Women's History Month Celebrating Activist Helen Keller

     Helen Keller may be most known for overcoming extraordinary challenges to become the first blind and deaf person to earn a college diploma in the United States, graduating cum laude from Radcliffe. But Keller’s most important work was her political activism so radical she was under FBI surveillance her entire life. 
     Keller was a suffragist, participating in marches and protests fighting for women’s rights. She wrote essays supporting the legalization of birth control and abortion. In 1909, Keller joined the Socialist Party, advocating for worker’s rights. Sickened by the inhumane treatment of Black citizens, Keller became an ardent supporter of the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) co-founded by a lifelong friend. She traversed the country spotlighting the brutal and terrorizing continuation of lynching and other heinous crimes against Blacks. 
     Her work in opposition to racial injustice and inequality led her to understand that marginalized people needed protection from government oppression and, along with a handful of other socialists in 1920, she established the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 
Championing the rights of people with disabilities took her to 39 countries where she met with government leaders—from kings and queens to presidents and prime ministers. Her tireless work to fight injustice was recognized by a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize. 
 
 
 
     Reporters once asked which affliction was the most difficult to withstand—deafness, dumbness, or blindness. 
     She answered, “None.” 
     “What then?” they asked. 
     “Boneheadedness.”
 
 
     One of Helen Keller’s closest and longest relationships was with Alexander Graham Bell. Bell’s mother and wife were also deaf. Dedicating his life to improving lives of the hearing impaired, he taught the deaf how to speak using a method his father had invented called Visible Speech. When Keller was six years old, Bell steered her family toward the Parkin’s School of the Blind, which in turn led Keller to her teacher Anne Sullivan.  After Keller graduated from Radcliffe, Bell toured the world with her. In 1903, Keller dedicated her autobiography to Bell, writing: “To Alexander Graham Bell who has taught the deaf to speak and enabled the listening ear to hear.”