How Did Ray Charles Go Blind? Blind by 7, Likely Glaucoma

Ray Charles was not born blind. He began losing his sight as a small child and was completely blind by 7, most likely from glaucoma. The sources put the start at 4, 5 or 6, and they hedge on the cause: the New York Times called it "an unknown ailment that may have been glaucoma" (The New York Times, 2004, NPR, 2004, Ray Charles Foundation).

Below: when his sight went and what the sources say about why, his brother George, his mother, the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, how he learned music in braille, and what he said about blindness, each with its source. He is one of the people in our list of famous blind people. Pages were checked on October 30, 2026. Where sources disagree, we say so.

Key points

• Not born blind. In his own words: "I could see then. I lost my sight when I was 7." (The New York Times, 2004).
• Blind by about 7. The sources start the sight loss at 4, 5 or 6 (NPR, 2004, Jazz Journal, 1960).
• Glaucoma, most likely. Most sources name glaucoma, several with a "may have been"; NPR's obituary calls it an unknown illness (Time, 2004).
• His brother died first. At about 5 he saw his younger brother George drown, and his sight began to fail soon after. No source says one caused the other (HistoryLink, 2004).
• Braille music at school. From 1937 to 1945 he studied in St. Augustine, Florida, where he learned braille and wrote music in braille (Florida Artists Hall of Fame).

Ray Charles at a glance

Each row is sourced in the sections below.

A childhood in Greenville, Florida

Ray Charles Robinson was born on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia, and grew up in Greenville, Florida (official site, The New York Times, 2004). The family was very poor, with "nothing below us 'cept the ground," as he put it (Time, 2004).

Music came before blindness. His official site says he "started playing the piano before he was five." A neighbor, Wylie Pitman, let the boy play the upright piano in his café (HistoryLink, 2004). "He was a kind man," Charles recalled in 1960 (Jazz Journal, 1960).

His brother George

A younger brother, George, was born soon after the family settled in Greenville. HistoryLink, drawing on his autobiography Brother Ray, tells what happened when Ray was about five: four-year-old George fell into the big metal tub their mother used for washing clothes. Ray tried to pull him out, then ran inside screaming for his mother, but it was too late (HistoryLink, 2004). Biography.com calls it "One of the most traumatic events of his childhood" (Biography.com).

When it happened, next to his sight. Three sources put the drowning just before the sight loss:

• "Not long after the drowning, Charles began to lose his vision" (HistoryLink, 2004).
• "At about that time Ray developed what may have been glaucoma" (Time, 2004).
• "Soon after his brother's death, Charles gradually began to lose his sight" (Biography.com).

They link the two events in time only. None of them says the shock of his brother's death caused the blindness, and we don't either.

One old source doesn't fit: a 1960 Jazz Journal profile calls him "An only child" (Jazz Journal, 1960). The later accounts all name George.

How Ray Charles lost his sight

When it started. The sources give three ages:

• 4. NPR's obituary: "He contracted an unknown illness at the age of four," and he was completely blind "within three years" (NPR, 2004).
• 5. The New York Times: "When he was 5 he began losing his sight" (The New York Times, 2004). Time and HistoryLink also put it at about 5.
• 6. In the 1960 interview, the trouble with his eyes "started when he was six" and "within two years he was blind" (Jazz Journal, 1960). His official site also says "At age six."

When it was complete. Nearly every source says by 7. The Ray Charles Foundation says he "lost his sight at age 7" (Ray Charles Foundation), and the Florida Artists Hall of Fame says "blind since the age of 7." Two sources stray: an NPR program note from 1999 says "Blind since the age of six" (NPR, 1999), and two years from six would make it nearer 8. So this page says he was blind by about 7.

What caused it. The sources hedge, and not all the same way:

• "May have been glaucoma." The New York Times: "an unknown ailment that may have been glaucoma." Time: "what may have been glaucoma."
• "Apparently" glaucoma. HistoryLink: "apparently as the result of untreated glaucoma."
• Glaucoma, no hedge. His official site: "At age six, he contracted glaucoma that eventually left him blind" (official site). NPR's 1999 note also says "from glaucoma."
• Unknown. NPR's 2004 obituary names no disease, only "an unknown illness."
• His words. In 1960 he didn't name it either: "whatever I had I couldn't be cured" (Jazz Journal, 1960).

So glaucoma is the most likely answer and the one most sources give, but none of the sources we read cites a diagnosis from the time, or says which kind of glaucoma it was.

What glaucoma is. Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that damage the optic nerve, at the back of the eye, and without treatment it can eventually cause blindness (National Eye Institute).

What he remembered. Time writes that as his sight failed, "he could stare straight at the sun" (Time, 2004). In 1960, Jazz Journal wrote that "Losing his sight is one of his faintest memories," and he didn't dwell on it: "It's not the kind of thing you keep turning over in your mind." No source we found says whether he perceived any light as an adult. For the range of what blind people see, read what do blind people see.

His mother: "You're blind, not stupid"

His mother, Aretha, didn't let blindness excuse him from chores. HistoryLink says she had him draw water from the well and bring in firewood, even though he often tripped and fell (HistoryLink, 2004). The Ray Charles Foundation quotes her: "You're blind, not stupid" (Ray Charles Foundation). In a version Time takes from Jet magazine, she said "there are always two ways to do everything" (Time, 2004).

In Brother Ray, as HistoryLink quotes it, he wrote: "She let me roam, let me make my own mistakes." She also found him a school.

The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind

In 1937 his mother sent him to the state school for deaf and blind children in St. Augustine, about 130 miles from Greenville, as a charity student (Ray Charles Foundation, HistoryLink, 2004). He stayed eight years, until 1945, going home in the summers (Florida Artists Hall of Fame, HistoryLink). The Museum of Florida History calls him the school's "most famous student" (Museum of Florida History).

The name. The foundation says the school was then "The School for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb" and "later became The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind." HistoryLink gives the old name as the Institute for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb. Dumb was the word then for people who couldn't speak.

What he learned. He learned to read braille, to type, to weave baskets, and to repair radios and cars (HistoryLink, 2004, The New York Times, 2004). The Florida Artists Hall of Fame says he "mastered Braille and learned to play piano, organ, clarinet, trumpet and saxophone." He played Chopin and Art Tatum and listened to everything on the radio: "My ears were sponges, soaked it all up," he told David Ritz, who worked with him on Brother Ray (The New York Times). How these schools work today is in schools for the blind.

Could Ray Charles read braille?

Yes, both text and music. NPR says he "learned to read braille" at the school (NPR, 2004). On music: "He learned to write music in Braille" (The New York Times); he "learned to read, write and arrange music in Braille" (Biography.com).

How he learned a piece. He described it in 1960. "We would feel the notes in Braille," he said, then "learn two bars and play the two from memory." Then 10 more bars, and play all 12; then 20 more, and play 32. Classical pieces were the hardest, some 2,000 bars long, and since he couldn't follow along by sight, "you really had to memorize that stuff" (Jazz Journal, 1960).

He told People the same thing, as Time quotes it: "In Braille music, you can only read so many bars at a time." And: "You can't play it and see it at the same time." By 12, Time says, he could arrange big band and orchestral music (Time, 2004).

How the code works, with notes, rhythms and both hands, is in braille music. For the other ways blind people read, see how do blind people read.

After school: the road, the sunglasses and Seattle

His mother died shortly before his 15th birthday, and he left school (HistoryLink, 2004, The New York Times, 2004). He played in Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa. In Tampa, with a band called the Florida Playboys, he wore his trademark sunglasses for the first time (Florida Artists Hall of Fame). Why many blind people wear them is in why do blind people wear sunglasses.

Then he moved to Seattle, as far as he could get from Florida. There he met a teenage Quincy Jones, who later wrote: "It was like somebody forgot to tell Ray he was blind" (HistoryLink, 2004). He signed with Atlantic Records in 1952 and won 12 Grammys (Time, 2004). He died on June 10, 2004, at his home in Beverly Hills, of liver disease (NPR, 2004). Jamie Foxx won the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing him in the film Ray (Florida Artists Hall of Fame).

What he said about blindness

Asked in his last years what effect blindness had had on his career, he answered: "Nothing, nothing, nothing." He had played music since he was 3, when he could still see. "It didn't give me anything. And it didn't take nothing." (The New York Times, 2004).

In 1960 he had put it differently: "I might not have turned out like I have if I could see." But he rejected the idea that blindness shaped his singing: "Seeing people or not seeing them," he said, "life is still life." (Jazz Journal, 1960).

Deafness, he thought, was worse. He believed "the inability to hear was a handicap not the inability to see" (Ray Charles Foundation). In 1986 he started the Robinson Foundation for Hearing Disorders, renamed the Ray Charles Foundation in 2006, which has helped pay for cochlear implants. As Time quotes him: "Imagine never being able to hear music." Two other blind singers with their own stories are Stevie Wonder and Andrea Bocelli.

Where Braillito fits

Braillito, our app, teaches braille. It teaches the braille cells in lessons with exercises you play, with lives, levels and a daily streak: 59 lessons in 8 worlds in English. It also has a translator, a dictionary and a cell builder. The English lessons are uncontracted braille (grade 1); they don't teach contracted braille or transcription, and Braillito isn't a braille transcriber.

Nothing here means Ray Charles used or endorsed Braillito. If his story makes you want to learn braille yourself, the cells are where it starts. The translator on braillito.com shows how a word or short phrase looks in UEB, but it only applies the rules a program can apply, so it doesn't replace a transcriber. Without paying, the braille translator works in any browser.

Braillito is a subscription with no free version; depending on the plan, it starts with a free trial or a discounted first period, if it's your first subscription (is Braillito free?). Get Braillito.

Frequently asked questions

How did Ray Charles go blind?

Gradually, as a small child. His sight began to fail at 4, 5 or 6, depending on the source, and he was completely blind by about 7. The cause was most likely glaucoma: the New York Times called it "an unknown ailment that may have been glaucoma," and his official site says glaucoma outright (The New York Times, 2004, official site).

Was Ray Charles born blind?

No. He could see as a small child, and he was already playing piano: "I played music since I was 3. I could see then." (The New York Times, 2004). He lost his sight between about 4 and 7.

Could Ray Charles read braille?

Yes. He learned braille at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, where he studied from 1937 to 1945, and he read and wrote music in braille (Florida Artists Hall of Fame, The New York Times, 2004). He learned a piece a few bars at a time by touch, then played it from memory (Jazz Journal, 1960).

Did his brother's death cause his blindness?

No source we read says so. His younger brother George drowned when Ray was about 5, and his sight began to fail soon after (HistoryLink, 2004). The sources link the two only in time; the cause they give is most likely glaucoma. More blind musicians are in famous blind people.