Monday, March 10, 2014

Not Many Women on List of Powerful Speeches

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
Recently I asked “Can You Suggest Examples of Powerful Speeches?”

Outcomes from this question include the list below that was suggested.  Interestingly only 2 women's names show up on the list.  Male privilege?  Likely so...historical speaking opportunities largely went to males.  Can you help round out the list with great speakers male or female?? 

Below are the responses I received



Great, moving speeches suggested:
General George Patton's address to his troops before D-Day
Sen. George Vest "Man's best friend" eulogy September 30, 1870
J.K. Rowling Harvard  commencement speech.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHGqp8lz36c
Robert Emmet's Speech from the Dock
Martin Luther King I Have a Dream,
Pres Obama Yes We Can
Pres Obama 1st inauguration,
Winston Churchill We Shall Never Surrender
BIll Clinton's A Place Called Hope
William Wilberforce address to British Parliament on the abolition of the slave trade
Randy Pausch "The Last Lecture" you tube
Martin Luther King I Have Been to the Mountaintop
Al Pacino's speech in "Any Given Sunday"
Robert F. Kennedy’s Indianapolis speech following death of MLK 1968
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg address

Recommended presenters:
Andy Dooley just YouTube him
Joyce Meyer
Tony Robbins
Lou Holtz
Joel Osteen

Collections
American Rhetoric top 100 speeches http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html
Vital Speeches of the Day's Cicero Award Winners http://vsotd.com/cicero-awards
Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking you tube

William Safire's "Lend Me Your Ears." print




Sunday, March 2, 2014

Can you suggest examples of powerful speeches?



Screenshot of Robert Kennedy speaking to a crowd in Indianapolis the night of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's death.Robert F. Kennedy's unrehearsed speech in Indianapolis on the night when Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968 is an example of leadership. The video, Ripple of Hope, is about 45 minutes of set up describing some of what preceded the speech, and showing the speech itself. RFK is running for President and early on in the brief speech he asks campaigners to put down their signs promoting his candidacy.

It is humbling to consider I would likely have advised him not to appear that night, and if he did, not to quote Aeschylus to the crowd1. To my knowledge he didn't talk much about his brother, JFK, also being assassinated. He did that night with powerful results. You might not like his politics, but on that night he showed leadership that may have averted rioting in Indianapolis, when other cities burned.
 

What speeches do you know of that have moved and led us?
1 Here is the quote from Agamemnon:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.