Louis Braille is the Man Who Revolutionized the Blind World

Louis Braille: The Man Who Revolutionized the Blind World “Braille is knowledge, and knowledge is power.”-Louis Braille Knowledge is what makes humans, well, human. We seek out knowledge like a flower reaches for the sunlight, or like an animals searches for shelter from rain. It is in our nature to constantly want more knowledge. We drink it up like water. For the entirety of human existence, however, there were those whose thirsty brains were denied the drink of knowledge. These people were the poor, the enslaved, the “unworthy”, and the handicapped. Louis Braille challenged this status quo when he invented Braille, a brilliant system of dots that enabled blind people to read and write. Although he faced many challenges in his life, Louis Braille revolutionized the way blind people learn and participate in society with his invention. Louis Braille was born to Simon-Rene and Monique Braille on January 4, 1809 in a small French village 25 miles east of Paris called Coupvray. His father was a harness maker and when Louis was three, he injured his eye while trying to cut a piece of leather with one of his father’s tools. His right eye became infected and it quickly spread to his other eye. By the time he was five Louis was completely blind. Despite Louis’ disability, his father taught him the alphabet by guiding his son’s hand over nails formed into the shapes of letters. Once Louis mastered the alphabet, he learned to write. A religious leader of the village, Abbe