Can you suggest examples of powerful speeches?

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.