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Stevie Wonder. Photo by Rózsavölgyi Gyöngyi. .

10 Most Famous Blind People

A blind person is one who is unable to see. The leading causes of blindness and low vision are primarily age-related eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, cataract, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma. Other common eye disorders include amblyopia and strabismus. Quite a number of people born prematurely also may end blind at times.

While this may be disadvantageous to those suffering from this disability, disability is not inability. The people listed have done outstanding things inspite of being blind. Let’s look at the 10 Most Famous Blind People.

1. Helen Adams Keller

Photo by Library of Congress. .

Helen Adams Keller was born a healthy child in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880. Her parents were Kate Adams Keller and Colonel Arthur Keller. At the age of 19 months, Helen became deaf and blind as a result of an unknown illness, perhaps rubella or scarlet fever. She was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer.

Her autobiography has been translated into 50 languages and remains in print to this day. Helen’s other published works include Optimism, an essay; The World I Live In; The Song of the Stone Wall; Out of the Dark; My Religion; Midstream—My Later Life; Peace at Eventide; Helen Keller in Scotland; Helen Keller’s Journal; Let Us Have Faith; Teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy; and The Open Door. In addition, she was a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers.

2. Stevie Wonder

Steve Wonders was born premature, thus had to be incubated. The oxygen pumped in his incubator worsened the blood vessels in the back of his eyes, causing him to go blind. He is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, pop, soul, gospel, funk and jazz.

Due to Stevie Wonder’s blindness, many people were amazed by his ability to play piano and harmonica. Stevie Wonder’s love of music was heavily influenced by those he grew up around and how much he relied on sound to understand the world around him.

3. David Paterson

Paterson was New York’s first African- American, as well as, blind Governor. Since his graduation from Hofstra University Law School, Paterson dedicated most of his adult life to public service.

Being the only governor of New York to be partially blind is definitely a bold statement that says everything extraordinary in itself. Paterson is one of the top famous blind people who is truly revered. He was the 55th governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer and serving out nearly three years of Spitzer’s term from March 2008 to the end of 2010.

4. Louis Braille

Photo by Unknown Author. .

Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809, in Coupvray, France. At the age of 3, while playing in his father’s shop, Louis injured his eye on a sharp tool. Despite the best care available at the time, infection set in and soon spread to the other eye, leaving him completely blind.

Louis went on to invent the braille code later on. This happened when was 16 years old at the National Institute for Blind Youth in Â鶹APP in 1825. Louis got his inspiration to use embossed dots to represent letters after he watched Charles Barbier, a retired artillery officer in Napoleon’s army, demonstrate a note-taking system he invented of embossed dots to represent sounds. This would allow notes to be passed among the ranks without striking a light, which might alert the enemy to their position.

5. Diane Schuur

Diane Joan Schuur was born in Tacoma, Washington, two months premature and weighing less than three pounds. Complications of prematurity resulted in her total loss of vision. Schuur started singing when she was about three years old.

Her mother loved jazz and had a Duke Ellington record collection. Sadly, Schuur lost her mother when she was 13. Schuur was an avid radio listener in her youth; her early musical idols were Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington.  She said that as a small child, she would often retreat to a closet to sing. In fact, she first learned to play the piano by ear.

6. Ray Charles

Photo by Victor Diaz Lamich. .

Ray Charles did not lose his sight until he was about seven years old. Years later, doctors suggested that juvenile glaucoma had caused his blindness. But Charles always maintained that his visual impairment never hindered his career in any way.

Charles was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist who was regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history. Often times his friends called him  “The Genius”. What is for certain is that Ray Charles was a rare and exceptional pianist. As they say practice makes perfect. Years of dedicated practice at the piano gave him the skills to play music.

7. Marla Runyan

Marla Lee Runyan is an American track and field athlete, road runner and marathon runner. At age nine, Runyan developed Stargardt’s Disease, a form of macular degeneration that left her legally blind.

She did, however, retain her peripheral vision and could make out shapes and shadows. Born January 4, 1969 in Santa Maria, California, Runyan is the second child of Valerie and Gary Runyan. Since 2013, Runyan has served as teacher and Ambassador for the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts.

8. Joseph Plateau

Photo by Albert Callisto. .

In 1829, the year he graduated, Plateau looked directly at the sun for more than 25 seconds as an experiment, and became blind for several days. For years afterwards, he often saw brightly colored halos around light sources.

In 1841, he began suffering from the symptoms of a disease which would lead to his total blindness within two years. Joseph was a Belgian physicist and mathematician. He invented the phenakistiscope which was the first widespread animation device that created a fluent illusion of motion.

9. George Shearing

Shearing was born the youngest of nine children in Battersea, London. He started to learn piano at the age of three and began formal training at Linden Lodge School for the Blind, where he spent four years.

He joined an all-blind band and was influenced by the records of Teddy Wilson and Fats Waller. He was a famous British jazz pianist who for many years. He composed over 300 titles, including the jazz standards “Lullaby of Birdland” and “Conception”.

10. Blind Willie McTell

Photo by FaceMePLS. .

McTell was born blind in one eye and lost his remaining vision by late childhood. He attended schools for the blind in Georgia, New York and Michigan and showed proficiency in music from an early age, first playing the harmonica and accordion.

Blind Willie McTell is one of the most unique of the country bluesmen. He played a 12-string acoustic guitar instead of the 6-string instrument played by almost every other early blues player. He was one of the great blues musicians of the 1920s and 1930s.