school, but 
thirsted for more. 
(7) A captain in Napoleon’s army, Charles Barbier de la 
Serre, had invented ‘‘night writing’’, a method for commu-
nicating on the battlefield amidst the thick smoke of combat 
or at night without lighting a match—which would aid enemy 
gunners—that used dots and dashes that were felt and inter-
preted with the fingers, and later adapted the method for 
use by the blind, calling it Sonography because it represented 
words by sounds, rather than spelling.
H. R. 2872—2
(8) Braille adopted the Sonography method instantly but 
soon recognized that the basis in sound and the large number 
of dots—as many as 12—used to represent words was too 
cumbersome. 
(9) By the age of 15, and using a blunt awl, the same 
sort of tool that had blinded him, Braille had developed what 
is essentially modern Braille, a code that uses no more than 
6 dots in a ‘‘cell’’ of 2 columns of 3 dots each to represent 
each letter and contains a system of punctuation and of 
‘‘contractions’’ to speed writing and reading. 
(10) In contrast to the bulky books consisting of large 
embossed letters, Braille books can contain as many as 1000 
characters or contractions on a standard 11-by-12-inch page 
of heavy paper, and to this day Braille can be punched with 
an awl-like ‘‘stylus’’ into paper held in a metal ‘‘slate’’ that 
is very similar to the ones that Louis Braille adapted from 
Barbier’s original ‘‘night writing’’ devices. 
(11) Also a talented organist who supported himself by 
giving concerts, Braille went on to develop the Braille represen-
tation of music and in 1829 published the first-ever Braille 
book, a manual about how to read and write music. 
(12) 8 years later, in 1837, Braille followed that publication 
with another book detailing a system of representation of 
mathematics. 
(13) Braille’s talents were quickly recognized, and at 17 
he was made the first blind apprentice teacher at the school, 
where he taught algebra, grammar, music, and geography. 
(14) He and two blind classmates, his friends who probably 
were the first people to learn to read and write Braille, later 
became the first three blind full professors at the school. 
(15) However, despite the fact that many blind people 
enthusiastically adopted the system of writing and reading, 
there was great skepticism among sighted people about the 
real usefulness of Braille’s code, and even at the Royal Institute, 
it was not taught until after his death on January 6, 1852. 
(16) Braille did not start to spread widely until 1868 when 
a group of British men—later to become known as the Royal 
National Institute for the Blind—began publicizing and 
teaching the system. 
(17) Braille did not become the official and sole method 
of reading and writing for blind United States citizens until 
the 20th Century. 
(18) Helen Keller, a Braille reader of another generation, 
said: ‘‘Braille has been a most precious aid to me in many 
ways. It made my going to college possible—it was the only 
method by which I could take notes on lectures. All my exam-
ination papers were copied for me in this system. I use Braille 
as a spider uses its web—to catch thoughts that flit across 
my mind for speeches, messages and manuscripts.’’. 
(19) While rapid technological advances in the 20th Century 
have greatly aided the blind in many ways by speeding access 
to information, each advance has seen a commensurate drop 
in the teaching of Braille, to the point that only about 10 
percent of blind students today are taught the system. 
(20) However, for the blind not to know Braille is in itself 
a handicap, because literacy is the ability to read and the 
ability to write and the ability to do the two interactively.
H. R. 2872—3
(21) The National Federation of the Blind, the Nation’s 
oldest membership organization consisting of blind members, 
has been a champion of the Braille code, of Braille literacy 
for all blind people and of the memory of Louis Braille, and 
continues its Braille literacy efforts today through its divisions 
emphasizing Braille literacy, emphasizing education of blind 
children and emphasizing employment of the blind. 
(22) Braille literacy aids the blind in taking responsible 
and self-sufficient roles in society, such as employment: while 
70 percent of the blind are unemployed, 85 percent of the 
employed blind are Braille-literate. 
SEC. 3. COIN SPECIFICATIONS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of the Treasury (hereafter 
in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Secretary’’) shall mint and issue 
not more than 400,000 $1 coins bearing the designs specified in 
section 4(a), each of which shall—
(1) weigh 26.73 grams; 
(2) have a diameter of 1.500 inches; and 
(3) contain 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper. 
(b) LEGAL TENDER.—The coins minted under this Act shall 
be legal tender, as provided in section 5103 of title 31, United 
States Code. 
(c) NUMISMATIC ITEMS.—For purposes of section 5134 of title 
31, United States Code, all coins minted under this Act shall 
be considered to be numismatic items. 
SEC. 4. DESIGN OF COINS. 
(a) DESIGN REQUIREMENTS.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—The design of the coins minted under 
this Act shall be emblematic of the life and legacy of Louis 
Braille. 
(2) OBVERSE.—The design on the obverse shall bear a rep-
resentation of the image of Louis Braille. 
(3) REVERSE.—The design on the reverse shall emphasize 
Braille literacy and shall specifically include the word for 
Braille in Braille code (the Braille capital sign and the letters 
Brl) represented in a way that substantially complies with 
section 3 of Specification 800 of the National Library Service 
for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the Library of 
Congress specifications for Braille, and is tactilely indiscernible 
from printed or written Braille. 
(4) DESIGNATION AND INSCRIPTIONS.—On each coin minted 
under this Act there shall be—
(A) a designation of the value of the coin; 
(B) an inscription of the year ‘‘2009’’; and 
(C) inscriptions of the words ‘‘Liberty’’, ‘‘In God We 
Trust’’, ‘‘United States of America’’, and ‘‘E Pluribus 
Unum’’. 
(b) SELECTION.—The design for the coins minted under this 
Act shall be—
(1) selected by the Secretary after consultation with the 
Commission of Fine Arts and the National Federation of the 
Blind; and 
(2) reviewed by the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee.