Dark Triumph, UNESCO

The exact date of this episode is unknown. We've filled in the date above with a placeholder. What we actually have on record is: 1951-uu-uu.

Dark Triumph is the dramatized story of how Braille became a universal language for the blind to communicate. The story begins in 1852 with the debut of a blind concert pianist. She describes to the crowd how he was inspired to create his language system by a ship captain who wrote coded messages in the dark. She urges the crowd to adopt this language system worldwide.

Eventually, Braille was accepted in France and then spread to other countries and languages. Divergences between languages became so great that it was decided to return to Louis Braille's original system. The narrator describes how letters and words are constructed using six raised dots.

"Louis Braille's success proved one important fact: difficulties should not be settled for the blind, but by the blind themselves."

Next, the story shifts to 1914 and the use of Braille by soldiers who lost their sight during World War I. A soldier, Clutha Nantes Mackenzie, is learning to read time on a watch. He became a reporter during World War I and II and traveled many countries. After hearing so many world dialects in areas with no system of reading for the blind, Mackenzie works with UNESCO towards creating a single universal language.

"The goal is already in sight: when a standard world braille will be in use throughout the world. When uniform braille is finally achieved, the blind will have something sighted people may well envy, a one world language by which the blind of all nations will be able to communicate, and understand each other, work together and progress."

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection

WNYC archives id: 150724
Municipal archives id: LT8477