DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller holding book.
GEORGINA KLEEGE: Helen Keller’s image is on the Alabama State quarter.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Alabama State quarter.
It's an image taken from a photograph of her reading a braille book.
And there’s a motto that says "spirit of courage."
In some sense, that you know you have a woman reading a book
DESCRIPTION: Professor Georgina Kleege speaking.
and that’s understood to represent courage.
DESCRIPTION: Image of a young Helen Keller.
And this is not to say that Helen Keller wasn’t a courageous person
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller reading.
but it’s kind of a safe message.
Without any sort of controversial overtones to it.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller typing.
It’s like Helen Keller worked hard and she got educated
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller in cap and gown.
and that’s all we need to know.
DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller throughout her life.
DESCRIPTION: Montage of disability rights activists.
TEXT: The History You Didn't Learn
TEXT: The Full Story of Helen Keller
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller as a child.
NARRATOR: Pretty much everyone learns about Helen Keller in school. From picture books to the movie the Miracle Worker.
DESCRIPTION: Scene from The Miracle Worker.
She's a staple in children’s education but we only
DESCRIPTION: Image of water pump.
learn about one aspect of a multifaceted and complicated person.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller.
HABEN GIRMA: The dominant story about Helen Keller is not by Helen Keller.
DESCRIPTION: Disability Rights Lawyer Haben Girma speaking.
It’s by sighted, hearing people putting forth Helen Keller’s story.
DESCRIPTION: Footage of Haben Girma at the White House.
NARRATOR: Haben Girma is a disability rights lawyer who is also deaf-blind.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Haben Girma and her dog.
For Girma, getting Helen Keller's story right is personal.
DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller as a child with her teacher.
HABEN GIRMA: The story focuses on her being six, seven years old and things happening
to her. People teaching her, people giving her water. She comes across as very passive but if you
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller.
learn about her life from her own words, you realize she was an agent of change.
TEXT: "I do not like the world as it is; so I am trying to make it a little more as I want it." — Helen Keller, 1912
She advocated for women, people of color.
DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller throughout her life.
Disability rights mattered to her but the dominant story doesn’t focus on that.
Since society only frames her as a little girl,
DESCRIPTION: Film stills from "The Miracle Worker."
a lot of people subconsciously learn to infantilize disabled adults.
DESCRIPTION: Haben Girma speaking.
That makes it difficult to get a job, to be treated with respect, to get good quality
education and healthcare.
DESCRIPTION: Artwork of Helen Keller and teacher.
That's not right.
DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller.
NARRATOR: Because we are so focused on Keller as a child, we often miss out on her long life of activism.
DESCRIPTION: Sascha Cohen speaking.
SASCHA COHEN: One of her passions was really the rights of workers and unionists.
DESCRIPTION: Footage of 20th century cities and factories.
The progressive era when she was working politically in different organizations was a period of rapid industrialization
there were these new conditions in which workers were subjected to heightened inequality and
even danger and risk physically.
DESCRIPTION: Newspaper reading "Accidents Cause Many Cases Of Blindness"
She pointed out that a lot of times people
went blind from accidents on the shop floor.
TEXT: will have their eyes torn by flying bits of steel
DESCRIPTION: Images of factory workers.
She saw this exploitation of employees by industrialists, factory owners, corporations.
And so she became involved with the IWW
DESCRIPTION: IWW advertisement.
the Industrial Workers of the World
DESCRIPTION: Image of the Industrial Workers of the World.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller reading.
She read Marx, she corresponded with Eugene Debs who
was the major socialist at the time
DESCRIPTION: Image of Eugene Debs and Ben Hanford.
and she helped cofound the ACLU
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller typing.
which we now sort of associate with freedom of speech.
She had a spirit of wanting to help the collective good, rather than individuals on their own.
DESCRIPTION: Images of Helen Keller and the American Foundation for the Blind.
GEORGINA KLEEGE: She found the American Foundation for the Blind, which is an advocacy and education
organization. She spent her life from 1925 onward as
a spokesperson, and as a fundraiser for that cause.
DESCRIPTION: Helen Selsdon speaking.
HELEN SELSDON: She was an early member of the NAACP.
DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller.
She's condemned lynching. She condemns the racism perpetrated against African-Americans.
Many people like to think of them as opposed to racism today, it was not so typical to
be opposed to racism in 1916 if you were a privileged white woman. It just wasn't. And she was.
DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller.
HABEN GIRMA: People would often ask her, stop talking about
racism, and women’s rights. Just talk about the blind and inspire us about the blind.
She found that frustrating and continued to talk anyway.
DESCRIPTION: Helen Keller talking in front of large crowd.
DESCRIPTION: Georgina Kleege speaking.
GEORGINA KLEEGE: When we talk about oppression and prejudice, disability is always sort of off to one side.
But for Helen Keller, it was all of a piece.
DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller and confidants.
HABEN GIRMA: You can’t advocate for disability rights if you’re not also advocating for racial
justice and gender equality.
DESCRIPTION: Helen Keller receiving a pin at a ceremony.
NARRATOR: Critics of Helen Keller point to one notable exception in her advocacy for people with disabilities.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller typing.
She was once a supporter of eugenics, a now-reviled school of thought
that sought to improve human populations by breeding out certain traits, like for example certain disabilities.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller typing.
HELEN SELSDON: That's absolutely true. She did write about eugenics
DESCRIPTION: Helen Selsdon speaking.
and she was concerned that children with disabilities with severe disabilities
would not be able to function in society. I think it was part of that zeitgeist at the
time. I think it's very easy to take history out of context
very early on she moved away from that position.
DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller typing.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller.
And I think she would herself be heartbroken
to think that she did not value every life because she absolutely did.
DESCRIPTION: Helen Keller with wheelchair users.
HABEN GIRMA: People need time to grow and learn.
We need to forgive people when they acknowledge they’ve made mistakes.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller looking out of the window.
DESCRIPTION: Image of Helen Keller at a radio station.
NARRATOR: Still, Helen Keller's prominence is another
reminder of how our American history often focuses on the stories of wealthy white people.
DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller at event.
DESCRIPTION: Anita Cameron speaking.
ANITA CAMERON: I don't have a perspective on Helen Keller. She's just another, despite disabilities,
privileged white person.
DESCRIPTION: Images of Anita Cameron demonstrating.
I am a Black disabled Lesbian who happens
to be poor. You know, you want to talk about intersectionalities and marginalizations. I'm looking up from the bottom
DESCRIPTION: Images of Anita Cameron demonstrating.
and I'm just out here trying to not only fight for the rights of all disabled
but wanting to highlight even among disabled, there are those of us whose stories don't get told.
DESCRIPTION: Archival image of Anita Cameron demonstrating.
NARRATOR: Anita Cameron herself was part of history
in 1990 when she and several other activists from the disability rights group, ADAPT, crawled
up the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building to demand the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
DESCRIPTION: Footage of activists crawling the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building chanting "Access now!"
DESCRIPTION: Images of ADAPT demonstration.
The law that now requires public buildings to have ramps and other accessibility features.
DESCRIPTION: Footage of crowd at ADAPT demonstration.
ANITA CAMERON: On a sunny hot morning, we gathered up to
do our crawl. And that was the only way that we could get there and we were trying to highlight
the fact that people with disabilities, we live in second-class citizenship.
We kind of went in stealth. It started out as a tour, and when we got into the Rotunda, we just took it over.
DESCRIPTION: Demonstrators shouting "ADA now!" inside the U.S. Capitol Building.
DESCRIPTION: Police officers approaching demonstrators.
When it all was said and done, 104 of us were arrested.
DESCRIPTION: Newspaper article reading "Officer Arrest 104 Disabled Protestors"
I was number 81.
DESCRIPTION: Images of demonstrators being arrested.
I was in the center of a knot of people who had chained ourselves together.
DESCRIPTION: Images from ADAPT protest.
The combination of a crawl and the takeover of the rotunda is what got the ADA passed so quickly
DESCRIPTION: Image of ADA being signed into law by President George H.W. Bush.
DESCRIPTION: Image of ADAPT demonstrators.
NARRATOR: The fight for disability rights is far from over, but the ADA was a milestone achievement.
It completely changed the way people with disabilities lived
DESCRIPTION: Newspaper reading "Disabilities Act Forces Sweeping Transit Changes"
and recognized people with disabilities as people with civil rights. Helen Keller is certainly not the only disability
rights champion we should be learning about
DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller and disability rights activists.
but learning about her work and her activism
more fully is a step towards understanding the contributions so many other disabled Americans
have made and continue to make to our shared history.
GEORGINA KLEEGE: She was born in 1880, and she died in 1968 and it was a very long life.
DESCRIPTION: Footage of Helen Keller listening to music, her hand on singer's face.
HELEN KELLER: That was beautiful!
DESCRIPTION: Montage footage of Helen Keller.
So I think when we forget about the causes that she supported it does damage to our understanding
about disability.
DESCRIPTION: Montage of images of Helen Keller.
HABEN GIRMA: Some people have a complicated relationship with Helen Keller, because she’s been forced
on us a role model to never complain, which is not true. She complained when it
was the right thing to do.
DESCRIPTION: Images of disability rights activists.
'Cause sometimes when things are wrong, you have to complain
to create change.
DESCRIPTION: End credits.