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A new statue is heading to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol -- but it's not either of the long-requested two statues to represent the District of Columbia.
Alabama has decided to replace one of its two statues, of Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, a former congressman, Confederate general and professor who advocated for free universal education, with one of Helen Keller, the famed Socialist Party activist and the first deaf and blind person to graduate from a university. The Washington Times reports that Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and others have signed off on the final design of the bronze memorial, which depicts Keller as a child standing by the water pump at her home in Tuscumbia, Ala., at the moment she solved what she called "the mystery of language," when Annie Sullivan spelled out the word water in her hand while pumping water over her other hand. The statue could be completed by fall if all goes well, and will be placed in the Statuary Hall Collection as soon as a public ceremony with congressional leaders can be scheduled.
U.S. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton recently introduced a bill in the House that would finally allow D.C. to be represented by two statues in the Statuary Hall Collection. Norton has said she is confident Congress will pass the measure. It's expected that the statues will be of Frederick Douglass and Pierre L'Enfant, though some locals are still pushing for a statue of Duke Ellington.
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It's about time Helen Keller got a statue. It's a shame she isn't around to see it. Or hear it.
And, yes, I know I'm going to hell for that one, but at least I'll get slightly better service than at Bistro du Coin.
Now this is interesting, considering that Helen was VERY much a progressive, an activist, a radical, a suffragist, a socialist, an advocate for the poor, a supporter of communism, a pacifist in time of war, pro-civil rights, anti-child labor, anti-establishment, anti-corporate, supportive of the NAACP, & critical of the US government. For years she campaigned Congress & the Department of Health to include newborn testing for blindness, especially as STDs were a major cause of blindness in utero. Of course at the time, nobody wanted to publicly discuss something as "dirty" and controversial as syphilis or gonorrhea, let alone with a disabled WOMAN leading the discussion. They clean all this up about her life when you take a tour of her home, so I've heard - they've "neutered" her later accomplishments unfortunately, all they emphasize is her childhood wild days, her Eureka moment at the pump, her goal to get a college degree and finally writing her autobiography.
So, to have a Republican from a Red state campaign for years for a statue of her, from the political party that was the antithesis of what Helen believed & worked for most of her life - funny, isn't it?
If you want more info on the whitewashing of Helen, along with other historical figures in US History, read the fascinating book James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong"
PS Helen's and Anne Sullivan Macy's ashes are interred in a crypt on the lower level of the National Cathedral. There's a plaque nearby it, with some of the lettering in braille...
I wonder if Governor Riley, a Republican, knows that Helen Keller was a founding member of the ACLU and was a member of the Socialist party and Swedenborgian church.
Attention Architect of the Capitol: be sure to mount this statue close to the floor so blind visitors can experience it.