After becoming deaf and blind at age two, Helen Keller
faced her challenges with a singular optimism and strength. She became a
trailblazing advocate for disability rights, and the first person who was deaf
and blind to earn a college degree in the United States. She graduated in 1904,
at a time when women were significantly outnumbered by men in higher education,
special education was in its infancy, and the disability rights movement was just
beginning to pick up steam.
Keller’s mastery of multiple forms of communication, and
lifelong activism on behalf of people with disabilities, women, Black people,
and other socially sidelined groups, brought her international celebrity. She
lectured throughout the U.S. and abroad, and authored 14 books, including a
famous memoir published in 1905, The Story of My Life, which was
translated into 50 languages and remains in print.
While Keller embraced the limelight, she did so in order
to campaign for fair treatment and equal rights for everyone, regardless of
gender, race, or disability. She supported the growth of several major U.S.
institutions, including Helen Keller International, the ACLU, and the NAACP.
She believed true happiness came from helping and working in partnership with
others, aligning oneself with a higher purpose, and from within oneself.
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but
often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has
been opened for us,” she wrote in 1929. Helen Keller was a passionate proponent
of hope and courage in the face of adversity, and her words continue to
inspire.
Here are 10 of her most well-known and poignant
statements.
A happy life consists not in the absence, but
in the mastery of hardships.
Keller was born in 1880 in Alabama. When she was two
years old, she became deaf and blind due to a fever. Her early childhood was
reportedly filled with tantrums and disruptive behaviors. But when Keller was
seven years old, her parents hired Anne Sullivan, a recent graduate from the
Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts, to work with their
daughter. Sullivan’s arrival and her persistent and creative instruction were a
turning point in Keller’s life.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement;
nothing can be done without hope.
After initial struggles, a breakthrough occurred when
Sullivan repeatedly ran water over one of Keller’s palms while finger spelling
the word “water” into the other. After many tries, Keller was able to connect
the tactile experience of flowing water with the letter signals.
After comprehending the sign for water, she was able to
learn 30 more signs that same day. Working with Sullivan stoked her ambitions
to pursue an education and learn to speak. Keller was eventually able to
communicate through finger spelling, typing, Braille, touch-lip reading, and
speech.
I would rather walk with a friend in the
dark, than alone in the light.
The friendship that developed between Keller and her
mentor, Sullivan, spanned decades, and the pair lived together during different
periods of their lives. Like Keller, Sullivan was a member of the disability
community — she had vision impairments that increased as she aged.
One can never consent to creep when one feels
an impulse to soar.
During her teenage years and young adulthood, Keller
painstakingly learned to speak in a way that could be understood by people who
could hear. She went to multiple schools for people who were deaf and a
preparatory school for women before setting her sights on a new goal: attending
college.
Meanwhile, Keller’s advancements became publicly known
and drew the attention of influential people including Mark Twain, Alexander
Graham Bell, and Henry H. Rogers, an oil magnate who offered to pay Keller’s
tuition for Radcliffe College. In 1899, when she passed her entrance exams,
only 36% of
college students were women.
Sullivan accompanied Keller at Radcliffe, interpreting in
classes, until Keller graduated cum laude in 1904 at age 24. She was the first
individual who was blind and deaf to earn a higher education degree in the U.S.
Her autobiography, The Story of My Life, was published a year
later in 1905 and was widely read.
Many persons have a wrong idea of what
constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but
through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
After graduation, Keller set out to share what she had
learned and to advocate for people with disabilities. From universities to the
halls of Congress, she lectured and testified on her experiences in support of
blind and deaf communities. She is considered an early pioneer of the
disability rights movement, which began to pick up steam in the early 1900s.
Alone we can do so little; together we can do
so much.
Keller participated in numerous social movements of her
era, including women's suffrage. In 1915, she cofounded Helen Keller
International to address blindness and malnutrition around the world. She also
helped found the ACLU and was an active member in the American Federation for
the Blind, the Socialist Party, and other organizations. Despite being raised
in the post-Reconstruction era South, she supported the recently founded NAACP
advocating for civil rights for Black people.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does
not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is
either a daring adventure, or nothing.
Keller was an intrepid world traveler and activist. In
1946, she became the counselor of international relations for the American
Foundation for Overseas Blind. During the next 11 years, she spread her message
across five continents and 35 countries. For her efforts, Keller was awarded
several honorary degrees and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her
autobiography inspired the 1957 television drama The Miracle Worker, as
well as a Broadway play and film of the same title.
No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of
the stars, or sailed to an uncharted island, or opened a new heaven to the
human spirit.
Despite facing many challenges, Keller lived a life full
of meaning and happiness before her death in 1968 at age 87. Sullivan died in
1936 at the age of 70, after becoming nearly blind. She spent much of her life
by Keller’s side. Beginning with a single hand sign, the impact of these two
women’s accomplishments rippled throughout the global disability rights
community, and beyond. Through the words Keller worked so hard to impart, their
story endures today as a beacon of hope and possibility.
