Helen's
Many Dimensions
Helen's many dimensions
Those people whose only experience of her
is "The Miracle Worker" will be surprised to
discover 
her many dimensions. She championed the women's rights, fought for
racial and sexual equality.
"Ignorance and
poverty." she said "are the causes
of much blindness. These are the enemies, which destroy the rights of children
and workmen, and undermine the health of mankind. These causes must be searched
out. . . and abolished." She also wrote, "My work for
the blind has never occupied a center in my personality. My sympathies are with
all who struggle for justice." and she once said, "I
think God made woman foolish so that she might be a suitable companion to
man." She had such left-leaning opinions that the FBI under J.
Edgar Hoover kept a file on her.
Her main message was and is, "We're like
everybody else. We're here to be able to live a life as full as any sighted
person's. And it's O.K. to be ourselves."
And who were her choices for the most important people of the century?
Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin and Lenin.
Helen's Death
In the afternoon of June 1, 1968, she died in Westport, Connecticut, during a nap, a few weeks short before
her 88th birthday. At her memorial service, Senator Lister Hill of Alabama
expressed the feelings of many when he said "She
will live on, one of the few, the immortal names not born to die. Her spirit
will endure as long as man can read and stories can be told of the woman who
showed the world there are no boundaries to courage and faith."
About Helen
Her life and her relation with Anne
Sullivan was a subject for a film called The Unconquered and The
Miracle Worker, which was a 1960 Pulitzer prize-winning play and an award
winning film in 1962 by the American author William Gibson.
During
her lifetime, Helen Keller received scores of distinguished awards, many of them
in
appreciation of her impact on work
for the blind everywhere. They include Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross;
Japan's Sacred Treasure; the Philippines' Golden Heart; Lebanon's Gold Medal of
Merit; and her own country's highest honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In addition, she was elected to
membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Radcliffe
awarded her its Alumnae Achievement Award 50 years after her graduation. Miss
Keller also received the American Award for Inter-American Unity, the Gold Medal
Award from the national Institute of Social Sciences, the National Humanitarian
Award from Variety Clubs International, and many others. She held honorary
memberships in scientific societies and philanthropic organizations throughout
the world.
She was once asked by
a reporter how many American presidents she had met. She said
she did
not know, but that she had
met them all since Grover Cleveland!
In
her later years, Helen Keller lived on into retirement. She often walked the
grounds of "Arcan Ridge," and could be seen talking to herself with
her fingers. Her fingers, her windows to the world, would flutter with unspoken
remembrances of her long and wonderful life.
