As a disabled person, he really understands how difficulties are faced in living life. But he did not give up, he continued to study and study until he finally became an activist engaged in defending the right of the disabled.
Vision and hearing loss
Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabam. He is the first child of two siblings, the son of Arhur H. Keller and Katherine Adams Keller. His father was editor of a local newspaper weekly and had served as captain of the Confederate Army during the Civil War in America (Keller, 1903: 4). His family is not very rich and earns income from their cotton plantations.
Keller was born with his sense of sight and hearing. He started talking when he was only 6 months old and started walking at the age of 1 year.
In February 1882, when Keller was 19 months old, he was stricken with a disease called "brain fever". The pain was so severe that doctors thought Keller would not survive (Keller, 1903: 7).
After the fever began to fade, Keller's mother noticed that her daughter showed no reaction when the dinner bell rang or when a hand waved in front of her face. From then on, his family concluded that Keller had lost his sight and hearing.
Keller who lost two important senses, then developed a method of limited communication with his friend, Martha Washington, the young daughter of the family cook. Both of them have created a kind of sign language.
However, a change in attitude occurred to Keller, he became very wild and difficult to manage. He will kick and scream when angry, and giggle uncontrollably when happy. He tortured Martha and raged at her parents. Many family relatives felt he needed to be rehabilitated.
Meeting Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan
Despite being asked to send their children to a rehabilitation center, Keller's parents prefer to find other solutions for their daughter. In 1886, Keller's mother was inspired by Charles Dickens' account of a successful education story for deaf and blind women, Laura Bridgman. Therefore, they invited young Keller to seek the advice of doctor J. Julian Chisholm, an eye specialist, and ENT in Baltimore .
The doctor then referred Kellers to Alexander Graham Bell, who was dealing with deaf children. Bell advised them to contact the Perkins Blind Institute (Nielsen, 2004: 1).
Michael Anagnos, the school director asked the 20-year-old school alumnus (Chamberlain, 1899: 289), Anne Mansfield Sullivan, who also had a vision problem to become a teacher for Keller.
This meeting was the beginning of their close relationship for almost 50 years. During his time with Keller, Sullivan not only became a teacher but also became his best friend and friend.
Sullivan arrived at Keller's house on March 5, 1887. That day was considered by Keller as the most important day of his life. Sullivan immediately began to teach him to communicate by spelling words using his hands, starting with "d-o-l-l" for a doll given to Keller (Keller, 1903: 22).
At first Keller was frustrated because he did not understand that each object has a word that uniquely identifies it. In fact, when Sullivan tried to teach Keller the word for "mug," Keller became so frustrated that he broke the mug.
But he was soon able to imitate Sullivan's hand movements. "I didn't know that I spell the word or even the words exist," Keller remembers. "I just made my fingers mimic like a monkey."
In the following month Keller's communication continued to develop. One that made his enthusiasm for learning even greater was when he discovered how to spell "water". With the one-handed method of sensing the movements of his teacher, while one-hand flowing with cold water, he succeeded in finding ideas about water (Rankin, 1908: 86). After that, Sullivan also taught him to know various objects in the world.
Helen Keller's Education
Within a few months Keller had learned to feel objects and associate them with words spelled with finger signals in the palm of his hand, to read sentences by feeling the words that appeared on the cardboard, and making his own sentences by arranging words in a frame.
During 1888-1890 Keller spent the winter at the Perkins Institute to study Braille. In March 1990, Keller's desire to learn to speak emerged. He expressed his desire to Sullivan. His teacher then took him to meet Sarah Fuller at Horace Mann School for the Deaf. Under Fuller's guidance, Keller began to learn to speak (Fuller, 1892: 24). In addition to learning to communicate, Keller also studies regular academic subjects.
Keller was not satisfied, because he was also determined to go to college. In 1896, he attended the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, a preparatory school for women. At this preparatory school, Keller was able to use using braille stationery, and read braille books about the history of Ynani, Rome, and the United States. In addition, he can use ordinary typewriters and Braille letters. He also studied French and Latin grammar. Nevertheless, there are still many people who still doubt whether he is able to attend lectures (Schraff, 2008: 28-29).
On the other hand, his story spread quickly, reaching the ears of famous and influential people. One of them was writer Mark Twain, who was very impressed with him. They became friends (Keller, 1903: 138).
Twain then introduced him to his friend Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive. Rogers was so impressed with Keller's talent, enthusiasm, and determination that he agreed to pay for his studies at Radcliffe College (Harvard University women's branch).
On that campus, he was still accompanied by Sullivan, who sat by his side to interpret lectures and literary texts. When he began college, Keller had mastered several methods of communication, including reading by touch, Braille, speaking, typing, and spelling with fingers. Therefore, he also took the time to write his first book Story of My Life, published in 1903.
Keller's lectures were fairly smooth, because he successfully completed his studies in only 4 years and graduated with cum laude predictions (Hitz, 1906: 320). This graduation made him the first tunaganda to get a bachelor's degree.
Become a Social Activist
After graduating, Keller began to learn more about the world and how he could help improve the lives of others. Keller became a member of the Socialist Party in 1909, most likely because of his friendship with John Macy, a lecturer at Harvard and husband Anne Sullivan. During his active membership in the party, he wrote several articles on socialism, women's rights, disability rights, and the effects of war (Giffin, 1984: 1; Nielsen, 2004: 24).
His series of essays on socialism, entitled "Out of the Dark," illustrates his views on socialism and world affairs. It was during this time that Keller first experienced public prejudice about his disability. Previously, the press always supported him, praising his courage and intelligence. However, after he expressed his socialist views, some media criticized and linked him with disabilities. The criticism shows that the American public still makes impairment as a reason to discriminate against others who are not in line with them.
However, this criticism did not dampen Keller's spirit of activism. Because in 1915, together with famous city planner George Kessler, he took part in the founding of Helen Keller International. This organization has a mission to fight the causes and consequences of blindness and malnutrition.
The story spread outside Massachusetts and New England. By sharing his experiences, Keller became a disabled person who influenced his time. He even spoke before the Congress and advocated for the improvement of the welfare of the blind.
When the American Foundation for the Blind was founded in 1921, Keller was made a role model and symbol in the federation. Keller himself became a member of this federation in 1924 and participated in many campaigns to raise awareness, donations and support for the blind (Nielsen, 2004: 47). In addition to this federation, he also joined the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund organization (later called the American Braille Press).
In 1946, Keller was appointed as international relations advisor to the American Foundation of Overseas Blind. Between 1946 and 1957, he traveled to 35 countries on five continents.
Keller suffered a stroke in 1961 and spent the rest of his life in his home in Connecticut. He died in his sleep on June 1, 1968, only a few weeks before his 88th birthday (Schraff, 2008: 60).
During his extraordinary life, Keller became an example of how determination, hard work, and imagination can enable one to overcome obstacles. He overcame his difficult conditions with perseverance and developed into a progressive humanitarian activist who is respected by the world.
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