They tried to silence her. They told her to limit her voice to disability issues, but Helen Keller never stopped advocating for human rights. You, too, have a voice. Keep advocating!
This video is an excerpt from the White House Disability Pride Month Convening. The entire recording is on the White House YouTube channel.
Descriptive transcript
Haben Girma speaks on stage, sitting with a Braille computer on her lap. Also sitting on stage are, from left to right, Gene Sperling, Mychal Threets, and Eric Harris. The camera shows a lively, diverse group in the audience, including people with wheelchairs.
Haben: Helen Keller was a brilliant Deafblind woman who lived from 1880 to 1968. She had a powerful voice. But many times when she wrote down essays about causes she cared about, editors would reject it saying, “That’s too political, just stick to talking about blindness.”
And she was stuck and prevented from speaking up on a lot of issues. Today, a lot of disabled people can speak up online. Our social media channels allow us to share our views—on videos, written posts, all kinds of ways we can get our message out without going through ableist editors. Helen would be thrilled with all that we’ve done today!
One of the things that gives me hope is when I witness disabled people advocating for the end of suffering in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine, and many other places where there are humanitarian crises. We don’t have to be single-issue people. We have advocates who’ve worked hard to win us our right to speak, and protect our right to vote.
Keep lifting up your voices. Keep advocating! Thank you everyone.
(Applause)