St. Jude's in Beirut (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
St. Jude's in Beirut (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
While working today at St. Jude’s in Beirut, I passed by this Helen Keller quote hanging on a hallway wall. As I was reading the quote, one of the Lebanese nurses stopped and stood next to me to read it too.
“Who was Helen Keller?” the nurse asked.
This was isn’t an easy question to answer (especially in Arabic), since Helen Keller’s life was devoted to much more than helping the blind and deaf–which is how she is commonly remembered today.
So long as I confine my activities to social service and the blind, they compliment me extravagantly, calling me ‘arch priestess of the sightless,’ ‘wonder woman,’ and a ‘modern miracle.’ But when it comes to a discussion of poverty, and I maintain that it is the result of wrong economics—that the industrial system under which we live is at the root of much of the physical deafness and blindness in the world—that is a different matter!
— Helen Keller
When I think of Helen Keller–I think of a radical and rebel. She was such a “radical” that the FBI kept her under FBI surveillance for most of her adult life. An early champion of civil rights, she openly donated money to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at a time when the organization was considered controversial, and was focused on putting an end to lynching. She also wrote for their magazine.
We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means we choose between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We elect expensive masters to do our work for us, and then blame them because they work for themselves and for their class.
— Helen Keller
So, who was Helen Keller? A woman of many passions–as well as a peace activist who traveled in 1948 to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to speak out against the horrors of nuclear war–and all war.
Painting at St. Jude's (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors. Incidentally this preparation will benefit the manufacturers of munitions and war machines. Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder! Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction!
— Helen Keller (at an antiwar rally in January 1916)
And though she couldn’t see or hear, she was a world traveler too–visiting 35 countries on five continents between 1946 and 1957.
So today, when I was walking up and down the corridor of the children’s cancer center in Beirut and happened to pass by her quote on the wall–I wasn’t picturing scenes I’ve seen played on screen and stage with her teacher showing her the word for water on her hand when Helen was just a child. No, I was thinking about her revolutionary spirit as an adult–and remembering her as a brave woman who refused to succumb to self-pity and chose instead to dedicate her life to helping those suffering from illness and disability–along those suffering from social, economic, racial, and sexual injustice. In my mind’s eye, I was seeing a “visionary” woman who–despite incredible odds–never gave up, and always gave back.
Who was Helen Keller? Well, in a word–a hero.
All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.
— Helen Keller
