Items13The creator’s order
  1. 1Hubert HumphreyHubert HumphreyBorn May 27, 1911Speech for a civil rights plank, Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, July 1948 Hubert Humphrey was mayor of Minneapolis when he took the convention floor to back a stronger civil rights plank than party leaders wanted. The speech is short, and its famous call to leave the shadows of…0
  2. 2Report to the American People on Civil RightsReport to the American People on Civil RightsJohn F. Kennedy spoke from the Oval Office on the evening of June 11, 1963, after the standoff over two Black students enrolling at the University of Alabama. It is a brief broadcast, and it is the moment a cautious president called civil rights "a moral issue" that was "as old as the scriptures."…0
  3. 3John LewisJohn LewisBorn Feb 21, 1940Speech at the March on Washington, August 28, 1963 John Lewis was the 23-year-old chairman of SNCC and the youngest speaker at the march. His draft called the administration's civil rights bill "too little and too late" and was cut back under pressure from march leaders shortly before he spoke.…0
  4. 4I Have a DreamI Have a DreamMost people know the last few minutes. The full speech, given at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, opens with a pointed argument that America had given its Black citizens "a bad check" that came back marked "insufficient funds," and it presses "the fierce urgency of now" well before any…0
  5. 5Message to the Grass RootsMessage to the Grass RootsMalcolm X gave this at the closing rally of the Northern Negro Grass Roots Leadership Conference, held at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit on November 10, 1963, less than three months after the March on Washington. He argues that a grassroots protest was taken over and tamed by the…0
  6. 6The Ballot or the BulletThe Ballot or the BulletMalcolm X first gave this address in Cleveland on April 3, 1964, then again nine days later at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit; the Detroit version is the one some scholars treat as definitive. It came a month after his split from the Nation of Islam, and it is less about religion than…0
  7. 7Fannie Lou HamerFannie Lou HamerBorn Oct 6, 1917Testimony to the Credentials Committee, Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, August 22, 1964 Fannie Lou Hamer spoke from memory for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which was challenging the state's regular delegation. In plain, steady detail she describes being put off the…0
  8. 8Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. JohnsonBorn Aug 27, 1908"The American Promise" address to a joint session of Congress, March 15, 1965 Lyndon B. Johnson spoke days after marchers were brutally assaulted at Selma, asking Congress for a voting rights law. A Southern president, speaking in the House chamber, takes up the movement's own anthem and declares,…0
  9. 9Baldwin–Buckley debateBaldwin–Buckley debateOn February 18, 1965, James Baldwin argued at the Cambridge Union in England for the motion that the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro, with William F. Buckley Jr. opposing. Baldwin's speech is the reason to listen: a novelist's account of what it does to a Black child to grow…0
  10. 10Stokely CarmichaelStokely CarmichaelBorn Jun 29, 1941"Black Power" speech, Greek Theatre, University of California, Berkeley, October 29, 1966 As chairman of SNCC, Stokely Carmichael spoke to a packed Greek Theatre at a Black Power conference organized by Students for a Democratic Society. He insists "we were never fighting for the right to…0