[Nfb-history] What Is The Real Historical Context With Helen Keller vis-à-vis The Federation?

[Michael Freholm]

Well, I cannot say that question has not crossed my mind before. Of course, anything I come up with is merely speculation.  But I am sure there is a story in there somewhere. Best, Michael

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 5, 2017, at 12:31 PM, Kane Brolin via Nfb-history <nfb-history at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi, there.  Not at all attempting to stir a hornet's nest, but I am
> truly curious about this--mostly because I am approached on a regular
> basis by sighted folks out there in the integrated world who make
> reference to Helen Keller, whom I am vaguely but not intimately
> familiar with.
> 
> 
> I am a relatively new chapter president, in an area of the country
> which did not have any direct NFB coverage for a couple of decades
> prior to 2012.  So I find that a lot of people--even blind folks--are
> somewhat open-minded, but not at all indoctrinated yet into either
> Federation philosophy or the more custodial "blindness professional"
> model of looking at our shared characteristic.  So I get lots of
> questions on all fronts, especially from senior individuals.
> 
> On March 3 of this year, I happened to find myself at the Jernigan
> Institute taking part in a group activity.  On that same day, I
> received a Tweet notification from the Perkins School, whose feed I
> monitor just to hear about what other things are going on in the
> blindness community that someday might come up in a question I
> receive.  Perkins was making a big deal about March 3 being the
> momentous anniversary of the day when Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan
> met.  To the Perkins School's followers, this was a huge deal.  In
> that entire day spent in front of Federation leadership in Baltimore,
> it never came up.  I never brought it up either, of course, because I
> intuitively can figure out that Helen Keller was not in league with
> the Federation even though she lived well beyond the year 1940.
> 
> I didn't think of this again until last week, when I was attending a
> Lions Club meeting where someone was being inducted as a local club
> member.  The text of the speech delivered by the club president prior
> to my friend's induction pointed out that Helen Keller had become "a
> tireless advocate for people with disabilities. And in 1925, she
> attended the Lions Clubs International Convention and challenged Lions
> to become 'knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness.'"
> My first thought was "Uh-oh.  This sounds horribly clichéd, and it
> sounds like she might have supported the medical model of trying to
> cure blindness." But is that actually true?  I know this is how most
> sighted people even today--even well meaning ones--would wish to
> interpret such a challenge.
> 
> But what do we know of Ms. Keller's real-life encounters with or
> attitudes toward the National Federation of the Blind?  Yes, I know
> she was deaf-blind and not merely blind.  And it was a different era.
> But she is viewed by the world as a highly admirable example of an
> empowered blind person who became famous and attained worldwide
> celebrity, even supposedly befriending presidents and proto-feminist
> heroes such as Eleanor Roosevelt.  And she seemed to support left-wing
> social movements at about the same time that early Federationists were
> attempting to make headway with getting the blind into organized labor
> unions during the 1940s.  So I have to think there were some shared
> experiences.
> Even if she wasn't one of us, I presume Helen Keller had to have
> encountered the Federation.  She wasn't shy; so did she have anything
> to say about us?
> 
> The ACB and AFB seem very proud of Helen Keller; so it would be
> natural to think she put her pick in the ground in support of them.
> But did Helen Keller weigh in on the "civil war"in our movement during
> the early 1960s?  I've heard the ACB now also claims Jacobus tenBroek
> as one of their own, since he represented the California Council of
> the Blind and the CCB technically was around prior to the formation of
> the Federation.  Clearly that couldn't have been true, but falsehood
> doesn't necessarily prevent anyone from saying anything in a free
> country.
> 
> So what do we know of Helen Keller as it relates to her direct
> encounters with or comments about the NFB?  Just curious and wanting
> to have some historical basis for backing up anything I might say to
> respond to curious people in the Midwest who bring up Helen Keller.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Kane Brolin, President
> Michiana Chapter, National Federation of the Blind
> 
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