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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Helen Keller
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Helen Keller
"The public must learn that the blind man is neither a genius nor a freak nor an idiot. He has a mind which can be educated, a hand which can be trained, ambitions which it is right for him to strive to realize, and it is the duty of the public to help him make the best of himself so that he can win light through work."
-- Helen Keller
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been open for us."
-- Helen Keller
HELEN KELLER
Awarded by
President Lyndon B. Johnson
September 14, 1964
An example of courage to all mankind, she has devoted her life to illuminating the dark world of the blind and the handicapped.
This photograph from 1961 shows Helen visiting President John F. Kennedy in the White House. The two are seated with Helen's secretary Evelyn D. Seide; a few Presidential aides are standing nearby. Everyone is smiling, including Helen, who is explaining something to the President.
Helen Keller & Alexander Graham Bell
"If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life that all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?"
"We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home; but are we to say to the world and, much more importantly, to each other that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettos, no master race except with respect to Negroes?"
-- Television address to the American People, June 1962
Helen Keller holds her Oscar award for the documentary, "Helen Keller In Her Story", circa 1954.
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Medal History
