Do you need to see to understand the world? Do you need to hear to listen to others? Helen Keller lost her sight and her hearing. For years, she couldn’t talk. Yet her did not define her. Keller learned to speak. She wrote books. She showed the world what she could do. And she changed it too.
Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. A sickness caused her to go blind and deaf when she was 19 months old. Keller struggled to communicate. She later described that time as being “in a fog.” When Keller was six, a teacher came to live with her. Anne Sullivan taught her to communicate.
Sullivan helped Keller connect objects to words. For example, she gave Keller a doll and spelled the letters “D-O-L-L” into her hand. Keller learned to use Braille. That writing system has raised dots. Blind people can feel the dots to read words.
“I had now the key to all language,” Keller remembered. “And I was eager to learn to use it.”
With Sullivan, Keller attended school. She graduated from college in 1904. “It is so pleasant to learn about new things,” wrote Keller. She called reading her “chief pleasure.” Yet Keller did more than just read.
Keller wrote many books. She also wrote articles and speeches. With Sullivan, she traveled to different countries, telling about her life. She showed the world what people with disabilities can do. Keller became an for the blind and deaf.
In 1915, Keller co-founded Helen Keller International (HKI). That group worked to promote the health of families. In 1920, she co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). That group worked to support the rights of all people. Keller died in 1968. Yet the HKI and the ACLU are still active today.
Helen Keller faced challenges during her life. Yet she made it easier for others. “I do not like the world as it is,” Keller once wrote. “So I am trying to make it a little more as I want it.”
Updated March 1, 2023, 5:01 P.M. (ET)
By Russell Kahn (Russ)
