List of blind people

Music

• Robin Millar – Record producer, Businessman and philanthropist.
• Tsutomu Aragaki – Japanese tenor, blind from just after birth.
• Garret Barry – an Irish uilleann piper, among the most famous players of the 19th century.
• Delta Blind Billy – an American Delta blues artist and outlaw.
• Blind Blake – American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist.
• The Blind Boys of Alabama – Gospel group.
• Andrea Bocelli – Operatic pop singer.
• Ricky Boon – Former guitarist of Australian thrash metal band Fury.
• Joséphine Boulay – French organist and composer.
• Rudolf Braun – composer and organist.
• Pearly Brown – American gospel blues singer and guitarist, known primarily as a street performer.
• Henry Butler – American jazz and blues pianist.
• Blind James Campbell – American blues singer and guitarist.
• Henry Caldera – Sri Lankan singer/songwriter, blind since age 14.
• Ray Charles – pianist and singer inducted to various halls of fame.
• Fanny Crosby – Christian hymn writer.
• Reverend Gary Davis – gospel blues guitarist.
• Blind John Davis – American blues and boogie-woogie pianist and singer.
• Kimio Eto – Japanese blind musician who played the koto.
• José Feliciano – Grammy Award-winner.
• Five Blind Boys of Mississippi – The original line-up of this gospel group was blind, some later members were not.
• Blind Boy Fuller – Blues guitarist and vocalist.
• Blind Leroy Garnett – American boogie-woogie and ragtime pianist and songwriter.
• Terri Gibbs – country music singer and musician.
• Blind Roosevelt Graves – American blues guitarist and singer, who recorded both sacred and secular music in the 1920s and 1930s.
• Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu – indigenous Australian singer-songwriter.
• Diana Gurtskaya – pop singer from the ex-Soviet country of Georgia
• Ed Haley – Appalachian old-time fiddler.
• Casey Harris – keyboardist of X Ambassadors.
• Jeff Healey – Blues-rock guitarist and vocalist.
• Al Hibbler – Jazz pop vocalist.
• Patrick Henry Hughes – multi instrumental musician, recipient of .
• Blind Lemon Jefferson – "Father of the Texas Blues".
• Blind Willie Johnson – Slide guitarist who's been termed "influential" and "the apogee" for the instrument.
• Terry Kelly – Canadian singer.
• Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Jazz multi-instrumentalist.
• Lachi – Visually impaired Nigerian American singer-songwriter, pianist and composer out of New York City
• Francesco Landini – 14th century Italian composer and organist.
• Rachael Leahcar – Australian pop singer and songwriter, born with retinitis pigmentosa and is legally blind.
• Blind Willie McTell – Blues guitarist.
• Raul Midón – Singer-songwriter.
• Ronnie Milsap – Country and pop singer.
• Moondog – Outsider musician born "Louis Thomas Hardin."
• Joe Mooney – American jazz and pop accordionist, organist, and vocalist.
• Blind Mississippi Morris – American blues musician.
• Turlough O'Carolan – harper and composer blinded by smallpox.
• Ginny Owens – American contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, author and blogger, born with poor vision and has been blind since the age of three.
• Jay Owens – American electric blues and soul blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.
• Frankie Paul – a Jamaican dancehall reggae musician.
• Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton – American blues and jazz vocalist and multi-instrumentalist.
• Paul Pena – American blues musician and throat singer.
• Blind Alfred Reed – American folk, country, and old-time musician and singer-songwriter.
• Blind Joe Reynolds – American singer-songwriter and blues guitarist.
• Joaquín Rodrigo – Spanish composer and pianist.
• Diane Schuur – Grammy winning jazz singer.
• Charlotta Seuerling – Swedish concert singer.
• George Shearing – British jazz pianist.
• Tom Sullivan – American musician, author and motivational speaker. The 1982 film If You Could See What I Hear is based on his autobiography.
• Blind Joe Taggart – American country blues and gospel singer and guitarist who recorded in the 1920s and 1930s.
• Bertha Tammelin – a Swedish actress, operatic mezzo-soprano, pianist, composer and drama teacher.
• Art Tatum – Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame, partial sight in one eye.
• Sonny Terry – American Piedmont blues and folk musician.
• Lennie Tristano – DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame, critics choice.
• Ostap Veresai – Noted kobzar.
• Helmut Walcha – German organist, who recorded the complete organ works of Bach.
• Blind Willie Walker – an American Piedmont blues guitarist and singer.
• Doc Watson – guitarist in several genres.
• Blind Tom Wiggins – an American pianist and composer, he had numerous original compositions published and had a lengthy and largely successful performing career.
• Stevie Wonder – singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee.
• Ravindra Jain – Indian poet and musician, composed several Hindi film songs in 1970s and 1980s.
• Âşık Veysel – Turkish poet and musician, considered as the father of Turkish folk music.

Visual artists

• Esref Armagan – Turkish painter, born blind.
• John Bramblitt – American painter & writer, lost sight in 2001, paints realistically through touch techniques with intense color.
• Keith Salmon – English painter & sculptor, blind through diabetes retinopathy.

Writers

• Homer – Ancient Greek orator of the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. According to legend, he was blind either at birth or due to disease or injury.
• Ludwig von Baczko – German writer and historian.
• Jorge Luis Borges – Argentine writer blind in later part of his career.
• Didymus the Blind – Ecclesiastical writer of Alexandria.
• John Lee Clark – American deafblind poet.
• Belo Cipriani – Latino writer, blind at the age of 26.
• James Jerpe – Sports writer.
• Ed Lucas – Sports writer.
• John Milton – Poet who was blind for the last 22 years of life.
• Helen Keller – American writer who was both blind and deaf.
• Ved Mehta – an Indian/American writer who was born in Lahore (now a Pakistani city) to a Hindu family.
• Nikolai Ostrovsky – a Soviet socialist realist writer.
• Aldous Huxley – British philosophical writer, partially blind.
• Taha Hussein – Egyptian writer and intellectual who became blind at the age of three.
• Jack Vance – American fantasy writer

Other

• Richard Turner – Close-up card magician

Athletes and sportspersons

• Zeeshan Abbasi – Blind cricketer.
• Muhammad Akram – Blind cricketer, holds the record for highest individual score in a Blind T20I
• Lisa Banta – Goalball player.
• Anthony Clarke (athlete) – World class Judoka.
• Chris Holmes (swimmer) – He has won multiple Paralympic gold medals for swimming.
• Cedric Jones – American football player, blind in one eye.
• Masood Jan – Blind cricketer, holds the record for highest individual score in a Blind ODI
• Shekhar Naik – Blind cricketer.
• Jake Peavy – Former Major League Baseball pitcher, legally blind without corrective lenses
• Marla Runyan – Legally blind Olympic and Paralympic runner.
• Suranga Sampath – Blind cricketer.
• Zohar Sharon – Blind golfer.
• Crazzy Steve – Professional Wrestler signed to Impact Wrestling who is legally blind due to congenital bilateral cataracts
• Henry Wanyoike – Long-distance runner with 95% vision loss.
• Trischa Zorn – Swimmer who's the most successful athlete in the history of the Paralympic Games.

Engineers

• John Metcalf – English civil engineer.
• T. V. Raman – Indian computer scientist.
• Ralph Teetor – American engineer, who invented the cruise control.

Mathematicians and scientists

• Amy Bower – American oceanographer
• Kent Cullers – American astronomer
• Gustaf Dalén – Swedish inventor and Nobel Prize winner; continued to make inventions and lead his company after being blinded in an accident
• Wanda Díaz-Merced – American astrophysicist
• Victor Eberhard – German geometer
• Leonhard Euler – Swiss mathematician and physicist; went almost totally blind at age 59
• Florence Goodenough (1886–1959) – American psychologist; went blind in late life, then learned braille so she could continue publishing
• François Huber – Swiss naturalist who made fundamental contributions to melittology.
• Joshua Miele – American adaptive technology designer
• Mona Minkara – American chemist
• Bernard Morin – French topologist
• Abraham Nemeth – Developed Nemeth Braille for blind students in science and math
• Joseph Plateau – Physicist who went blind at forty-two when he gazed too long at the sun
• Lev Pontryagin – Soviet mathematician who went blind at fourteen; continued mathematical study with the help of his mother Tatyana Andreevna, and made major discoveries in a number of fields of mathematics
• Nicholas Saunderson – English mathematician who went blind at the age of twelve months, held in high esteem by Isaac Newton.
• Geerat J. Vermeij – Dutch-born American evolutionary biologist and paleontologist; went blind at the age of three
• Galileo Galilei – Italian astronomer and physicist; went blind at 74, six years before his death

Medical professionals

• Dr. Satish Amarnath – an Indian medical microbiologist who became totally blind after an acid attack.
• Jacob Bolotin – the world's first totally blind physician fully licensed to practice medicine.
• Tim Cordes – American physician.

Politicians

• Abdurrahman Wahid – otherwise known as Gusdur – 4th president of Indonesia.
• Richard H. Bernstein – Elected to Wayne State University Board of Governors in Michigan.
• David Blunkett – Labour Party (UK) politician, former cabinet minister, and Member of Parliament.
• Kristen Cox – Cabinet secretary in Utah and Maryland.
• Matthew A. Dunn – Member of the United States House of Representatives.
• Henry Fawcett – Member of Parliament and Postmaster General of the United Kingdom.
• Ian Fraser, Baron Fraser of Lonsdale – MP for St Pancras North for eleven non-consecutive years, blinded in World War I.
• Thomas Gore – US Senator.
• Cyrus Habib – 16th Lieutenant Governor of Washington.
• Colin Low, Baron Low of Dalston – Member of the British House of Lords.
• Robert Mahoney – First blind member of the Michigan House of Representatives
• George May, 1st Baron May – Member of the British House of Lords.
• Floyd Morris – President of the Senate of Jamaica
• David Paterson – Governor of New York.
• Bob C. Riley – An acting governor of Arkansas.
• Thomas D. Schall – A US Senator from Minnesota, blinded by an electrical shock before his time in office.
• Yuriy Shukhevych – People's Deputy of Ukraine, former head of Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National Self Defence.
• Doug Spade – Member of the Michigan House of Representatives

Political activists

• Shelley Davis – American lawyer and labor advocate.
• Chen Guangcheng – Lawyer and Ramon Magsaysay Award winner was imprisoned in China on 22 April 2012, Chen escaped from house arrest.
• Jacques Lusseyran – French author and political activist during World War II.
• Karla Gilbride – American civil rights litigator currently serving as the General Counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Rulers

• Shah Alam II – Emperor of India
• Louis the Blind – 10th century European king, blinded after being captured.
• Vasily II of Russia – the 15th century Grand Prince of Moscow
• Béla the Blind – the 12th century King of Hungary
• Enrico Dandolo – 12th and 13th century 42nd Doge of Venice
• John of Bohemia – King of Bohemia, died at the Battle of Crécy (1346)
• George V of Hanover – King of Hanover in the 19th century (1819)

Saints

• Didymus the Blind – Dean of the Theological School of Alexandria and first man to memorise the Holy Bible
• Lutgardis – Catholic saint, blind in the last 11 years of her life.
• Margaret of Castello – a 13th - 14th century Italian Catholic educator and Dominican tertiary, born blind.
• Pacificus of San Severino – Franciscan visionary.
• Surdas – Hindu saint, devotional poet and singer who lived during reign of king Akbar (1542–1606).

Diplomats

• Victoria Harrison – UK Ambassador-designate to Slovenia.
• Saima Saleem – Pakistani diplomat.
• Beno Zephine N L – Indian Foreign Service officer.

Others

• Mary Ingalls – sister of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author.
• Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz – Grand mufti of Saudi Arabia (1993–1999).
• Christine Hà– Winner of MasterChef USA 2012.
• Srikant Bolla – Founder and CEO of Bollant Industries.
• Ross Minor – accessibility content creator, shooting survivor, para swimmer
• Gary O'Donoghue – political correspondent for the BBC.
• Ed Walker – lifelong radio show host/humorist, Washington, DC.
• Akbar Khan – Singer, Composer, Writer and a Banker honored with National Award in 1989, Rajasthan, India.
• Ashish Goyal – first blind trader in finance.
• Mélanie de Salignac – discussed by Diderot.
• Morrison Heady – deafblind author and inventor
• Russell Redenbaugh – blinded as a teenager, graduated from Wharton with an MBA, Self-Made Wall Street and Silicon Valley Millionaire, BBJ Black Belt Three Time Masters Champion
• Yousaf Saleem – Pakistani jurist.
• Richard B. Teitelman – Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri
• Sheena Iyengar – Professor at Columbia Business School

Fictional

References