A list of famous and well known sight impaired people who are or were blind or blind in one eye.
Main Document
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.
Total blindness is the complete lack of form and light perception and is clinically recorded as "NLP," an abbreviation for "no light perception.In order to determine which people may need special assistance because of their visual disabilities, various governmental jurisdictions have formulated more complex definitions referred to as legal blindness.
Eye injuries, most often occurring in people under 30, are the leading cause of monocular blindness (vision loss in one eye). Visually impaired and blind people have devised a number of techniques that allow them to complete daily activities using their remaining senses. Recent access technology such as screen reading software enable the blind to use mainstream computer applications including the Internet.
About This Image: Fig. 1 - Perhaps the most well known blind person was Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 - June 1, 1968).Perhaps the most well known blind person was Helen Adams Keller (fig. 1), (June 27, 1880 - June 1, 1968), an American author, political activist, and lecturer.
Helen Keller was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree.
A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled and outspoken in her convictions.
A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned for women's suffrage, labor rights, socialism, antimilitarism, and other similar causes.
Helen Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author.
She was an advocate for people with disabilities, and numerous other causes. The Deaf community was widely impacted by her. She traveled to twenty-five different countries giving motivational speeches about Deaf people's conditions.
She was a suffragette, pacifist, radical socialist, and birth control supporter.
Listed below are other well known people who had or have a vision impairment including total blindness, sight conditions, and blindness in one eye.
Famous Blind and Sight Impaired People
Abdurrahman Wahid - former President of Indonesia (1940- )
Abraham Nemeth
Al Hibbler
Alec Templeton
Alecia Alanzo
Andrea Bocelli
Apl.de.ap
Arnolt Schlick
Audre Lorde - Poet - Activist (1934 - 1992)
Bernard Morin
Blind Lemon Jefferson - (1893 - 1929) - Blues musician & singer
Blind Willie McTell- (1901 - 1959)
Brandon Jardine - was stabbed in the eyes by his parents with red hot pokers in 1991.
Brian McKeever
Clarence Carter- (born 1936)
Claude Monet
Cyrus Habib - American politician, lawyer, professor - 16th and current Lieutenant Governor of Washington.
David Alexander Paterson
David Blunkett - (born 1947) - British ex-cabinet minister
Denise Leigh - opera singer and winner of Channel 4's Operatunity
Doc Watson
Dorothea Lange - Photographer (1895 - 1965)
Dr William Moon - inventor of Moon system of reading
Dr. Jacob Bolotin
Eamon de Valera - (1882 - 1975) - President of Ireland.
Edgar Degas - French painter
Ella Fitzgerald - (1917 - 1996) - jazz singer - went blind as a result of diabetes in her old age.
Enrico Dandolo - (died 1205) - doge of Venice - blind from trauma.
Erik Weihenmayer
Esmond Knight - British actor
Esref Armagan
Fanny Crosby
Francesco Landini
Francisco Goya - (1746 - 1828) - painter - became blind and deaf in late life - painted blind(ed) subjects.
Frankie Armstrong - English folk singer and voice teacher - sight degraded in late teens onwards from glaucoma
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Frederick Delius
Fritz Lang - (1890 - 1976) - nearly blind at the end of his life
Galileo Galilei
George Shearing - (1919 - ) - jazz pianist.
Gilbert Montagn
Ginny Owens - Gospel singer - totally blind from age 2
Harilyn Rousso - Disability Rights Activist/Psychotherapist (1946-)
Harriet Tubman
Helen Keller - (1880 - 1968)
Henry Fawcett - UK Postmaster General - 19th Century
Homer - Greek poet said to have been blind.
Honor Daumier - (1808 - 1879) - French caricaturist - painter - and sculptor - blind later in life.
Horatio Nelson
Isaac - biblical patriarch
Isaac the Blind - (1160 - 1235) - French cabbalist (possibly blind from birth)
Jacques Lusseyran
James Joyce - (1882 - 1941) - writer - at times blind - underwent several operations
James Thurber
Jeff Healey
Jessica Callahan - singer - blind from retinopathy of prematurity
Jhamak Ghimire - Nepalese Poet and Writer (1980)
Joaquin Rodrigo - composer - from an illness at age three
Johann Sebastian Bach - (1685 - 1750) - became blind in later life.
Johanna "Anne" Mansfield Sullivan Macy
John II of Aragon - (1397 - 1479) - able to see again after cataract surgery (couching) by Abiathar Crescas
John Milton
John Stanley
John Wesley Powell - Explorer - Geologist (1834 - 1902)
Johnny Depp
Jorge Luis Borges
Jose Feliciano - (born 1945) - blind from birth due to congenital glaucoma
Joseph Plateau
Joseph Pulitzer
Joshua Reynolds - (1723 -1792) - British painter - blind later in life.
Kiran Guru (Dr ) - First Visually Impaired Female Holding Ph.D Degree in Sociology Punjab University and First Assistant Professor in Punjabi University, Patiala (Punjab).
Leonhard Euler
Louis Braille
Maria Theresa Paradis
Marla Runyan
Mike May - (born 1954) - regained partial vision due to stem cell research.
Omar Abdel-Rahman
Percy Wyndham Lewis
Peter White MBE
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Ray Charles
Richard H. Bernstein
Ronnie Milsap
Sabriye Tenberken
Samson - Biblical character - blinded by the Philistines
Sidney Bradford
St. Paul - Apostle
Stalebread Lacombe - Jazz musician - went blind in middle age
Stevie Wonder - (born Steveland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950, name later changed to Steveland Hardaway Morris)
Sue Townsend
Surdas - (Sant Kavi Surdas)
Surdas - a Hindu poet - saint and musician of India
Thomas Gore
Thomas Rhodes Armitage
Tilly Aston
Tim Cordes
Tom Wiggins (1849 -1908)
Tony Max
W.C. Handy - (1873 -1958) - Blues composer - went blind in middle age
William Prescott
Wilma Mankiller - Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation (1945-)
Zohar Sharon - blind pro golfer
NOTE: If you know of a discrepancy in this list please contact us so we can amend the entry.
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