Who Was "Helen Keller"?

Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. The story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker. Her birthplace in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, is now a museum and sponsors an annual "Helen Keller Day". Her birthday on June 27 is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and was authorized at the federal level by presidential proclamation by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, the 100th anniversary of her birth.

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. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1971 and was one of twelve inaugural inductees to the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015. Keller proved to the world that deaf people could all learn to communicate and that they could survive in the hearing world. She also taught that deaf people are capable of doing things that hearing people can do. One of the most famous deaf people in history, she is an idol to many deaf people in the world.

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Who was Medgar Evers?

Medgar Wiley Evers (July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963) was an American civil rights activist from Mississippi who worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi and enact social justice and voting rights. He was murdered by a white supremacist and Klansman.

A World War II veteran and college graduate, he became active in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. He became a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Following the 1954 ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, Evers worked to gain admission to the state-supported public University of Mississippi for African Americans. He also worked for voting rights and registration, economic opportunity, access to public facilities, and other changes in the segregated society.

Evers was murdered by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens' Council, a group formed in 1954 to resist the integration of schools and civil rights activism. As a veteran, Evers was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. His murder and the resulting trials inspired civil rights protests, as well as numerous works of art, music and film. All-white juries failed to reach verdicts in the first two trials of Beckwith. He was convicted in a new state trial in 1994, based on new evidence.

Myrlie Evers, widow of the activist, became a noted activist in her own right, serving as national chair of the NAACP. His brother Charles Evers was the first African-American mayor elected in Mississippi in the post-Reconstruction era when he won in 1969 in Fayette.

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Mos Def (aka Yasiin Bey) Announces Surprise Album Before Retirement

Yasiin Bey – formerly known as Mos Def – has had quite the tumultuous 2016 (haven’t we all?). All year long the Brooklyn hip-hop legend, outspoken political activist and silver-screen actor has been caught up in legal troubles. He tried to travel out of South Africa under a fraudulent “World Passport” document , and as a result, he and his family were detained in January. (He’s now on the country’s “undesirables” list, apparently unwelcome to return…)

Whether his legal troubles had anything to do with it or not, they coincided pretty closely with the rapper’s announcement that he would be retiring from the game unexpectedly. In a statement posted to Kanye West‘s website just a few days after his detainment, he wrote:

“I’m retiring from the music recording industry as it is currently assembled today, and also Hollywood, effective immediately. I’m releasing my final album this year, and that’s that.” 

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