Famous People with Visual Impairments

Image showing some of the better known famous people with visual impairments; Louis Braille, Helen Keller and Ray Charles

Historically Famous People with Blindness or Visual Impairments

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological and/or neurological factors.  Complete blindness is the full lack of grade and light perception and is clinically recorded equally "No Lite Perception" or "NPL".  Center injuries, mostly occurring in people under 30, are the leading cause of monocular incomprehension (vision loss in one eye).  People who are bullheaded or visually impaired have devised a number of techniques that allow them to complete daily activities using their remaining senses and recently created accessible engineering science such equally screen reading software enables visually dumb people to use mainstream reckoner applications including the Net.  Listed below are historically famous people with visual impairments including total blindness, sight conditions, or blindness in one eye.

If you have whatever materials yous'd like produced in braille, large impress and/or sound for your customers who are bullheaded or accept depression vision; y'all can request a free quote or call 1-800-258-7544 (K-F eight:30am to 5pm EST). We as well offering 508 document remediation services and then you tin can be sure all of your electronic documents are compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Annotation:We accept assembled this list from online and offline resource.  If you know of a discrepancy on this page please contact usa so we can better the entry. Cheers!


Louis Braille Louis Braille (January 4, 1809 – January 6, 1852):  Louis Braille became blind after he accidentally stabbed himself in the centre with his father's awl.  He later became an inventor and the designer of braille writing, which enables people who are blind to read by feeling a serial of organized bumps representing letters.  This concept was benign to all blind people from effectually the world and is however commonly used today.  If it were non for Louis Braille'due south blindness he may not take invented this method of reading and no other bullheaded person could take enjoyed a story or been able to encompass important written materials.

Back to Top


Helen Keller Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968):  Helen Adams Keller was an American author, activist and lecturer.  She was the starting time deaf/blind person to graduate from college.  She was not born blind and deaf; information technology was not until 19 months of age that she came downwards with an disease described past doctors as "an acute congestion of the tummy and the brain", which could have possibly been scarlet fever or meningitis.  The affliction did not terminal for a particularly long time, but it left her deafened and blind.  Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and writer.  She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities amongst numerous other causes.

Back to Top


Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman (c. "in approximately" 1820 – March 10, 1913):  Harriet Tubman was a slave throughout her youth, being treated as an animal until she somewhen escaped captivity.  She was an abolitionist, humanitarian, and Matrimony spy during the American Civil War.  When she had reached Canada she did non stay to bask her freedom.  She returned to the lands and brought hundreds of black slaves dorsum to safety, saving them from slavery by escaping in what was so called The Underground Railroad.  Later a severe wound to the head, which was inflicted by a slave possessor before her escape, she became a victim to vision impairment and seizures.  That did not keep her from tossing her fears aside and to go on fighting for the freedom of her people.

Back to Top


A statue of Homer Homer (Unknown):  A legendary aboriginal Greek epic poet, traditionally said to exist the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.  He was as well said to have been bullheaded.  The ancient Greeks by and large believed that Homer was a historical individual, but modern scholars are skeptical considering no reliable biographical data has been handed downward from classical antiquity, and the poems themselves apparently represent the culmination of many centuries of oral story-telling and a well-developed "formulaic" system of poetic composition.  The appointment of Homer's existence was controversial in antiquity and is no less so today.  Herodotus said that Homer lived 400 years before his own time, which would place him at around 850 BC; but other ancient sources gave dates much closer to the supposed fourth dimension of the Trojan State of war (1194 – 1184 BC).  The determinative influence of the works of Homer in shaping and influencing the whole development of Greek culture was recognized by many Greeks themselves, who considered him to be their instructor.

Back to Summit


Ray Charles Ray Charles (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004):  Known past his phase name Ray Charles, he was an American pianist and musician who shaped the sound of rhythm and dejection.  He brought a soulful sound to country music, pop standards, and a rendition of "America the Beautiful" that Ed Bradley of hr called the "definitive version of the song, an American anthem."  In 1965, Charles was arrested for possession of heroin, a drug to which he had been addicted for almost twenty years.  Information technology was his third abort for the offense, but he avoided jail time after kick the habit in a dispensary in Los Angeles.  He spent a year on parole in 1966.  Ray as well appeared in the 1980 hit movie, The Blues Brothers and Frank Sinatra called him "the only true genius in the business concern."  In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Charles number x on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Fourth dimension and also voted him number two on their list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Fourth dimension.

Back to Top


Franklin D Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Jan 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945):  Franklin, sometimes meliorate known as FDR; was the 32nd President of the U.s. and played a big part during World War II.  Roosevelt eventually aided the poor and unemployed of America and restored order at various times during his presidency.  Elected to 4 terms in office, he served from 1933 to 1945 and is the only U.S. president to have served more 2 terms by and large because of his aid in the recovery of the economy.  Information technology has been said that Roosevelt had several disabilities including vision impairment.

Dorsum to Top


Galileo Galilei Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564 – January viii, 1642):  Galileo Galilei was a Tuscan (Italian) astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher being greatly responsible for the scientific revolution.  Some of his accomplishments include improvements to the telescope, accelerated motion and astronomical observations.  Galileo was the get-go to discover the four largest satellites (moons) of Jupiter which were named the Galilean moons in his honour.  Galileo had also improved compass design and somewhen opposed the geocentric view.  His sight started to deteriorate at the historic period of 68 years erstwhile and it somewhen led to complete blindness.

Back to Top


Stevie Wonder Stevie Wonder (May 13, 1950 – Nowadays):  Born Steveland Hardaway Judkins, he later changed his proper noun to Steveland Hardaway Morris.  Wonder is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer.  Blind from infancy, Wonder signed with Motown Records every bit a pre-boyish at the age of twelve, and continues to perform and record for the label to this day.  It is thought that he received excessive oxygen in his incubator which led to retinopathy of prematurity, a destructive ocular disorder affecting the retina.  It is characterized by aberrant growth of blood vessels, scarring, and sometimes retinal disengagement.  A prominent figure in popular music during the latter half of the 20th century, Wonder has recorded more thirty U.Southward. meridian x hits and won twenty-two Grammy Awards (the most ever won by a solo artist) as well every bit a Lifetime Achievement Award.  He has too won an Academy Laurels for All-time Song, and been inducted into both the Stone and Whorl and Songwriters halls of fame.  He has also been awarded the Polar Music Prize. American music magazine Rolling Rock named the ninth greatest vocalizer of all time.

Back to Top


Dr. Abraham Nemeth Dr. Abraham Nemeth (October 16, 1918 – October 2, 2013): Dr. Nemeth was an American mathematician and inventor. He was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Detroit Mercy in Detroit, Michigan. Though his employers were sometimes reluctant to hire him knowing that he was blind, his reputation grew as information technology became apparent that he was a capable mathematician and teacher. He developed the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics and Science Note in 1952. Nemeth Code has gone through iv revisions since its initial development and continues in wide use today. Dr. Nemeth is also responsible for the rules of MathSpeak, a system for orally communicating mathematical text. Dr. Nemeth is an active fellow member of the National Federation of the Blind. He has written several short stories and fabricated many speeches for the NFB near his life as a blind mathematician.

Dorsum to Top


John Milton John Milton (Dec 9, 1608 – Nov viii, 1674):  John Milton was a ceremonious retainer, English poet and prose polemicist.  Milton was well known through his epic poem Paradise Lost and also for his radical views on republican organized religion.  He never was well adjusted in schoolhouse and once got expelled for having a fist fight with his tutor.  Somewhen he began to write verse in English, Latin and Italian.  John Milton became blind at the historic period of 43 in 1651, and has written books containing quotes of how the experience sometimes made him miserable.

Back to Top


James Thurber James Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961):   James Thurber was a comedian and cartoonist most known for his contributions to New Yorker Mag.  Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert.  Once, while playing a game, his brother William shot James in the heart with an arrow.  Because of the lack of medical applied science, Thurber lost his eye.  This injury would later cause him to exist almost entirely blind.  During his childhood he was unable to participate in sports and activities because of his injury, and instead adult a creative imagination, which he shared in his writings.

Dorsum to Summit


Alec Templeton Alec Templeton (July 4, 1909 – March 28, 1963):  Alec was a composer, pianist and satirist.  Bullheaded from birth, he studied at London'south Royal Academy.  In 1936, he moved from Wales to the United States as a member of Jack Hylton's Jazz Ring, where he played with a number of orchestras and gave his first radio performances on The Rudy Vallée Prove, The Chase and Sanborn Hour, Kraft Music Hall and The Magic Key.  His radio program, Alec Templeton Time, sponsored by Alka-Seltzer, was first broadcast from 1939 to 1941, returning in 1943 and 1946–47.  It was sometimes known every bit The Alec Templeton Testify.  He memorized the scripts for his shows by having them read to him 20 times.  There is some confusion concerning Alec Templeton's twelvemonth of nascency.  Nearly published and Internet biographies give his birth year equally 1909, but his headstone shows 1910 equally his twelvemonth of birth.  He died at age 52 or 53 and is interred at Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Back to Top


Claude Monet Claude Monet (Nov 14, 1840 – Dec five, 1926):  Also known as Oscar-Claude Monet or Claude Oscar Monet, he was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the about consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one'south perceptions before nature, particularly as applied to plein-air landscape painting.  The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise.  His popularity and fame grew and past 1907 he had painted many well-known paintings, but by then he had "his get-go problem with his eyesight."  He started to go blind.  He still painted, though his eyes got worse.  He wouldn't stop painting until he was nearly blind.  In the last decade of his life Monet, well-nigh bullheaded, painted a group of big water lily murals for the Musée de l'Orangerie (art gallery of impressionist and postal service-impressionist paintings located on the Place de la Concorde, Paris) in Paris.

Back to Acme


Andrea Bocelli Andrea Angel Bocelli (September 22, 1958 – Nowadays):  Andrea is an Italian tenor and has recorded over 20 pop and classical albums, likewise equally 7 consummate operas.  He has sold over 65 million albums worldwide. It was evident at birth that he had problems with his sight, and after visits to many doctors Bocelli was diagnosed with glaucoma.  In 1970, at the historic period of 12, he completely lost his sight after an accident during a soccer game.  As a young boy, Bocelli showed a slap-up passion for music.  At the age of half dozen he started pianoforte lessons before he likewise learned to play the flute, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, harp, guitar and drums.  Bocelli once said "I don't think a vocaliser decides to sing, it is the others who choose that you sing by their reactions."  Bocelli has sung with other great singers such as Pavarotti and has just been further admired due to his incomprehension.

Back to Pinnacle


Joseph Pulitzer Joseph Pulitzer (April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911):  Joseph was a Hungarian-American publisher best known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes (along with William Randolph Hearst) and for originating yellowish journalism.  In 1882 Pulitzer purchased the New York Globe, a newspaper that had been losing $40,000 a year, for $346,000 from Jay Gould.  Pulitzer shifted its focus to man-interest stories, scandal, and sensationalism.  At the age of 42 Joseph became bullheaded due to retinal disengagement leaving him no selection simply to retire.

Back to Top


Horatio Nelson Horatio Nelson (September 29, 1758 – October 21, 1805):  Nelson was a British flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, peculiarly during the Napoleonic Wars.  Nelson was built-in into a moderately prosperous Norfolk family, and joined the navy through the influence of his uncle, Maurice Suckling.  He rose speedily through the ranks and served with leading naval commanders of the flow before obtaining his own command in 1778.  He developed a reputation in the service through his personal valor and firm grasp of tactics, but suffered periods of illness and unemployment after the end of the American State of war of Independence.  The outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars allowed Nelson to return to service, where he was particularly active in the Mediterranean.  He was wounded several times in combat, losing most of one arm and the sight in ane eye.  He won several victories, including the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, during which he was killed.  His expiry at Trafalgar secured his position as 1 of England'southward most heroic figures.

Dorsum to Top


Marla Runyan Marla Runyan (Jan 4, 1969 – Present):  Marla Runyan is a marathon runner who is legally blind.  She is a three-time national champion in the women'southward 5,000 meters.  Runyan'southward career as a earth-class runner began in 1999 at the Pan American Games, where she won the ane,500-meter race.  The next year, she placed 8th in the i,500-meter in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, making Runyan the first legally blind athlete to compete in the Games and the highest cease past an American woman in that event.  In 2002 she finished every bit the top American at the 2002 New York City Marathon with a time of ii hours, 27 minutes and 10 seconds to postal service the second-fastest debut time always by an American woman.

Back to Top


Thomas Gore Thomas Gore (December ten, 1870 – March 16, 1949):  Thomas was a Democratic politician.  He became blind equally a kid through two dissever accidents but did non give up his dream of becoming a senator.  In 1907, he was elected to the Senate every bit one of the first two senators from the new state of Oklahoma.  He was re-elected in 1908 and 1914 simply defeated in 1920.  He was known as a member of the progressive fly of the Autonomous Political party, who worked with Republicans such as Robert La Follette.  He was to a big extent no different from whatever other politico because of his blindness, but there were problems, as La Follette recounts an instance in his memoirs when, during a delay, Gore did not realize that the senator who was to take over speaking for him had left the room, and the filibuster failed because he did non continue to speak.

Back to Top


A William Prescott statue William Prescott (February 20, 1726 – Oct thirteen, 1795):  Prescott was an American colonel in the Revolutionary War who commanded the rebel forces in the Battle of Bunker Hill.  Prescott became widely attributed for the famous quote, "Exercise not burn down until you run across the whites of their eyes," an of import educational activity to his soldiers in lodge to conserve armament.  The one-time boondocks of Prescott, Massachusetts, was named in his honor.  The town was dis-incorporated in 1938 as part of the building of the Quabbin Reservoir, and the state now makes up Prescott Peninsula, which divides the primary branches of the reservoir.  Prescott'due south likeness was made into a statue for a memorial for the Boxing of Bunker Colina.

Back to Top


Joseph Plateau Joseph Plateau (October 14, 1801 – September 15, 1883):  Joseph Plateau was a Belgian physicist.  In 1836, Plateau invented an early stroboscopic device, the "phenakistoscope".  It consisted of two disks, one with small equidistant radial windows, through which the viewer could await, and another containing a sequence of images.  When the two disks rotated at the right speed, the synchronization of the windows and the images created an animated effect.  The projection of stroboscopic photographs, creating the illusion of motion, eventually led to the development of movie theater.  Fascinated by the persistence of luminous impressions on the retina, he performed an experiment in which he gazed directly into the sun for 25 seconds.  Consequently, he lost his eyesight after in his life.

Back to Top


Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986):  Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentine writer.  His output includes short stories, essays, poetry, literary criticism, and translations.  Borges was born on August 24, 1899 in Buenos Aires, Argentine republic, to an educated family descended from famous military figures in Argentina's history; in accordance with Argentine custom, he never used his entire name.  His family unit was comfortably wealthy, merely not quite wealthy enough to live in downtown Buenos Aires.  Instead, they lived in the then suburb of Palermo, famous for its knife-fights, where urban space gave way to the countryside.  Due to a hereditary status, Borges became blind in his tardily fifties.

Dorsum to Summit


Esref Armagan Esref Armagan (1953 – Present):  Esref is a blind painter of Turkish origin.  Esref Armagan was built-in both unsighted and to an impoverished family.  As a child and young developed he never received any formal schooling or training; however, he has taught himself to write and print. Mr. Armagan is an important effigy in the history of picture show-making, and in the history of knowledge.  His work is remarkable.  He has demonstrated for the showtime time that a blind person can develop on his or her ain pictorial skills equaling almost depictions by the sighted.  This has not happened before in the history of picture-making.  He has had exhibitions in Turkey, Holland and the Czech republic.  In 2004, he was the discipline of a study of homo perception, conducted by the psychologist John Kennedy of University of Toronto.

Back to Tiptop


John Stanley John Stanley (January 17, 1712 – May 19, 1786):  John Stanley was an English composer and organist.  Stanley, who was blind from an early age, studied music with Maurice Greene and held a number of organist appointments in London, such every bit St Andrew's, Holborn from 1726.  He was a friend of George Frideric Handel, and following Handel'south expiry, Stanley joined starting time with John Christopher Smith and subsequently with Thomas Linley to continue the series of oratorio concerts Handel had established, and succeeded him every bit a governor of the Foundling Hospital.

Back to Top


Thomas Rhodes Armitage Thomas Rhodes Armitage (April 2, 1824 – October 23, 1890):  Thomas was a British physician, and founder of the Royal National Institute of Blind People.  He was born in Sussex into a family of wealthy Yorkshire industrialists.  He was raised at Avranches in France, and at Frankfurt and Offenbach in Germany.  He attended the Sorbonne and King's College London.  He became a physician, practicing at the Marylebone Dispensary, in the Crimean War, and as a private consultant in London.  He was forced to carelessness his medical career because of deteriorating vision, eventually condign blind.  Armitage decided to help make literature available to blind people through embossed type.  He formed the "British and Foreign Gild for Improving the Embossed Literature of the Blind", later on the "British and Strange Bullheaded Association for Promoting the Teaching and Employment of the Blind" and (later on his death) the "National Institute for the Blind".  This group decided to prefer the system of Louis Braille, and Armitage worked tirelessly for the adoption of Braille.

Back to Meridian


Frederick Delius Frederick Delius (January 29, 1862 – June x, 1934):  Delius was an English composer built-in in Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the northward of England.  Although born in England and educated at Bradford Grammar School, Frederick Delius felt little attraction for the land of his birth and spent most of his life abroad, in the United States and the continent of Europe, importantly in French republic.  Nonetheless his music has been described as 'extremely redolent of the soil of Great britain and feature of the effectively elements of the national spirit' by Felix Aprahamian.

Back to Meridian


Judy Heumann Judith Eastward. Heumann (1947 – Nowadays):  Judy Heumann is an American disability rights activist.  An internationally recognized leader in the disability community, Heumann is a lifelong ceremonious rights advocate for disadvantaged people.  Her work with governments and not governmental organizations (NGOs) has produced significant contributions since the 1970s to the development of man rights legislation and policies benefiting children and adults with disabilities, and to the international development of the independent living motility.  Heumann's commitment to disability rights stems from her personal experiences. She had polio at the age of 18 months, and has used a wheelchair most of her life.  In 1970 Heumann and several friends with disabilities founded Disabled in Action, an organization that focused on securing the protection of people with disabilities nether civil rights laws.  While serving every bit a legislative banana to the chairperson of the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, in 1974 she helped develop legislation that became the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  An early leader in the Independent Living Motility, she then moved to Berkeley where she served every bit deputy managing director of the Center for Independent Living.  She also organized the sit-ins at the U.South. Section of Health Teaching, and Welfare offices in San Francisco and around the U.S. which resulted in HEW Secretary Joseph Califano signing the Rehabilitation Act'south Section 504 regulations.  She co-founded the World Institute on Disability with Ed Roberts and Joan Leon in 1983, serving as co-director until 1993.  Heumann served in the Clinton Administration equally Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services at the US Department of Education from 1993 to 2001.

Back to Meridian


Rahsaan Roland Kirk Rahsaan Roland Kirk (August 7, 1936 – Dec 5, 1977):  Rahsaan was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, playing tenor saxophone, flute and other reed instruments.  He was perchance all-time known for his vitality on stage, where virtuoso improvisation was accompanied by comic banter, political ranting and his famous ability to play a number of instruments simultaneously.  Kirk was also very political, using the stage to talk on black history, civil rights and other issues, which he was ever capable of tipping over into high comedy.  He went blind at an early historic period due to poor medical treatment.

Back to Top


Matilda Ann Aston Matilda Ann Aston (December eleven, 1873 – November 1, 1947):  better known as Tilly Aston, she was a bullheaded Australian writer and teacher, who founded the Victorian Association of Braille Writers, and later went on to plant the Association for the Advancement of the Bullheaded, with herself as secretary.  She is remembered for her achievements in promoting the rights of vision impaired people.  Aston was besides a prolific writer, particularly of poetry and prose sketches, though her writing was often interrupted by her teaching and other activities.

Back to Acme


Leonhard Euler Leonhard Euler (April fifteen, 1707 – September 18, 1783):  Leonhard was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist who spent near of his life in Russia and Germany.  Euler made important discoveries in fields every bit various every bit calculus and graph theory.  He besides introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such equally the notion of a mathematical function.  He is besides renowned for his work in mechanics, optics, and astronomy.  Euler's left eye became blind from cataract and suffered from eyestrain acquired by a stiff fever in 1735.

Back to Top


Doc Watson Doc Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012):  Doc Watson is an American guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music.  An heart infection caused Watson to lose his vision before his commencement birthday.  Despite this, he was taught by his parents to piece of work difficult and care for himself.  He attended Northward Carolina'due south schoolhouse for the visually impaired, The Governor Morehead School, in Raleigh NC.  The first song Doc ever learned to play was "When Roses Flower in Dixieland".  By the time he reached his developed years Doc had become a prolific acoustic and electrical guitar actor.

Back to Top


Al Hibbler Al Hibbler (August 16, 1915 – April 24, 2001):  Hibber was an American vocalist with several popular hits. He is best known for his million selling recording of "Unchained Melody" (1955).  He achieved national prominence in the The states with the Ellington orchestra in the mid 1940s, and went on to build a substantial career, which included standing involvement with jazz musicians.  Built-in Albert George Hibbler in Tyro, Mississippi, he was blind from birth. Hibbler attended a school for the bullheaded in Little Rock, Arkansas where he joined the school choir.  He won an apprentice talent contest in Memphis, Tennessee, where he first worked with local bands and started his own ring.  He died in Chicago in 2001, at the age of 85.  He was survived by a sister and a brother.  Hibbler has a star at 1650 Vine Street on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Back to Superlative


Susan Townsend Susan Townsend (April 2, 1946 – Present):  Susan is an English novelist and playwright, best known as the author of the Adrian Mole books.  Her writing frequently combines comedy with social commentary, though she has written purely dramatic works as well.  Townsend has suffered from diabetes for many years, as a result of which she was registered blind in 2001 and she has woven this theme into her work.  On February 25, 2009, Leicester City Council announced that Townsend volition be given the Honorary Freedom of Leicester.

Back to Height


Erik Weihenmayer Erik Weihenmayer (September 23, 1968 – Present):  Weihenmayer is the kickoff bullheaded person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on May 25, 2001.  He besides completed the 7 Summits in September 2002.  His story was covered in a Fourth dimension commodity in June 2001 titled "Blind to Failure".  He is author of "Impact the Summit of the World: A Blind Homo's Journeying to Climb Further Than the Eye tin See", his autobiography.  Erik is an acrobatic skydiver, long distance biker, marathon runner, skier, backwoodsman, ice climber, and rock climber.  He is a friend of Sabriye Tenberken and Paul Kronenberg, the co-founders of Braille Without Borders, whom he visited in Tibet to climb with them and teenagers from the schoolhouse for the blind.  In addition, Erik is an agile speaker on the lecture circuit.  He is represented by Leading Regime speakers bureau.

Back to Top


Abdurrahman Wahid Abdurrahman Wahid (September seven, 1940 – Nowadays):  Also known as Gus Dur, Abdurrahman is an Indonesian Muslim religious and political leader who served as the President of Indonesia from 1999 to 2001.  The long-time president of the Nahdlatul Ulama and the founder of the National Enkindling Party (PKB), Wahid was the outset elected president of Republic of indonesia after the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998.

Dorsum to Top


William Samuel McTell William Samuel McTell (May five, 1898 – August 19, 1959):  Better known every bit Bullheaded Willie McTell, he was an influential American dejection vocalizer, songwriter, and guitarist.  He was a twelve-string finger picking Piedmont blues guitarist, and recorded 149 songs between 1927 and 1956.  Born William Samuel McTier in Thomson, Georgia, blind in one middle, McTell had lost his remaining vision by tardily childhood, only became an adept reader of Braille.  He showed proficiency in music from an early age and learned to play the six-string guitar as shortly as he could.  A blues festival in McTell'south honor is held annually in his birthplace, Thomson, Georgia.  He was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1981.

Back to Elevation


Clarence Carter Clarence Carter (January 14, 1936 – Present):  Clarence is a blind American soul singer and musician.  Born in Montgomery, Alabama on 14 January, 1936, Carter attended the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega, Alabama, and Alabama State Higher in Montgomery, graduating in August 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in music.

Back to Elevation


Wilma Mankiller Wilma Pearl Mankiller (November xviii, 1945 – Present):  Born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Wilma was the get-go female person Chief of the Cherokee Nation.  She served as the Principal Chief for ten years from 1985 to 1995.  The family surname, Mankiller, is a traditional Cherokee military rank and is pronounced "Asgaya-dihi" in Cherokee.  Past 1983, she was elected deputy chief of the Cherokee Nation, aslope Ross Swimmer, who was serving his tertiary consecutive term as primary primary.  In 1985, Main Swimmer resigned to take the position every bit caput of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  This allowed Mankiller to go the start female person main master.  She was freely elected in 1987, and re-elected once more in 1991 in a landslide victory, collecting 83% of the vote. In 1995, Wilma chose not to run over again for Chief largely due to health problems.

Dorsum to Peak


Ronnie Milsap Ronnie Lee Milsap (January sixteen, 1945 -Present):  Built-in in Robbinsville, Northward Carolina, Milsap is an American country music singer and musician.  Ronnie Milsap was born with a congenital defect, leaving him well-nigh completely bullheaded.  He was one of country's most popular and influential artists in the 1970s and 1980s.  Ronnie became country music'south first blind superstar.  He was too ane of the most successful country crossover singers of his time, appealing to both land and popular markets.  Milsap'southward biggest crossover hits include "It Was Well-nigh Like a Song", "Smoky Mountain Rain", "(There's) No Gettin' Over Me", "I Wouldn't Have Missed Information technology for the Globe", "Any Twenty-four hour period Now", and "Stranger in My House", among others.  He is credited with 40 #1 hits in country music, 3rd to George Strait and Conway Twitty.

Back to Top


Jose Feliciano José Montserrate Feliciano García (September 10, 1945 – Nowadays): is a Puerto Rican vocalizer, virtuoso guitarist and composer, known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".  Born in Lares, Puerto Rico, Feliciano was ane of twelve children and was first exposed to music at the age of three. His blindness is a event of congenital glaucoma. Feliciano holds the distinction of existence one of the few singers to have enjoyed success both in Castilian language music and in English stone and scroll.  In 1965 and 1966, he released his outset albums "The Vocalism and Guitar of Jose Feliciano" and "A Pocketbook Full of Soul", two folk-pop-soul albums that showcased his talent on radio across the USA, where he was described as a "10 finger wizard".  In 1970, he wrote and released an album of Christmas music, Feliz Navidad, which may be deemed to exist his about famous recording.  He received a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987, and continued as a very popular singer during the 1980'due south.  In 1995, Feliciano was honored by the City of New York, which re-named Public Schoolhouse 155 the Jose Feliciano Performing Arts School.

Back to Top


Dr. Jacob Bolotin Dr. Jacob Bolotin (January iii, 1888 – Apr one, 1924):  Born in 1888 to a poor immigrant family unit in Chicago, Jacob Bolotin fought prejudice and misconceptions about the capabilities of blind people in guild to win acceptance to medical school and so into the medical profession.  He was one of the most respected physicians in Chicago in the early twentieth century, particularly well known for his expertise on diseases of the heart and lungs.  Dr. Jacob Bolotin was the first human built-in totally blind to get fully licensed to do medicine.

Back to Top


Richard H. Bernstein Richard H. Bernstein (November 9, 1973 – Nowadays): An American lawyer, practicing at The Police Offices of Sam Bernstein. He also is an offshoot professor at the University of Michigan and served on the Wayne Country Academy Board of Governors for one eight-twelvemonth term, including ii years as vice chair and 2 more than as chair. Bernstein has been classified as legally bullheaded since nascence, as a consequence of retinitis pigmentosa. Richard Bernstein is also an gorging runner and abet for disability rights.

Back to Height


David Paterson standing behind a podium and microphone David Alexander Paterson (May 20, 1954 – Present): American politician and the old Governor of New York. He is the first African American governor of New York and likewise the 2d legally blind governor of any U.S. land after Bob C. Riley, who was Governor of Arkansas for eleven days in January 1975. At the age of 3 months, Paterson contracted an ear infection which spread to his optic nerve, leaving him with no sight in his left centre and severely limited vision in his right eye.

Back to Meridian


Resource

Domicile