The story
Helen Keller Festival in Tuscumbia
The Helen Keller Festival is an annual multi-day celebration held in Tuscumbia, Alabama, honoring hometown native Helen Keller, the deafblind author and disability-rights advocate, centered around her birthplace and childhood home, Ivy Green. The festival typically runs in late June, near Keller's June 27 birthday, with performances of the play William Gibson wrote about her early life, a parade, and community events across Tuscumbia and neighboring Sheffield and Florence.
Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 1880, and an illness before her second birthday left her both deaf and blind, cutting her off from spoken language during the years children typically acquire it.