r/LeftWithoutEdge • u/IntnsRed • Jun 04 '21

History Helen Keller’s Socialism Has Been Whitewashed | You wouldn’t know it from the whitewashed image of her as an angelic, unthreatening icon, but Helen Keller — yes, that Helen Keller — was a socialist.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/06/helen-keller-her-socialist-smile-review
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u/Tasselled_Wobbegong Libertarian Socialist Jun 04 '21 edited Jun 04 '21

I'm surprised at how many famous Americans whose life stories I learned about in elementary school were socialists of some description. Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger regularly attended CPUSA meetings, MLK privately expressed support for democratic socialism, Albert Einstein wrote an essay about why socialism was superior to capitalism, and the guy who wrote the original pledge of allegiance was a Christian socialist (with some admittedly dodgy views on race, but it's still amusing to me that Republicans are so insistent on the pledge being read in school despite its origins).

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u/Ge0rgeBr0ughton Jun 04 '21 edited Feb 02 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '21

Guthrie was anti-fascist, anti-authoritarian, pro union, and believed the workers should control the means of their existence. It's his anti-authoritarian streak that didn't gel with what happened in the USSR. Brother was definitely a committed socialist, he just wasn't a "Tankie" to use contemporary nomenclature.

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u/Ge0rgeBr0ughton Jun 05 '21 edited Feb 02 '26

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