Muralidharan
THE 145th birth anniversary of Helen Keller, falls on June 27, 2025. During the celebrations, the dominant yet sanitised mainstream narrative will portray her as an inspirational figure, an icon, who, notwithstanding her disability, broke many barriers and scaled great heights. These achievements by all means are highly significant, more-so in the times that she lived in.
However, these stories gloss over the fact that one of the most widely recognised figures in US history, Helen Keller, was also a political activist. More importantly, she was a pioneer in pointing the way towards a Marxist understanding of disability oppression and liberation, a fact that remains largely suppressed till date.
ANTI-IMPERIALIST TO THE CORE
Hypothetically, if Helen Keller were alive today and was witnessing the spate of unprovoked and unabashed attacks on sovereign Iran by Israel and the United States, what would her response be? Keller would have unequivocally condemned the aggression by imperialist powers who want to assert their geopolitical dominance which in no way are in league with their stated objectives for launching the attacks.
Keller views on war and peace aligned strongly with socialist and anti-imperialist ideals. Her outspoken opposition to war was inseparable from her critique of capitalism and class exploitation. She saw war as a tool of the ruling class – an instrument wielded by the rich to protect their wealth and power at the expense of the working class.
Keller would have stood in solidarity with the Iranian people – especially the working class, women, and marginalised communities – while also rejecting any form of authoritarianism or religious oppression within Iran. At the same time, she would have unhesitatingly called on workers and citizens in the US and Israel to resist the war machine, to organise, and to refuse participation in militarism. She would have been alongside Greta Thunberg and others aboard the Madleen and demanded an end to the genocide in Palestine and for its independence. Helen Keller’s voice today would be a clarion call for peace through solidarity, justice, and the dismantling of the empire.
A fierce critic of US involvement in the First World War, she condemned the war as a capitalist enterprise that sent workers to die while profiteers grew rich. "Strike against war," she declared in a 1916 speech, "for without you no battles can be fought!" This radical stance cost her support and drew criticism from those who preferred to see her only as a symbol of personal triumph of a deaf-blind person.
Keller’s anti-war activism was deeply rooted in her socialist beliefs. Peace, according to her, was not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice – economic, racial, and gender-based. Her vision of peace demanded the dismantling of systems that perpetuate inequality and violence – capitalism.
Keller’s legacy is not just inspirational but revolutionary. She rejected patriotic propaganda and called for international solidarity among the oppressed. In doing so, she challenged the dominant narratives of her time, and ours, that equate war with heroism and peace with passivity. Helen Keller’s unwavering commitment to peace through justice places her firmly within the radical tradition of anti-war activism.
Born into a well to do family, Helen contracted an illness when she was just 19 months old that left her both blind and deaf. She attended several institutions for the deaf and blind before enrolling at Radcliffe College, the women's branch of Harvard University. She graduated in 1904 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, the first deaf blind person to achieve such a feat. It is at Radcliffe, that Helen was exposed to progressive ideas, including those of Karl Marx, which deeply influenced her later political activism. She began to question societal norms that governed not only the treatment of the disabled, but also the economic and social structures that perpetuated inequality across the board.
In the compilation of essays Out of the Dark: Essays, Letters, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision (1913), Keller addresses issues like socialism, gender equality, and the rights of disabled individuals. This publication is arguably her most explicitly political book and showcases her strong commitment to the socialist ideology.
Keller joined the Socialist Party of America in 1908 and began giving public speeches and writing articles advocating for workers’ rights, women’s suffrage, disability rights, and racial equality. Her work focused on the systemic roots of poverty and injustice, which she believed capitalism had worsened.
DISABILITY: A SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUE
She was particularly outspoken about the plight of disabled individuals, many of whom, she discovered, had acquired their disabilities through industrial accidents, unsafe working conditions, or poor healthcare – issues directly tied to corporate greed and government neglect. This realisation deeply affected her. She realised that while her family’s resources had helped her thrive despite her disabilities, others in less fortunate circumstances were often left without support or hope.
Keller viewed disability not as a purely medical or individual problem but as a social and economic issue. She argued that poverty, lack of access to education and healthcare, unsanitary living conditions, and dangerous labour practices were all contributing factors, a factor often purposefully glossed over by majority of disability rights activists.
While early in her life, the American media celebrated her as an inspirational figure, a symbol of individual perseverance and the "American spirit" this soon changed to hostility and scorn when she began criticising capitalism and advocating socialism.
This sudden shift in how she was perceived highlights an important reality that persists even today: disabled individuals are often celebrated only when they conform to society’s expectations of passivity and perseverance. Once they assert political opinions, particularly radical ones, they risk being dismissed or demonised.
The Detroit Free Press wrote about her in 1914: “As long as Miss Keller appears before the public in the light of a member of society struggling nobly under great handicaps and furnishing by her example inspiration for others who are unfortunately placed, she does a valuable work. But the moment she undertakes to speak ex cathedra, as it were, of all the political and social problems of the day, she receives a consideration out of all proportion to her fund of knowledge and judgment.
“Helen Keller, struggling to point the way to the light for the deaf, dumb and blind is inspiring. Helen Keller preaching socialism; Helen Keller passing on the merits of the copper strike; Helen Keller sneering at the constitution of the United States; Helen Keller under these aspects is pitiful. She is beyond her depth. She speaks with the handicap of limitation which no amount of determination or science can overcome. Her knowledge is, and must be, almost purely theoretical, and unfortunately this world and its problems are both very practical”.
Responding to such criticisms Keller wrote: “I like newspapermen. I have known many, and two or three editors have been among my most intimate friends. Moreover, the newspapers have been of great assistance in the work which we have been trying to do for the blind. It costs them nothing to give their aid to work for the blind and to other superficial charities. But socialism – ah, that is a different matter! That goes to the root of all poverty and all charity. The money power behind the newspapers is against socialism, and the editors, obedient to the hand that feeds them, will go to any length to put down socialism and undermine the influence of socialists”.
When the New York Times branded her as an outcaste, she retorted: “I am no worshiper of cloth of any color, but I love the red flag and what it symbolizes to me and other Socialists. I have a red flag hanging in my study, and if I could I should gladly march with it past the office of the Times and let all the reporters and photographers make the most of the spectacle. According to the inclusive condemnation of the Times I have forfeited all right to respect and sympathy, and I am to be regarded with suspicion. Yet the editor of the Times wants me to write him an article! How can he trust me to write for him if I am a suspicious character? I hope you will enjoy as much as I do the bad ethics, bad logic, bad manners that a capitalist editor falls into when he tries to condemn the movement which is aimed at this plutocratic interests. We are not entitled to sympathy, yet some of us can write articles that will help his paper to make money. Probably our opinions have the same sort of value to him that he would find in the confession of a famous murderer. We are not nice, but we are interesting”.
Helen Keller remains an enduring symbol of courage, perseverance, and intellectual brilliance. However, to reduce her legacy to that of an inspirational figure alone is to do her a disservice. Keller was a revolutionary — someone who did not simply overcome personal barriers, but who used her experience and views to challenge the barriers faced by others. Her life should prod us to rethink how we understand disability, activism, and what it means to truly fight for justice. When disability rights, healthcare access, and economic inequality are still pressing issues, Keller’s work remains highly relevant.
