powerful presidential speeches

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The 15 most inspiring presidential speeches in american history.

• By Tara Kibler
• February 15, 2021
• History , Political Science

Over the centuries, millions upon millions of words have been used by U.S. presidents to motivate, caution, reassure, and guide the American people. Whether written in the news, spoken at a podium, or shared on Twitter, all of these words have carried weight, each with the potential to impact the trajectory of our nation. Only a handful of times, however, has the particular arrangement and context of these words been considered truly inspiring.

This Presidents’ Day, join HeinOnline in rediscovering some of the greatest presidential speeches in American history using our   U.S. Presidential Library  and other sources.

1. Washington’s Farewell Address

Date:  September 17th, 1796

Context:  Toward the end of his second term as the first U.S. president, George Washington announced his retirement from office in a letter addressed to the American people. Though many feared for a United States without Washington, the address reassured the young nation that it no longer required his leadership. Washington also used the opportunity to offer advice for the prosperity of the country. After witnessing the growing division between the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties, much of his advice was to warn against political parties, factions, and other animosities (domestic and foreign) that would eventually undermine the integrity and efficacy of the American government.

Notable Quote:  “This spirit [of party], unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind … [but] the disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

“Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions … A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”

2. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

Date:  November 19, 1863

Context:  Four months after Union armies defeated Confederates at Gettysburg during the American Civil War, President Lincoln visited the site to dedicate the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. In what were intended to be brief, appropriate remarks for the situation, Lincoln used the moment to offer his take on the war and its meaning. The ten sentences he spoke would ultimately become one of the most famous speeches in American history, an inspiration for notable remarks centuries later, and even a foundation for the wording of other countries’ constitutions.

Notable Quote:  “… from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they heregave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the Nation shall under God have a new birth of freedom, and that Governments of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

3. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Inaugural Address

Date:  March 4, 1933

Context:  The inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt was held as the country was in the throes of the Great Depression, and as such, America anxiously awaited what he had to say. Roosevelt did not disappoint, offering 20 minutes of reassurance, hope, and promises for urgent action.

Notable Quote:  “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is … fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.”

4. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Fireside Chat

Date:  March 12, 1933

Context:  Just a few days after his inauguration, Roosevelt instituted what he called “fireside chats,” using the relatively new technology of radio to enter the living rooms of Americans and discuss current issues. In these moments, he could speak at length, unfiltered and uninterrupted by the press, while also offering a reassuring, optimistic tone that might otherwise have been lost in the written word. In this first fireside chat, he crafted a message to explain the American banking process (and its current difficulties) in a way that the average listener could understand.

Notable Quote:  “Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith. You must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem, my friends. Your problem no less than it is mine. Together, we cannot fail.”

5. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” Speech

Date:  January 6, 1941

Context:  By 1941, many affected by the Great Depression had experienced economic recovery, but another world-changing phenomenon had reared its head—Hitler and his Nazi regime. World War II was raging in Europe and the Pacific, but the United States had thus far remained largely neutral. In light of the atrocities occurring overseas, Roosevelt sought to change that. He crafted his State of the Union address that January to highlight four freedoms which are deserved by all humans everywhere. The “Four Freedoms” speech, as it was ultimately known, later became the basis for  America’s intervention in World War II  and significantly influenced American values, life, and politics moving forward.

Notable Quote:  “In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peace of time life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction, armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.”

6. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” Speech

Date:  December 8, 1953

Context:  During World War II, Roosevelt formally authorized the Manhattan Project, a top-secret U.S. effort to weaponize nuclear energy. By 1945,  America had successfully created the atomic bomb , and President Truman had authorized its detonation in Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leveling the two cities and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Following the end of World War II, political and economic differences between the United States and Soviet Union drove the two countries to another war soon after, but this time, the Soviet Union had their own atomic bomb as well. The world was teetering on a frightening ledge built by access to nuclear power, causing President Eisenhower to launch an “emotion management” campaign with this speech to the United Nations about the very real risks but also peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Notable Quote:  “… the whole book of history reveals mankind’s never-ending quest for peace and mankind’s God-given capacity to build. It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreements, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom and in the confidence that the peoples of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life. … The United States knows that if the fearful trend of atomic military build-up can be reversed, this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind.”

7. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address

Date:  January 17, 1961

Context:  As he came to the end of his term, President Eisenhower found himself in a nation much stronger, much richer, and much more advanced than when he began. Prepared as early as two years in advance, his farewell address acknowledged the pride all should have in these achievements, but also served to ground the American people in sobering reality—that how the United States uses this power and standing will ultimately determine its fate. Like Washington, his address was one of caution against dangers such as massive spending, an overpowered military industry, and Federal domination of scientific progress (or vice versa, the scientific-technological domination of public policy). In all things, he stressed the need to maintain balance as the country moves forward, for the preservation of liberty.

Notable Quote:  “Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.”

8. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address

Date:  January 20, 1961

Context:  A few days after Eisenhower’s farewell speech, he turned over his office to the youngest-ever elected president, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy now found himself faced with the monumental task of strengthening the United States while also quelling American anxieties about the Cold War and avoiding nuclear warfare. His speech thus focused on unity, togetherness, and collaboration both domestically and abroad.

Notable Quote:  “In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

9. Kennedy’s “We Choose to Go to the Moon” Speech

Date:  September 12, 1962

Context:  In the name of national security, the United States and USSR set their sights on spaceflight as a top priority during the Cold War. To the surprise (and fear) of people around the globe, the Soviet Union launched the first-ever artificial satellite in 1957, then sent the first human being into space in 1961, signaling to onlookers that its nation was a technological force to be reckoned with. Kennedy was determined to come up with a challenge in space technology that the United States actually stood a chance to win. In the early ’60s, he proposed that America focus on putting a man on the moon. In an uplifting speech at Rice University, Kennedy reminded his listeners of the country’s technological progress so far and of his administration’s determination to continue the pioneering spirit of early America into the new frontier of space.

Notable Quote:  “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Read about America’s successful moon landing in this blog post.

10. Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” Speech

Date:  May 22, 1964

Context:  Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as President in 1963, immediately following  Kennedy’s assassination . Johnson vowed to continue the former president’s work on poverty, civil rights, and other issues. Inspired in part by FDR’s New Deal, he devised a set of programs intended to completely eliminate poverty and racial injustice. In 1964, he formally proposed some specific goals in a speech to the University of Michigan, where he coined the lofty ideal of a “Great Society.”

Notable Quote:  “Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.”

11. Lyndon B. Johnson’s “We Shall Overcome” Speech

Date:  March 15, 1965

Context:  By the 1960s, blacks in areas of the Deep South found themselves disenfranchised by state voting laws, such as those requiring a poll tax, literacy tests, or knowledge of the U.S. constitution. Furthermore, these laws were sometimes applied subjectively, leading to the prevention of even educated blacks from voting or registering to vote. Inspired (and sometimes joined) by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., protests were planned throughout the region. Eight days after racial violence erupted around one of these protests in Selma, Alabama, President Johnson addressed Congress to declare that “every American citizen must have an equal right to vote” and that discriminatory policies were denying African-Americans that right.

Notable Quote:  “What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it’s not just Negroes, but really it’s all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome …

“This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all, all black and white, all North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They’re our enemies, not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too—poverty, disease, and ignorance: we shall overcome.”

12. Reagan’s D-Day Anniversary Address

Date:  June 6, 1984

Context:  During World War II, the Allied forces attacked German troops on the coast of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. A turning point for the war, the day came to be known as D-Day, and its anniversary is forever acknowledged. On its 40th anniversary, President Ronald Reagan honored the heroes of that day in a speech that also invoked a comparison of World War II’s Axis dictators to the Soviet Union during the ongoing Cold War. This reminder to the Allies that they once fought together against totalitarianism and must continue the fight now helped contribute to the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Notable Quote:  “We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action. We will pray forever that some day that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it. We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We’re bound by reality. The strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.”

13. Reagan’s Berlin Wall Speech

Date:  June 12, 1987

Context:  With the fall of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II, Western powers and the Soviet Union sought to establish systems of government in their respective occupied regions. West Germany developed into a Western capitalist country, with a democratic parliamentary government, while East Germany became a socialist workers’ state (though it was often referred to as communist in the English-speaking world). Many experiencing hunger, poverty, and repression in the Soviet-influenced East Germany attempted to move west, with the City of Berlin their main point of crossing. Ultimately, the Soviet Union advised East Germany to build a wall on the inner German border, restricting movement and emigration by threat of execution for attempted emigrants. Seen as a symbol of Communist tyranny by Western nations, the Berlin Wall persisted for nearly three decades. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan visited West Berlin and called upon Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to take down the wall as a symbol of moving forward.

Notable Quote:  “We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

14. George W. Bush’s Post-9/11 Speech

Date:  September 11, 2001

Context:  On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced  the single worst terrorist attack in human history , where four American planes were hijacked and flown into American buildings, killing nearly 3,000 people. Viewers around the world watched the news as five stories of the Pentagon fell and the World Trade Center buildings collapsed entirely. Later that evening, President George W. Bush addressed the nation with a brief but powerful message that chose to focus not on fear, but on America’s strength in unity.

Notable Quote:

“These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.”

15. Obama’s “More Perfect Union” Speech

Date:  March 18, 2008

Context:  While campaigning for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama came under fire for his relationship with pastor Jeremiah Wright, who had been heard to denounce the United States and accuse the government of racial crimes. To officially address the relationship and condemn Wright’s inflammatory remarks, Obama crafted a speech that discussed the history of racial inequality in America as well as the dissonance between that history and America’s ideals of human liberty. Importantly, however, he also highlighted the necessity for a unified American people to effectively combat those issues, rather than more racial division.

Notable Quote:  “[T]he remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country—a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America ….

“[These] comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems—two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all ….

“The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through—a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.”

Read about Barack Obama’s presidency in this blog post.

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10 Modern Presidential Speeches Every American Should Know

By: Allison McNearney

Updated: October 18, 2023 | Original: February 16, 2018

Presidential speeches reveal the United States’ challenges, hopes, dreams and temperature of the nation, as much as they do the wisdom and perspective of the leader speaking them. Even in the age of Twitter, the formal, spoken word from the White House carries great weight and can move, anger or inspire at home and around the world.

Here are the 10 most important modern presidential speeches selected by scholars at the Miller Center —a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in presidential scholarship—and professors from other universities, as well.

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address

When: 1933, during the Great Depression

What Roosevelt Said: “This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself… Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war.”

Why It Was Important: Roosevelt is embarking on something audacious, proposing that the national government has an obligation to provide an economic safety net for its citizens to protect them from the unpredictability of the market. In making a case for bold intervention in markets, he’s also making a case for a stronger executive at the top. But for all the disruptive talk in this speech, Roosevelt delivers reassurance. I think a hallmark of the speeches that we remember the most by presidents from both parties are ones that not only address the circumstances at hand, but also give people some hope.

— Margaret O’Mara, professor of history, University of Washington

2. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Fireside Chat 'On Banking'

When: March 1933

What Roosevelt Said: “My friends, I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking…confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith. You must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem, my friends. Your problem no less than it is mine. Together, we cannot fail.”

Why It Was Important: Beginning with the simple phrase, “My friends,” the stage was set for the personalization of the presidency that continued throughout FDR’s administration. Roosevelt received an outpouring of support from the public and used the power of media to connect with his constituents. Recognizing publicity as essential to policymaking, he crafted a very intricate public relations plan for all of his New Deal legislation. The media allowed him to present a very carefully crafted message that was unfiltered and unchallenged by the press. Many newspapers were critical of his New Deal programs, so turning to radio and motion pictures allowed him to present his version of a particular policy directly to the people. Today, we see parallels in the use of Twitter to bypass opponents and critics of the administration to appeal directly to the American people. And that all started with FDR and his first fireside chat.

— Kathryn Cramer Brownell, Assistant Professor of History, Purdue University

3. Dwight Eisenhower’s 'Atoms for Peace' Speech to the United Nations

What Eisenhower Said: “I feel impelled to speak today in a language that, in a sense, is new. One which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use: That new language is the language of atomic warfare…Against the dark background of the atomic bomb, the United States does not wish merely to present strength, but also the desire and the hope for peace. To the makers of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you, and therefore before the world, its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma. To devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.”

Why It Was Important: Eisenhower believed in the political power of nuclear weapons, but in this speech, he talks about their dangers. He speaks about the importance of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and proposes that the U.S. and Soviet Union cooperate to reduce their nuclear stockpiles. Keep in mind that there were just 1,300 nuclear weapons in the world in 1953 compared with more than seven times that number today. But Eisenhower is also a realist. He understands the importance of nuclear deterrence and he reminds his audience that his proposal comes from a position of American strength, not weakness.

— Todd Sechser, Professor of Politics, University of Virginia and Senior Fellow, Miller Center

4. Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address

What Eisenhower Said: “Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportion…In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic process.”

Why It Was Important: That speech gave a name to our modern era. Eisenhower was telling us that we now live in a time when government, the military and the corporate world all have joined together into a powerful alliance that shapes the basic democratic functioning of the country. Eisenhower understood that Americans wanted both security and liberty, and it’s a fundamental paradox of the American experiment. In order to have security, we need to have a large defense establishment. But he asks, who is going to be the guardian of our freedoms in a world where we have to have a permanent arms industry? What he was saying in the speech is that we have to learn how to live with it, and control it, rather than having it control us.

— Will Hitchcock, Randolph P. Compton Professor at the Miller Center and professor of history, University of Virginia

5. Lyndon B. Johnson’s 'Great Society' Speech at the University of Michigan

When: May 22, 1964

What Johnson Said: “For a century, we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century, we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half-century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization. Your imagination and your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For, in your time, we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. “

Why It Was Important: LBJ called on all Americans to move upward to a Great Society in which wealth is used for more than personal enrichment and is instead used to improve communities, protect the natural world, and allow all Americans, regardless of race or class, to fully develop their innate talents and abilities. The message of Johnson’s speech resonates today because we have lost not only that self-confidence and that idealism but also the vision to recognize that prosperity can be used for something greater than the self.

— Guian McKee, Associate Professor of Presidential Studies, the Miller Center

6. John F. Kennedy’s Address on the Space Effort

When: September 1962

What Kennedy Said: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the Industrial Revolution, the first waves of modern invention and the first wave of nuclear power. And this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space, we mean to be a part of it, we mean to lead it.”

Why It Was Important: We were in a new age of technology and space exploration. President Kennedy made Americans feel that there was nothing that we couldn’t do, no challenge we couldn’t conquer. It was before Vietnam, before Watergate, before the deaths of our heroes like Jack and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King —when we had a sense in this country that if we all joined together we could fulfill our loftiest goals.

— Barbara Perry, Director of Presidential Studies, the Miller Center

7. Ronald Reagan’s Speech Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of D-Day

When: June 6, 1984

What Reagan Said: “The rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades, and the American rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs they began to seize back the continent of Europe… (to veterans) You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and Democracy is worth dying for because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

Why It’s Important: That day in June of 1984, before  Band of Brothers  and  Saving Private Ryan  ever came to be, President Reagan paid tribute to the heroism of those we now call the Greatest Generation, the men and women who liberated Europe and ensured freedom for generations to come.  But for the first time, he also tied resistance to totalitarianism in World War II to opposition to the Soviet Union during the Cold War . President Reagan’s words at the end of that speech, again in the second person, to our Allies that “we were with you then, and we are with you now,” when he called upon the West to “renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it” kept the coalition in place that later defeated the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War. The “boys of Pointe du Hoc” saved the world, and, in many ways, they did so more than once.

— Mary Kate Cary, Senior Fellow, the Miller Center

8. Ronald Reagan’s Address on the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

When: January 1986

What Reagan Said: “The future doesn’t belong to the faint-hearted but to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them…The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.”

Why It Was Important: In our current era of political divisiveness, we tend to think of presidents as partisan leaders. But the president’s role as “comforter in chief” is one of the most important functions. The great presidents are distinguished by their ability to set aside partisanship in times of tragedy to speak words that comfort a nation and remind us that, despite our differences, we are all, in the end, Americans.

— Chris Lu, Senior Fellow, the Miller Center

9. George W. Bush’s 'Get On Board' Speech

When: After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks

What Bush Said: “When they struck they wanted to create an atmosphere of fear, and one of the great goals of this war is…to tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life the way we want it to be enjoyed.”

Why It Was Important: In short, Bush was saying don’t let the terrorists deter you from spending—the economy needs you. More specifically, Bush’s remarks demonstrated the importance that consumption had come to play in the economy by the twenty-first century. He was carrying out what had become an essential responsibility of the 21st-century president. Even as Bush modeled what it meant to be a strong commander in chief, he juggled another role that had become almost as important: “consumer in chief.”

— Brian Balogh, Dorothy Compton Professor of History, the Miller Center

10. Barack Obama’s 'A More Perfect Union' Speech

What Obama Said: “Contrary to the claim of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve to think as to believe we can get beyond our racial divisions on a single election cycle or with a single candidate, particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own. But I have asserted a firm conviction, a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people, that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice. We have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union…What we know, what we have seen, is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope, the audacity to hope, for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

Why It Was Important: Conventional wisdom wouldn’t recommend a speech on race. But Obama ran to the challenge, not away from it. Uniquely positioned to do so, he welcomed listeners to places many have never experienced—a predominantly black church, a cringe-worthy conversation with a beloved relative of a different race, the kitchen tables of white Americans who feel resentful and left behind—and he recounted Americans often divergent perspectives. He asked us to be honest about our past while connecting it to the structural barriers faced by African Americans and other people of color today…Direct, honest, but nuanced, Obama believed that most Americans were ready to hear the truth and make a choice, to move beyond racial stalemate, face our challenges, and act accordingly.

 — Melody Barnes, a Senior Fellow, the Miller Center

The American Presidency with Bill Clinton

Explore the history of the U.S. presidency across six themed episodes: race, extremism, the struggle for rights, presidential vision and global power. 

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The Best Presidential Speeches of All Time

Presidential speeches are often remembered for one great phrase, memorable line, or rhetorical flourish that makes its way into the history books. But they should be seen as more than collections of memorable words - in fact, as documents of their time and place. Great presidential speeches are made in the context of crises, challenges, and times of great peril. But they can also inspire, uplift, and encourage. The truly great speeches manage to do both at once.

What's less well-known about many of the great addresses by presidents that they're short. Maybe the most famous speech in American history, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, is just over two minutes long. Many others, rather than being long rambles of adjectives and superlatives, are fewer than one thousand words, and lasted just 10 minutes. They didn't need thousands and thousands of words to make their point, just a few well-chosen ones given by a dynamic speaker.

The Gettysburg Address

President Lincoln delivered his most famous speech just five months after the Battle of Gettysburg, at the dedication of the site's military cemetery. There is no existing final copy, and the five surviving manuscripts of the speech all have slightly different word choices. The speech was just 10 sentences long, and took two and a half minutes to deliver.

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

President Lincoln gave his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, as the Civil War was reaching its bloody conclusion. With reconstruction between the North and South looming, Lincoln paused to take stock of what had been lost, and what could be gained. It was just 700 words long, and took around five minutes to deliver.

Kennedy's Inaugural Address

President Kennedy's only inaugural address was one of the shortest on record, fewer than 1,400 words and taking only 13 minutes and 42 seconds. But it perfectly encapsulated the social change, economic prosperity, and political upheaval Kennedy was walking into.

Washington's Farewell Address

President Washington actually wrote a version of his farewell to the American people after his first term, but decided to run for a second given the precarious state of the country. It was first published in the American Daily Advertiser newspaper, then in papers and pamphlets around the country. Washington never actually gave the address as a speech.

Kennedy's "We Choose to Go to the Moon" Speech

While President Kennedy had declared the United States's intention to put a man on the Moon in May 1961, the idea didn't truly resonate with the American people until his speech in September of the next year. In front of a massive crowd at Rice University, Kennedy managed to make Americans enthusiastic about spending billions of dollars on a prospect with no guarantee of success.

FDR's Infamy Speech

President Roosevelt's speech to a Joint Session of Congress the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor served to emphasize the idea of America as the victim of a cowardly sneak attack, rather than as a player in a complicated geopolitical struggle. Lasting just seven minutes, the speech let it be known that isolationism was no longer an option - and less than an hour later, the US declared war on Japan.

Reagan's Brandenburg Gate Speech

President Reagan's speech at an event commemorating the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin was little noticed in the American press, and hotly criticized by Communist media outlets, who found it inflammatory. Even Reagan's staff were divided on the speech's tone and call to disarmament, but one key phrase in the middle of the speech stuck out, and became a rallying cry for Reagan's final year in office.

Eisenhower's Farewell Address

Upon leaving office in January 1961, President Eisenhower cautioned against the growing influence of the defense industry. He warned the American people that the vast ratcheting up of defense spending and arms production could one day become a threat to our own liberty. Eisenhower deemed this the "military-industrial complex," a phrase now in the common vernacular.

FDR’s First Inaugural Address

Having won a landslide victory over Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt took the opportunity to deliver a fairly short speech of around 20 minutes, meant to reassure the nation. The address became famous for its optimistic tone, in spite of the raging Great Depression.

Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech

Given a few months before the Republican nominating convention, historians believe Lincoln's speech at New York City's Cooper Union sealed his winning of the nomination. The speech, one of Lincoln's longest, laid out his views on what seemed to be the only important issues of the time - slavery and secession. He forcefully and clearly laid out his views, juxtaposing them with the Founding Fathers'.

Teddy Roosevelt's "Man with the Muck-Rake" Speech

Roosevelt had been the first president to actively interface with the press, holding conferences and elevating the position of Press Secretary to his cabinet. In his April 1906 speech , the progressive president outlined his support of the crusading journalists who were bringing to light the abuses and exploitation of America's rapidly industrializing society. In doing so, he introduced the term "muckraker" into the popular vernacular.

Jefferson's First Inaugural

Thomas Jefferson was sworn in under a cloud of controversy, as, when he and Aaron Burr tied in the Electoral College, the election of 1800 had to be decided in the House of Representatives. With Jefferson finally emerging victorious, and the nation teetering on the edge, he spoke of the need to find common ground between the two parties controlling American politics at the time. 

George W. Bush's Post 9/11 Speech

With the nation reeling in the wake of the September 11th attacks, President Bush addressed the country with a short but powerful message . Since the culprits behind the attacks were still unknown, Bush spoke to the resoluteness of the American spirit, and encouraged the people not to be overtaken by fear of what was ahead.

FDR's 1941 State of the Union

Roosevelt spoke to a nation girding for war in 1941, reminding the people of what was at stake in the Second World War. The speech became known as the " Four Freedoms Speech," as Roosevelt advocated for freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from fear, and freedom from want. The speech was criticized by anti-war contingents, but came to be seen as a kind of shorthand for why the United States was fighting.

Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural

Reagan strode into office declaring his intention to sweep away the growing bureaucracy and economic stagnation that had plagued previous administrations. And while Reagan's address never directly mentions the American hostages being held in Iran, the tough message of the speech was clear, and the hostages were released while Reagan was speaking.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

Johnson's "We Shall Overcome" Speech

On March 15, 1965, President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress on behalf of the Voting Rights Act and to denounce the violence attacks on marchers in Selma, Alabama. While many questioned Johnson's motives in giving the speech (he'd been on the other side of the civil rights debate until late into the 1950s), nobody could question his sincerity after hearing it.

"Truman Doctrine" Speech

On March 12, 1947, President Truman addressed a Joint Session of Congress on the recent crises in Greece and the Turkish Straits. Truman made it clear that the US would attempt to contain the spread of Communism in both countries, as one falling would lead to the other falling - the "Domino Theory" that became used as a justification for the Cold War. Truman espoused the dangers the world was facing, and the cost of inaction. Historians point to this speech as the beginning of the Cold War that would dominate US foreign policy for the next 40 years.

Obama's "A More Perfect Union" Speech

In the throes of the 2008 Democratic primary, Barack Obama had become embroiled in a controversy over his previous association with an inflammatory pastor named Jeremiah Wright. At a campaign event in March, Obama spoke of race relations in America in general, and of his association with Wright in particular, in a fiery speech that some pundits believe won him the Democratic nomination.

Famous quote: " I can no more disown [Wright] than I can disown the Black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of Black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

Nixon's "Silent Majority" Speech

President Nixon used this term in a November 1969 speech prevailing upon the American people to support the Vietnam War. He was referencing the great mass of blue collar and suburban conservatives who weren't joining anti-war protest marches, weren't participating in the counterculture, and preferred to not speak up. Nixon didn't invent the phrase, though, as several other prominent figures had used it, including Nixon's own vice president, Spiro Agnew.

Woodrow Wilson's Second Inaugural

While Wilson ran on the slogan, "He Kept Us Out of War," by the time of his second inauguration in March 1917, it was clear that US neutrality couldn't last. German attacks on merchant shipping had increased, and a number of American citizens had been killed on ships flying neutral flags. Wilson's speech prepared the nation to enter a war it was still divided about.

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Celebrate Presidents Day with these 10 historic speeches

Reflecting back on our nation's greatest leaders..

Kristen Hubby

Posted on Feb 20, 2017   Updated on May 24, 2021, 11:27 pm CDT

Presidents Day is time to reflect and show appreciation for our nation’s greatest leaders, those who have led the country and lifted the people up with their inspiring words and courageous actions.  Acast , the Swedish podcast platform, recently released a new series, Presidents’ Day Collection , highlighting the most influential presidential speeches. The collection, which was done in collaboration with the National Archives, dates back to JFK’s memorable inaugural address in 1961.

“We thought, let’s do something political, but what everyone can feel good about, which is reminding people how powerful the U.S. presidents and the presidential post is,” said Caitlin Thompson, Acast’s U.S. director of content. “That this can be a clarion call to be optimistic and get people to work together.”

Listed below are Acast’s 10 most influential speeches from former U.S. presidents in the past 50 years to rouse inspiration and positivity that is sometimes forgotten.

1) John F. Kennedy

Screengrab via Presidents’ Day Collection/Acast

Former President John F. Kennedy was sworn in as president Jan. 20, 1961, as the 35th president of the United States. His inaugural address was memorable for many reasons, including his use of the phrase “my fellow citizens,” which was last issued by George Washington and rejected by former presidents due to its informal nature.

Here’s the final thrust of the address .

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility–I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it–and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

2) Richard Nixon

President Richard Nixon delivered his first inauguration address Jan. 20, 1969. Nixon’s presidency was, of course, one of the most controversial, resulting in resignation. Despite the Nixon administration continuing the war in Vietnam in 1973, his inauguration address talked of peace and solidarity.

We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity. We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. We see tasks that need doing, waiting for hands to do them. To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit. And to find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.

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3) Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter was sworn in as the 39th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 1977. However, his inaugural address was not the pick for the podcast series. Instead, they chose his famous “Crisis of Confidence” address to the nation that was televised on July 15, 1979.

Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources — America’s people, America’s values, and America’s confidence. I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for an energy secure nation.

4) George H.W. Bush

President George H.W. Bush’s inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1989, carried on his campaign’s promise for a “kinder, gentler” nation and also emphasized the need to tackle the federal budget deficit.

Some see leadership as high drama and the sound of trumpets calling, and sometimes it is that. But I see history as a book with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of hopefulness and meaning. The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds. And so, today a chapter begins, a small and stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity — shared, and written, together.

5) George W. Bush

President George W. Bush gave one of the most memorable speeches at the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., on Sept. 17, 2001, six days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a failed hijacking that resulting in a deadly crash in Pennsylvania.

In his speech, Bush stated “Islam is peace,” that the millions of Muslims in the U.S. are an “incredibly valuable contribution to our country,” and that American’s should treat each other with respect. In a time of crisis, Bush gave the speech to comfort the wounded country and bring the people together.

Jenna Bush, his daughter, recently shared the text of the speech  after President Trump issued his controversial travel ban.

“This is not the America I know…” just a reminder this am to teach acceptance and love to our kids for all races, all religions.. pic.twitter.com/32XohAGMv7 — Jenna Bush Hager (@JennaBushHager) January 31, 2017

6) Lyndon B. Johnson

President Lydon B. Johnson, or LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States. His speech on the Voting Rights Act before Congress on March 15, 1965, was one week after Bloody Sunday, where peaceful protestors were beaten in the famous walk from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. His speech stated there “is only an American problem” when it comes to segregation and racism, delivering notes of unity, stating all Americans have the right to vote.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: “All men are created equal”—”government by consent of the governed”—”give me liberty or give me death.” Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives. Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man’s possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.

7) Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. His inaugural remarks speech on Aug. 9, 1974, was impactful in the way he addressed the nation as “a straight talk among friends.”

As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.

8) Ronald Reagan

The 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, made iconic remarks at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin on June 12, 1987.  Reagan addressed the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the Berlin Wall in 1987 saying, “Tear down this wall! “Tear down this wall!”

9) Bill Clinton

The 42nd president of the United States, Bill Clinton, became the first Democrat to serve as president in more than a decade when he took the oath of office. Clinton delivered his inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1993, focusing on “American renewal.” Maya Angelou recited a poem, becoming the first poet at an inauguration address since Robert Frost spoke during John F. Kennedy’s address in 1961.

Today we do more than celebrate America. We rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America, an idea born in revolution and renewed through two centuries of challenge; an idea tempered by the knowledge that, but for fate, we, the fortunate, and the unfortunate might have been each other; an idea ennobled by the faith that our Nation can summon from its myriad diversity the deepest measure of unity; an idea infused with the conviction that America’s long, heroic journey must go forever upward.

10) Barack Obama

President Barack Obama made history as the first black president of the United States, and his first inaugural address on Jan.ry 20, 2009, recognized the financial crisis the nation was facing.

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

“Whether you like any one of those presidents or not, you can’t deny the fact that their words were sort of filled with hope and optimism, and some leadership,” said Thompson. “I think, you know, we felt like it was a good time to remember that this Presidents Day.”

Kristen Hubby is a tech and lifestyle reporter. Her writing focuses on sex, pop culture, streaming entertainment, and social media, with an emphasis on major platforms like Snapchat, YouTube, and Spotify. Her work has also appeared in Austin Monthly and the Austin American-Statesman, where she covered local news and the dining scene in Austin, Texas.

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Presidential Speeches

January 20, 2021: inaugural address, about this speech.

January 20, 2021

Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on January 20, 2021. In his Inaugural Address, he stressed the need for the country to come together in unity. Speaking to those who voted for him and to those who did not, Biden made the strong case that together the country could move forward to contain the coronavirus pandemic and improve the economy. His address was in stark contrast to President Donald Trump's Inaugural Address four years earlier. 

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Chief Justice Roberts, Vice President Harris, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell, Vice President Pence, distinguished guests, and my fellow Americans.

This is America’s day.

This is democracy’s day.

A day of history and hope.

Of renewal and resolve.

Through a crucible for the ages America has been tested anew and America has risen to the challenge.

Today, we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate, but of a cause, the cause of democracy.

The will of the people has been heard and the will of the people has been heeded.

We have learned again that democracy is precious.

Democracy is fragile.

And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.

So now, on this hallowed ground where just days ago violence sought to shake this Capitol’s very foundation, we come together as one nation, under God, indivisible, to carry out the peaceful transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries.

We look ahead in our uniquely American way – restless, bold, optimistic – and set our sights on the nation we know we can be and we must be.

I thank my predecessors of both parties for their presence here.

I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

You know the resilience of our Constitution and the strength of our nation.

As does President Carter, who I spoke to last night but who cannot be with us today, but whom we salute for his lifetime of service.

I have just taken the sacred oath each of these patriots took — an oath first sworn by George Washington.

But the American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us.

On “We the People” who seek a more perfect Union.

This is a great nation and we are a good people.

Over the centuries through storm and strife, in peace and in war, we have come so far. But we still have far to go.

We will press forward with speed and urgency, for we have much to do in this winter of peril and possibility.

Much to repair.

Much to restore.

Much to heal.

Much to build.

And much to gain.

Few periods in our nation’s history have been more challenging or difficult than the one we’re in now.

A once-in-a-century virus silently stalks the country.

It’s taken as many lives in one year as America lost in all of World War II.

Millions of jobs have been lost.

Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed.

A cry for racial justice some 400 years in the making moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer.

A cry for survival comes from the planet itself. A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear.

And now, a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.

To overcome these challenges – to restore the soul and to secure the future of America – requires more than words.

It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy:

In another January in Washington, on New Year’s Day 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

When he put pen to paper, the President said, “If my name ever goes down into history it will be for this act and my whole soul is in it.”

My whole soul is in it.

Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this:

Bringing America together.

Uniting our people.

And uniting our nation.

I ask every American to join me in this cause.

Uniting to fight the common foes we face:

Anger, resentment, hatred.

Extremism, lawlessness, violence.

Disease, joblessness, hopelessness.

With unity we can do great things. Important things.

We can right wrongs.

We can put people to work in good jobs.

We can teach our children in safe schools.

We can overcome this deadly virus.

We can reward work, rebuild the middle class, and make health care secure for all.

We can deliver racial justice.

We can make America, once again, the leading force for good in the world.

I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy.

I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real.

But I also know they are not new.

Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we are all created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, and demonization have long torn us apart.

The battle is perennial.

Victory is never assured.

Through the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifice, and setbacks, our “better angels” have always prevailed.

In each of these moments, enough of us came together to carry all of us forward.

And, we can do so now.

History, faith, and reason show the way, the way of unity.

We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors.

We can treat each other with dignity and respect.

We can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature.

For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.

No progress, only exhausting outrage.

No nation, only a state of chaos.

This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.

And, we must meet this moment as the United States of America.

If we do that, I guarantee you, we will not fail.

We have never, ever, ever failed in America when we have acted together.

And so today, at this time and in this place, let us start afresh.

Let us listen to one another.

Hear one another. See one another.

Show respect to one another.

Politics need not be a raging fire destroying everything in its path.

Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war.

And, we must reject a culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.

My fellow Americans, we have to be different than this.

America has to be better than this.

And, I believe America is better than this.

Just look around.

Here we stand, in the shadow of a Capitol dome that was completed amid the Civil War, when the Union itself hung in the balance.

Yet we endured and we prevailed.

Here we stand looking out to the great Mall where Dr. King spoke of his dream.

Here we stand, where 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protestors tried to block brave women from marching for the right to vote.

Today, we mark the swearing-in of the first woman in American history elected to national office – Vice President Kamala Harris.

Don’t tell me things can’t change.

Here we stand across the Potomac from Arlington National Cemetery, where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion rest in eternal peace.

And here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, and to drive us from this sacred ground.

That did not happen.

It will never happen.

Not tomorrow.

To all those who supported our campaign I am humbled by the faith you have placed in us.

To all those who did not support us, let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.

And if you still disagree, so be it.

That’s democracy. That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength.

Yet hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion.

And I pledge this to you: I will be a President for all Americans.

I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.

Many centuries ago, Saint Augustine, a saint of my church, wrote that a people was a multitude defined by the common objects of their love.

What are the common objects we love that define us as Americans?

I think I know.

Opportunity.

And, yes, the truth.

Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson.

There is truth and there are lies.

Lies told for power and for profit.

And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders – leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation — to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.

I understand that many Americans view the future with some fear and trepidation.

I understand they worry about their jobs, about taking care of their families, about what comes next.

But the answer is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don’t look like you do, or worship the way you do, or don’t get their news from the same sources you do.

We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal.

We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts.

If we show a little tolerance and humility.

If we’re willing to stand in the other person’s shoes just for a moment. Because here is the thing about life: There is no accounting for what fate will deal you.

There are some days when we need a hand.

There are other days when we’re called on to lend one.

That is how we must be with one another.

And, if we are this way, our country will be stronger, more prosperous, more ready for the future.

My fellow Americans, in the work ahead of us, we will need each other.

We will need all our strength to persevere through this dark winter.

We are entering what may well be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus.

We must set aside the politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation.

I promise you this: as the Bible says weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.

We will get through this, together

The world is watching today.

So here is my message to those beyond our borders: America has been tested and we have come out stronger for it.

We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again.

Not to meet yesterday’s challenges, but today’s and tomorrow’s.

We will lead not merely by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

We will be a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress, and security.

We have been through so much in this nation.

And, in my first act as President, I would like to ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer to remember all those we lost this past year to the pandemic.

To those 400,000 fellow Americans – mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

We will honor them by becoming the people and nation we know we can and should be.

Let us say a silent prayer for those who lost their lives, for those they left behind, and for our country.

This is a time of testing.

We face an attack on democracy and on truth.

A raging virus.

Growing inequity.

The sting of systemic racism.

A climate in crisis.

America’s role in the world.

Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways.

But the fact is we face them all at once, presenting this nation with the gravest of responsibilities.

Now we must step up.

It is a time for boldness, for there is so much to do.

And, this is certain.

We will be judged, you and I, for how we resolve the cascading crises of our era.

Will we rise to the occasion?

Will we master this rare and difficult hour?

Will we meet our obligations and pass along a new and better world for our children?

I believe we must and I believe we will.

And when we do, we will write the next chapter in the American story.

It’s a story that might sound something like a song that means a lot to me.

It’s called “American Anthem” and there is one verse stands out for me:

“The work and prayers of centuries have brought us to this day What shall be our legacy? What will our children say?… Let me know in my heart When my days are through America America I gave my best to you.”

Let us add our own work and prayers to the unfolding story of our nation.

If we do this then when our days are through our children and our children’s children will say of us they gave their best.

They did their duty.

They healed a broken land. My fellow Americans, I close today where I began, with a sacred oath.

Before God and all of you I give you my word.

I will always level with you.

I will defend the Constitution.

I will defend our democracy.

I will defend America.

I will give my all in your service thinking not of power, but of possibilities.

Not of personal interest, but of the public good.

And together, we shall write an American story of hope, not fear.

Of unity, not division.

Of light, not darkness.

An American story of decency and dignity.

Of love and of healing.

Of greatness and of goodness.

May this be the story that guides us.

The story that inspires us.

The story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history.

We met the moment.

That democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch but thrived.

That our America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world.

That is what we owe our forebearers, one another, and generations to follow.

So, with purpose and resolve we turn to the tasks of our time.

Sustained by faith.

Driven by conviction.

And, devoted to one another and to this country we love with all our hearts.

May God bless America and may God protect our troops.

Thank you, America.

More Joe Biden speeches

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Opinion | Joe Biden delivers one of the most powerful speeches of his presidency

Biden became the first president to participate in a remembrance of what became known as the tulsa race massacre, which took place 100 years ago..

On May 31 and June 1, 1921, a white mob looted and burned the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The mob murdered hundreds of Black people and destroyed more than 1,200 homes.

On Tuesday — 100 years after that horrific massacre — Joe Biden became the first president to participate in a remembrance of what became known as the Tulsa Race Massacre.

“My fellow Americans, this was not a riot,” Biden said in a speech from Tulsa on Tuesday. “This was a massacre.”

Biden told the crowd, “The events we speak of today took place 100 years ago, and yet I’m the first president in 100 years ever to come to Tulsa. I say that not as a compliment about me, but to think about it. Hundred years, and the first president to be here during that entire time, and in this place, in this ground to acknowledge the truth of what took place here.”

He continued on, saying, “For much too long the history of what took place here was told in silence. Cloaked in darkness, but just because history is silent, it doesn’t mean that it did not take place. And while darkness can hide much, it erases nothing. It erases nothing. Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous they can’t be buried no matter how hard people try. And so it is here, only, only with truth, can come healing and justice and repair, only with truth, facing it, but that isn’t enough.”

It was a powerful speech at a time when the country is going through more racial reckoning. But this wasn’t just a speech about the nightmare 100 years ago, but the racial injustices that remain as strong as ever today.

Biden announced several plans meant to reduce the racial wealth gap. CNN’s Kate Sullivan and Maegan Vazquez wrote , “The President announced that he will use federal purchasing power to grow federal contracting with small, disadvantaged businesses — many of them minority owned — by 50%. The White House said this will translate to an additional $100 billion over five years.”

But in what might be the most pivotal announcement, Biden said Vice President Kamala Harris will lead the administration’s efforts on voting rights or, to put it more accurately, the fight against voter suppression laws.

“This sacred right is under assault with incredible intensity like I’ve never seen,” Biden said.

Harris told CNN in a statement, “President Joe Biden asked me to help lead our Administration’s effort to protect the fundamental right to vote for all Americans. In the days and weeks ahead, I will engage the American people, and I will work with voting rights organizations, community organizations, and the private sector to help strengthen and uplift efforts on voting rights nationwide. And we will also work with members of Congress to help advance these bills. … The work ahead of us is to make voting accessible to all American voters, and to make sure every vote is counted through a free, fair, and transparent process. This is the work of democracy.”

Jonathan Capehart of MSNBC and The Washington Post tweeted , “For y’all who don’t think the hair is on fire at the White House over the assault on voting rights, President Biden’s lengthy comments on the assault on voting rights should disabuse you of that…..”

Look for this fight between Democrats and Republicans over voting rights to be front and center for quite some time, and for Tuesday’s speech to be remembered just as long.

Remembering Tulsa

This week is the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre. Here is some of the notable coverage:

• In The Washington Post, DeNeen L. Brown with “In Tulsa, solemn remembrances of a century-old race massacre by survivors and descendants.”
• Also from DeNeen L. Brown in the Post: “His arrest sparked the Tulsa Race Massacre. Then Dick Rowland disappeared.”
• For Politico, Eugene Daniels with “Her great-grandmother survived the Tulsa Race Massacre. She wants Biden to embrace reparations.”
• The Tulsa World’s coverage can be found here .
• On Slate.com, Lawrence Ware with “Hollywood Is Still Failing to Tell One of Black America’s Most Horrifying Stories.”
• I’ve already linked to this twice in previous newsletters, but will again because it simply is that good: The New York Times’ “What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed.”
• Finally, The Washington Post’s Gillian Brockell with “Tulsa isn’t the only race massacre you were never taught in school. Here are others.”

More thoughts on Osaka and sports press conferences

Naomi Osaka. (zz/John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx)

There is still plenty of talk surrounding Naomi Osaka’s decision to withdraw from tennis’ French Open in a dispute over press conferences. Osaka, the No. 2-ranked women’s player in the world, said she suffers from anxiety and public speaking, and that answering questions in press conferences negatively impacts her mental health.

I have no doubt that Osaka suffers from anxiety and you cannot help but feel sympathy for her. The French Open essentially running her out of the tournament was cold, disrespectful and inexcusable.

But the larger question that has emerged is the value of press conferences, particularly in sports. Many dismiss post-game press conferences as being full of mindless and/or insulting questions.

The Guardian’s Jonathan Liew wrote , “And so the modern press conference is no longer a meaningful exchange but really a lowest‑common‑denominator transaction: a cynical and often predatory game in which the object is to mine as much content from the subject as possible. Gossip: good. Anger: good. Feuds: good. Tears: good. Personal tragedy: good. Meanwhile the young athlete, often still caught up in the emotions of victory or defeat, is expected to answer the most intimate questions in the least intimate setting, in front of an array of strangers and backed by a piece of sponsored cardboard.”

Liew is not entirely wrong here, but I also believe that it’s an exaggerated description of a typical press conference. Yes, there are occasionally insensitive questions. Yes, sometimes questions are repeated, or make little sense, or aren’t even questions as much as they are statements. But the overwhelming majority of sports journalists ask respectful and relevant questions, and the overwhelming majority of athletes attend press conferences and answer questions without incident or issues. I speak from experience, having been in literally thousands of sports press conferences across all sports.

Now, one area I have very little experience with as a sports journalist is tennis press conferences, and from what I’ve witnessed as a viewer, it does appear that the international tennis media is a different animal that doesn’t mind controversy.

But, I’m not buying this idea that the sports media is evil. Are there bad apples? Yes, like in any profession. Does that make all sports media bad? No, absolutely not.

We should not dismiss Osaka’s concerns, which are legitimate and critical. We also need to examine how female athletes and athletes of color are treated by the media. A group of thoughtful athletes, sports league executives and media types need to talk about how to make the experience less harmful for athletes, more effective for leagues and more productive for journalists.

But I also don’t believe what is happening with Osaka is evidence that the sports press conference is broken and needs to be overhauled.

In a thoughtful and measured column for Deadspin , Jane McManus wrote, “The press is often a convenient foil, but we can respect Osaka’s concern for her own peace of mind without heaping blame on the messenger. This just might be a story where we can assign a hero, without ascribing a villain.”

One more column on this in case you’re interested. It’s long, but thought-provoking. It’s The Undefeated’s Clinton Yates with “Tennis world needs to check itself after Naomi Osaka pulls out of French Open.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist joins USA Today

Connie Schultz has been hired to write a weekly column for USA Today. Schultz won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 in the commentary category for her columns in The Plain Dealer. She was a Pulitzer finalist in feature writing in 2003 for a story about a wrongly convicted man.

Schultz also has written books, including “The Daughters of Erietown,” which was released in paperback on Tuesday. Schultz is married to Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Schultz told USA Today’s Kristen DelGuzzi , “One of the best parts of being a columnist is the relationship you build with readers. As a columnist for USA TODAY and its Network, I have the chance to engage with thoughtful readers across the country. We have so much to talk about, always. I look forward to those conversations.”

Her first column will be published this week.

Life Out Loud

ABC News kicked off Pride Month Tuesday with the two-episode premiere of its first LGBTQ+ podcast called “Life Out Loud with LZ Granderson.” ABC News describes it as Granderson drawing on his own life experiences as a “gay, Black father to host inspiring, provocative and often hilarious conversations to help preserve the history of the LGBTQ+ community.”

Aside from his work at ABC News, Granderson is an ESPN Radio host and an op-ed columnist for The Los Angeles Times. In a statement, he said, “We lost so many stories to the AIDS epidemic, violence, harassment and silence due to fear. I’m passionate about creating a space to capture these underreported stories and untold oral histories, while also celebrating the joys of living ‘life out loud’ and where we’re going as a community.”

The podcast’s third episode posts this Thursday and features an interview with musician Rufus Wainwright ahead of his tribute to Judy Garland on what would have been her 99th birthday. Additional episodes of the 10-episode season will drop each Thursday. Future guests include Dr. Anthony Fauci talking about AIDS, actress and comedian Sherry Cola, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, former NFL star Keyshawn Johnson and Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black and husband Tom Daley, an Olympic medal winner.

NBC’s Pride coverage

(Courtesy: NBC News)

NBC News has special Pride coverage planned throughout June on all platforms, including the “Today” show, “NBC Nightly News” and “Meet the Press,” as well as MSNBC and NBC News NOW.

Some of the expected coverage includes the “Today” show looking at the first gay married couple in the U.S., “Saturday Night Live’s” Bowen Yang talking about coming out; on “NBC Nightly News,” Kate Snow reporting on families with transgender children who have been forced to relocate because of restrictive transgender laws; and on “Meet the Press,” Chuck Todd will explore the evolution of public and political support for the LGBTQ community and how it has changed over the years.

That’s just a small portion of NBC News’ coverage this month.

The year that was

On Tuesday, CNN debuted “2020 In Our Words” — a digital series with a behind-the-scenes look at how CNN covered the global pandemic and did so, for the most part, remotely. Journalists and staff at CNN reveal what it was like to report the story in real time in this nine-part series. It includes the origins of COVID-19 to the March shutdowns to the race to find a vaccine, to rolling out the vaccinations.

In an introduction to the series, CNN president Jeff Zucker said, “What made the coverage of the pandemic so unusual is that we were reporting on it while we were also living it. Not only did we bear witness to how millions of people were coping and surviving, we were forced to do the same. We, too, had families — parents, children, spouses — with all the same health concerns and fears that were the focus of our work. At the same time, history was being made in an election year like this country had never seen before, which came on the heels of a summer of racial reckoning in America that changed us forever. Quite simply, the news never stops.”

The series is available on CNN Digital properties to registered users. The first chapter will be accessible on CNN.com without registration on June 15, and the full series in September 2021.

Media tidbits

• The Assembly’s John Drescher with “Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Mega-Donor, and the Future of Journalism.”
• CNBC’s Alex Sherman with “Here are the next media mergers that make the most sense.”
• Former ESPN and Fox Sports executive Jamie Horowitz has been named vice president for development and digital for the WWE. He also will run WWE Studios, which is producing a Netflix docuseries about Vince McMahon. Deadline’s Jill Goldsmith has more details , as does Awful Announcing’s Ian Casselberry .
• Brian Custer is joining ESPN as an anchor for “SportsCenter” and a play-by-play announcer on college football and basketball. Custer goes to ESPN from Fox Sports, where he had called boxing and college football and basketball since 2014. He has worked in local markets, too, including Columbus, Ohio; Dallas and New York. Even though he is joining ESPN, Custer will continue to host Showtime Championship Boxing.
• How’s this for a full circle? Legendary NBA announcer Marv Albert, who got his start calling New York Knicks games, will call tonight’s Knicks-Hawks game from Madison Square Garden. Albert announced he is retiring after the playoffs. USA Today’s Mark Medina has a Q&A with Albert about tonight’s game and why he is retiring.
• The Washington Post has debuted “Voices Across America.” It’s a new platform from Post Opinions featuring writers from across the country.
• The New York Times’ Ali Watkins with “How a Police Chief in Wyoming’s Ranchlands Lost Her War on Drugs.”
• CNN’s Kent Sepkowitz with “Haunting lessons from 40 years of fighting AIDS.”
• USA Today TV critic Kelly Lawler with “The best and worst ‘Jeopardy!’ guest hosts, from Mayim Bialik to Buzzy Cohen.”

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected] .

More resources for journalists

• Bring a Poynter Expert to You
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• Writers Without Editors: How to Edit Your Own Writing (Seminar) — July 5-23
• Trust and Vaccines (Online event) — June 11 at 11 a.m. Eastern, USF Bishop Center for Ethical Leadership

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The first amendment, looking at 10 great speeches in american history.

August 28, 2017 | by NCC Staff

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech certainly ranks highly in the pantheon of public speaking. Here is a look at the Dream speech and other addresses that moved people – and history.

King’s “Dream” speech from August 28, 1963 topped the list, followed by John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address and Franklin Roosevelt’s first inaugural address in 1933. In fact, three of King’s speeches were included in the top 50 speeches listed by the experts.

The eclectic list included public speeches from Barbara Jordan, Richard Nixon, Malcom X and Ronald Reagan in the top 10 of the rankings.

Link : Read The List

Public speaking has played an important role in our country’s story. Here is a quick look at some of the landmark speeches that often pop up in the discussion about public rhetoric.

1. Patrick Henry. “ Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death .” In March 1775, Henry spoke to a Virginia convention considering a breakaway from British rule. “The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms,” said Henry, who spoke without notes. “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

2. George Washington’s first inaugural address . In 1789, the First President addressed the First Congress after his inauguration, setting the precedent for all inaugural speeches to follow. Washington enforced the need for the Constitution, concluding that “Parent of the Human Race  … has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness.”

3. Frederick Douglass. “ The Hypocrisy Of American Slavery .” In 1852, Douglass was invited to speak at a public Fourth of July celebration in Rochester, N.Y. Instead of talking about the celebration, Douglass addressed the issue that was dividing the nation. “I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery,” he said.

4. Abraham Lincoln. “ The Gettysburg Address .” The best known of Lincoln’s speeches was one of his shortest. Lincoln was asked to make a few remarks in November 1863 after featured speaker Edward Everett spoke for about two hours. “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” Lincoln said in his opening paragraph. He spoke for two minutes.

5. William Jennings Bryan. “ Cross of Gold Speech .” A lesser-known contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1896, Bryan created a sensation with his speech that condemned the gold standard and held the promise of debt relief for farmers. “We shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold,” Bryan said with his arms spread in a crucifix-like position.

6. FDR’s first inaugural address . In 1933, the new President faced a nation in the grips of a deep economic recession. “First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance,” Roosevelt said as he opened his powerful speech. The inaugural set the agenda for FDR’s 12 years in office.

7. Richard Nixon’s Checkers speech . Facing controversy as a vice presidential candidate, Nixon showed how television could be used as a powerful communications tool. In a stroke of political genius, Nixon spoke to the nation about his family finances, and then said the only gift he wouldn’t return was Checkers, the family dog.

8. JFK’s first inaugural address . The well-written 1961 speech is considered one of the best inaugural speeches ever. Rhetoric expert Dr. Max Atkinson told the BBC in 2011 what made the Kennedy speech special. “Tt was the first inaugural address by a U.S. president to follow the first rule of speech-preparation: analyze your audience - or, to be more precise at a time when mass access to television was in its infancy, analyze your audiences.”

9. Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech . King’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963, in front of 250,000 people, is also one of the most-analyzed speeches in modern history. But King hadn’t included the sequence about the “Dream” in his prepared remarks. Singer Mahalia Jackson yelled for King to speak about “the Dream,” and King improvised based on remarks he had made in earlier speeches.

10. Ronald Reagan in Berlin . President Reagan appeared at the 750 th birthday celebration for Berlin in 1987, speaking about 100 yards away from the Berlin Wall. Reagan first cited President Kennedy’s famous 1963 speech in Berlin, and then asked, “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” A Reagan speech writer later said the State Department didn’t want Reagan to use the famous line, but Reagan decided to do it anyway.

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Best Diplomats

14 best presidential speeches in history.

• Post author: Oleksandra Mamchii
• Post published: October 23, 2023
• Post category: Blog / History
• Post comments: 0 Comments

Words have value. Therefore, one of the main indicators of a strong leader is their capacity to persuade others of their goals and ideas, inspire them, and direct them toward a shared objective.

Here are some illustrious presidential quotes from the past, ranging from Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” to Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” and Emmanuel Macron’s 2018 speech at the US Congress.

Presidents throughout history have influenced the populace and the country through their words. There have only been a few occasions when the words said by the presidents over the previous 200 years have been exploited to their full potential.

Also Read: List of Presidents of the United States: Washington to Biden

1) Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 “Gettysburg Address”

Following the Battle of Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a two-minute address at a cemetery dedication for the Union War on November 19, 1983. Lincoln delivered a brief speech on the “New Birth of Freedom” and wasn’t even the event’s keynote speaker, but it has since grown to be considered one of the most powerful and unforgettable in American history.

“Four hundred and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” Lincoln said, in part.

2) Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘Day Of Infamy’ Speech In 1941

The day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and precipitated the United States’ entry into World War II, on December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a well-known speech to a joint session of Congress. The opening sentence is frequently the one that is most frequently quoted, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

3) John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inauguration Address

In 1961, during his first 14-minute address as commander in chief, President John F. Kennedy used the memorable phrase “My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country” to motivate both children and adults to engage in volunteer work and civic engagement. The group Kennedy addressed was what he described as “a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage.”

4) John F. Kennedy’s Space Effort Address

Kennedy said, “We chose to undertake the other things in this decade, not because they are simple, but because they are difficult…  Prior generations ensured that our nation saw the first waves of the Industrial Revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first waves of nuclear power. And this generation does not plan to flounder in the wake of the new space age; rather, we aspire to participate in it and lead it.”

We were in a new era of technology and space exploration, which is why it was significant. Americans were given the impression by President Kennedy that there was nothing they couldn’t accomplish or a difficulty they couldn’t overcome. Before Vietnam, Watergate, the passing of our heroes like Jack and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and before any of these events, there was a time when they all believed that, if they worked together, they could achieve their loftiest aspirations.

5) The “We Shall Overcome” Speech By Lyndon B. Johnson In 1965

Civil rights activist John Lewis and more than 500 marchers were assaulted on March 7, 1965, a day that came to be known as “Bloody Sunday,” as they prepared to march from Selma to Montgomery to register African Americans to vote. Eight days later, President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke before a joint session of Congress to call for the adoption of legislation that would ensure everyone’s access to the polls.

Johnson said that “every American citizen must have an equal right to vote” and that “what happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement that reaches into every section and state of America,” while borrowing the slogan “We Shall Overcome” from black leaders battling for equal rights. On August 6, 1965, Johnson subsequently signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.

6) The 1987 “Tear Down This Wall” Address By Ronald Reagan

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan visited Berlin, Germany, to mark the city’s 750th anniversary. At the time, the Berlin Wall had been severing the city in half for almost 26 years, acting as both a physical barrier and a powerful symbol of the divide between the communist Soviet bloc and the democratic capitalist bloc. The most well-known words of Reagan’s presidency are perhaps those he spoke when standing barely 100 yards from the barrier during a speech: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

7) George W. Bush’s Speech Following The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks

On the morning of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush was in Florida visiting an elementary school. He ultimately took Air Force One back to Washington, D.C., determined to get back to the White House, and delivered a detailed prime-time speech from the Oval Office to a terrified nation.

“Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, and our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts,” Bush stated. “Evil, disgusting acts of terror abruptly terminated thousands of lives. We were shocked by the images of aircraft crashing into buildings, fires raging, and enormous structures falling. We also felt deep grief and a calm, uncompromising rage. The purpose of these mass murders was to send our country into an uproar and cause it to flee. However, they fell short because our nation is robust,” he added.

8) Dwight Eisenhower’s ‘Atoms For Peace’ Address To The United Nations

Eisenhower said, “I feel compelled to talk in a vocabulary that is, in a way, fresh today. One that I would have hoped to never use, having spent so much of my life in the military. The language of nuclear conflict is that new language. The United States wants to project more than just might against the ominous backdrop of the atomic bomb; it also wants to convey a desire and hope for peace. The United States commits before you, and hence before the rest of the world, that it will do everything in its power to assist in resolving the terrifying nuclear problem.”

Despite his belief in the political potency of nuclear weapons, Eisenhower discusses their perils in this address. He stresses the need to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and suggests that the US and the USSR work together to shrink their nuclear arsenals. Remember that in 1953, there were only 1,300 nuclear weapons worldwide, but there are now more than seven times as many.

9) Ronald Reagan’s Remarks at D-Day’s 40th Anniversary Ceremony

Reagan said, “The rangers glanced up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs firing down at them and hurling grenades, and the American rangers started to ascend. They launched rope ladders over the cliff’s face and started to haul themselves up. A replacement ranger would step in after one fell. A ranger would grab another rope after cutting the first one, then start climbing once more. They ascended, fired back, and maintained their balance. The rangers eventually pushed themselves over the top one by one, and by taking control of the hard soil at the top of these cliffs, they started to retake control of Europe. You all understood that certain things are worth dying for (for veterans). A person should die for their nation, and democracy is the most morally upright form of governance that has ever been created.”

Reiterating his call for the West to “renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it” at the conclusion of that speech, President Reagan told our Allies that “we were with you then, and we are with you now,” which helped to forge the alliance that would ultimately defeat the Soviet Union and bring an end to the Cold War. In many respects, the “boys of Pointe du Hoc” rescued the world more than once.

10) Ronald Reagan’s Speech On The Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster

Reagan said, “The bold, not the weak-hearted, will inherit the future. We were being pulled into the future by the Challenger crew, and we’ll keep doing that. By the way they lived their lives, the Challenger crew of the space shuttle honored us. As they said farewell and got ready for their journey this morning, slipping the shackles of Earth to meet the face of God, we will never forget them or the last time we saw them.”

We frequently consider presidents to be partisan leaders in the current climate of political polarization. The president’s position as “comforter in chief” is nonetheless one of his or her most significant duties. The best presidents are characterized by their capacity to put politics aside in times of sorrow in order to soothe a nation and remind us that, in the end, we are all Americans, whatever our differences.

11) Barack Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’ Speech

Obama said, “I have never been so naive to imagine that we can move past our racial differences on a single election cycle or with a single candidate, particularly a candidacy as flawed as mine, contrary to the contention of some of my detractors, black and white. However, I have made it clear that I really believe that through working together, we can heal some of our old racial scars and that there is really no other option—a belief steeped in my trust in God and my confidence in the American people. If we want to keep moving toward a more ideal marriage, we have no choice but to. America can change, as we have seen and know. That is the real brilliance of our country. We have the boldness to aspire for what we can and must do tomorrow because of what we have already accomplished.”

Why It Was Important: According to conventional thinking, speaking about race is not advised. But Obama embraced the challenge rather than avoiding it. Being uniquely positioned to do so, he invited listeners to places many have never been—a predominantly black church, an awkward conversation with a beloved relative of a different race, the kitchen tables of white Americans who feel resentful and left behind—and he recounted Americans’ frequently differing perspectives.

In order to understand the current structural injustices experienced by African Americans and other people of color, he encouraged us to be open and honest about our past. Obama thought that most Americans were prepared to hear the truth and make a decision, to get over the racial impasse, face our difficulties, and respond appropriately. He was direct, honest, and nuanced in his approach.

12) The Farewell Address Of George Washington

This address was actually a letter that was printed and reproduced in national newspapers. Many of the points made by Washington were noteworthy. Even though many people at the time wanted the Big Man to hold the position for the rest of his life, he first declared that he would not run for a third term. It was a magnificent act of humility and wisdom that put an end to any remaining notions of American monarchy and established a genuinely republican atmosphere for the country.

Washington also forewarned against the emergence of factions, or what we euphemistically refer to as political parties today, as well as engaging in a number of other unsavory activities that his successors nevertheless engaged in. However, the speech demonstrated why George Washington is still regarded as our greatest president.

13) Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

Lincoln was a skilled raconteur and public speaker. He could tell a joke or tale quickly, and he was also a fantastic speaker. Lincoln frequently kept his remarks brief and to the point, which is uncommon and appreciated among politicians. In that sense, his second inaugural address, which he gave only a few weeks before being assassinated, was typical, but it also showed the strength of his leadership in the way he tried to chart a route for a post-Civil War America.

By the time Lincoln delivered this address, the outcome of the war was all but certain, and he was already considering the difficult, protracted road that lay ahead for the country as a whole to recover from its wounds.

“Let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan, to do all that may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations,” the Apostle Paul said. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,

“Let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all that may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations,” the Declaration of Independence reads. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,”

14) French President Emmanuel Macron’s 2018 Speech at US Congress

On April 25, 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke in front of the US Congress. Macron emphasized the strong historical bonds between France and the US that are founded on a commitment to equality, tolerance, and freedom. 

Regarding current global issues, including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and climate change, Macron voiced worry. He argued in favor of a robust global strategy to deal with these problems and emphasized the significance of upholding democracy and battling false news. 

He urged for the transition to a low-carbon economy and emphasized the need to preserve the environment for future generations. In particular, in the Sahel area, Macron lauded the cooperation between French and American forces in fending off shared dangers.

Macron continued by reiterating the strength of the bond between France and the United States and his belief in their capacity to work together to overcome obstacles.

Also Read: Top 5 Reasons Why USA is Still in Syria

In conclusion, the greatest presidential addresses in history have transcended the constraints of their eras to stand as timeless examples of the hopes, resiliency, and values of the country. These speeches have had a profound impact on the American spirit, from the somber reflections of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War to the visionary appeals for exploration and unity made by John F. Kennedy, and from the passionate resolve of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the face of adversity to the unwavering dedication of Lyndon B. Johnson to civil rights.

These speeches also serve as examples of the value of leadership during times of crisis and transformation. They serve as a reminder that the proper words, when said with passion and empathy, have the power to mend broken hearts, spark hope, and unite a nation to face its toughest obstacles.

As we think back on these inspiring speeches, we are reminded that a country’s path is characterized not only by its landmarks but also by the knowledge and inspiration that its leaders have shared. We discover the tenacity, bravery, and lasting spirit that characterize the American experience in these verbally preserved events. These speeches act as lighthouses, pointing the path toward a more equitable and prosperous future while asking us to embrace the principles that have created the country and guided us through the difficulties of history.   

What Famous Speeches Altered the Course of History?

In addition to many others, notable speeches include Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (1933), Winston Churchill’s “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” (1940), Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” (1963), Harvey Milk’s “Hope Speech” (1978), Margaret Thatcher’s “The Lady’s Not for Turning” (1980), and Nelson Mandela’s upon his release from prison in 1990.

Which Eminent Speeches Still Hold True Today?

We are still motivated by those remarks today. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” address both continue to have an impact on people today. Less well-known talks like Nora Ephron’s graduation speech and Hillary Clinton’s “Human Rights Are Women’s Rights” are seen as motivational.

Which Speech In History Has Garnered The Most Notoriety?

One of the greatest speeches in human history is the “I Have a Dream” address given by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., on August 28, 1963.

Oleksandra Mamchii

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Five of the Greatest Presidential Speeches of All Time

February 19, 2018 Craig Czarnecki

Monday February 20th is President’s day here in the United States, so we here at Rule the Room thought we’d take a look back at some of the most iconic Presidential speeches of all time.

These iconic speeches were given during times of war and peace, in good times, but also amongst the struggles the United States has gone through.

Before we go any further, I want to say that selecting the best Presidential speeches is subjective, and while this is not a definitive “Top Five List”, we thought this would be a great starting point for discussion.

As you read or watch the speeches below, ask yourself…

What made these speeches great from a “Rule the Room” perspective?

Think about how they did with some the following…

• Meeting the needs of the audience
• Convincing with their voice
• Appearing confident and credible
• Keeping their audience captivated
• Closing to applause

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

We begin with quite possibly the best-known speech in American history – President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.

It was delivered by Lincoln in November of 1863 during the American Civil War.

Lincoln’s address, while just over two minutes long, is thought to be one of the greatest and most influential statements of national purpose.

In the address he echoed the founding principles of the Declaration of Independence, with a focus on human equality.

You can read Lincoln’s address in it’s entirety here.

John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration Address

John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the youngest president in U.S. history on January 20, 1961.

With his memorable inauguration address, he ushered the nation into a new era – and challenged all Americans to think first of their country.

Kennedy was elected at the height of the Cold War, and his main focus during his 14-and-a-half-minute speech was a delicate balance of maintaining peaceful international relations, while at the same time representing the United States as a force to be reckoned with.

Kennedy’s is considered by many to be among the best presidential inaugural speeches in American history.

Listen below and see if you agree.

Ronald Reagan’s Speech at the Berlin Wall

It was quite possibly President Reagan’s most memorable line spoken during his presidency.

In June of 1987, President Reagan gave his now famous address at the Berlin wall.

The wall was built in 1961 to keep Germans from escaping Communist-dominated East Berlin into Democratic West Berlin…

and stood as a symbol of the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Russia.

In his speech President Reagan challenged Soviet leaders to bring down the concrete and barbed-wire barrier.

At the time, the speech received very little media coverage, and many Soviet officials calls the speech “absurd.”

But those in West Germany, including Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, said Reagan and his speech were, “A stroke of luck for the world, especially for Europe.”

Frank Delano Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor Address

On December 7, 1941, the United States suffered a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that killed thousands of troops and destroyed 19 American ships and nearly 200 aircraft.

The next day, President Roosevelt delivered his speech to Congress, uniting them with a desire to enter World War II.

Within an hour of the speech, Congress passed a formal declaration of war against Japan, and officially brought the U.S. into World War II.

His speech ran a little over seven-minutes long, and despite efforts from the Secretary of State to deliver a fuller speech in an effort to find a peaceful solution…

F.D.R. kept his speech short and to the point, in the belief that it would have a more dramatic effect.

The speech was broadcast on the radio, and attracted the largest audience in U.S. radio history, with more than 81% of Americans tuning in.

The response across America overwhelmingly positive.

Take yourself back to December 8th, 1941, and listen to FDR’s speech here.

Lyndon Johnson’s “We Shall Overcome” Speech

President Johnson’s famous civil rights speech came one week after civil rights marchers were beaten by Alabama police on the road from Selma to Montgomery.

Johnson starts his speech with a very powerful line in the speech that proposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965…

“I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of Democracy.”

In the speech, Johnson asked all Americans to unite in the cause of equal rights for all.

He asked that the country not think in terms of black and white, north and south, but think of everyone as Americans.

During the speech, which moved Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to tears, Johnson coined a phrase that has gone on to be used civil rights leaders for decades.

Five months after his speech, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, allowing African Americans the right to vote.

Listen to his powerful message below.

Let us know what you think

So there you have it, our list of 5 of the greatest Presidential Speeches of all time.

What do you think of our list?

Who would be on your list of greatest Presidential speeches?

We’d love to hear what you think, so feel free to leave us your comments right here on our Facebook page.

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At Rule the Room we like to say great public speakers aren’t born, they’re made. Just like the Presidents we talked about above, it takes a lot of work and dedication if you want to be able to command a room and get your message across.

With Rule the Room Public Speaking, you can discover the secrets to giving a master presentation …techniques most presenters have never even heard of…skills that will get even the toughest audiences to thank you.

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About Craig Czarnecki

Craig joined the Rule the Room team in January of 2015, and serves as Rule the Rooms Operations Manager. He's known as a swiss army knife around here, tackling many duties including videographer and editor, content writer and social media and customer relations manager. Craig knows Rule the Room's techniques inside and out, and other than Jason, probably knows this stuff better than anyone else.

100 of the greatest speeches of the 20th century

100 greatest speeches of the 20th century.

The 20th century was one of the most varied, hopeful, and tumultuous in world history. From the Gilded Age to the beginning of the Internet Age—with plenty of stops along the way—it was a century punctuated by conflicts including two World Wars, the Cold War, the War in Vietnam, and the development of nuclear warfare. At the same time, the 20th century was characterized by a push for equality: Women in the United States received the right to vote after decades of activism, while the civil rights movement here ended the era of Jim Crow, inspired marginalized groups to take action, and introduced this country to great leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Hundreds of people have used their voices along the way to heal, inspire, and enact change with speeches that helped to define these poignant moments in world history. Stacker has curated a list of 100 of the greatest speeches from the 20th century, drawing from research into great American speeches as determined by 137 scholars of American public address , as well as other historical sources. What follows is a gallery of speeches from around the U.S. and the world dealing with the most pressing issues of the day. Not all images show the speech event itself, but do feature the people who gave them.

Read on to discover which American author accepted his Nobel prize under protest and whether an American president accidentally called himself a jelly donut in German.

You may also like:  50 essential civil rights speeches

#100. Maya Angelou's "On the Pulse of Morning"

Delivered Jan. 20, 1993, in Washington D.C.

Maya Angelou, a longtime supporter of the Clinton family , became the second poet (after Robert Frost in 1961), and the first African American poet, to read at a presidential inauguration. She delivered "On the Pulse of Morning" directly after President Bill Clinton gave his first address, a poem that spanned the entire history of America and ended with a hopeful "Good morning." She won the Best Spoken Word Grammy for her performance, and a new audience was introduced to her previous work with the recognition she'd gained from the performance.

#99. Robert M. La Follette's "Free Speech in Wartime"

Delivered Oct. 6, 1917, in Washington D.C.

Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette was one of just six Senators to oppose U.S. entry into World War I and, after war was declared, an antiwar speech he gave was misleadingly portrayed in the media. As Senators threatened to expel him from the legislative body, he launched a lengthy filibuster that concluded with his rousing defense of "Free Speech in Wartime." He decisively stated that free speech during times of war was not only necessary, but that "the first step toward the prevention of war and the establishment of peace, permanent peace, is to give the people who must bear the brunt of war's awful burden more to say about it." Not everyone in the Senate was convinced, and La Follette was under investigation for treason until the end of the war.

#98. Yasser Arafat's "Gun and Olive Branch"

Delivered Nov. 13, 1974, at the UN General Assembly, New York City, N.Y.

A divisive historical figure at the center of one of the most controversial conflicts, Yasser Arafat served as the Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization for nearly half a century. In 1974, he became the first non-voting member to speak in front of a plenary session of the United Nations. He declared, " Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun . Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand." His "olive branch" appeal to peace in the long-running conflict affected the audience, slightly boosted public support for the Palestinians, and PLO  was granted observer status in the international body .

#97. Audre Lorde's "Uses of Anger" keynote address

Delivered June 1981, in Storrs, Conn.

Well-known as a poet, writer, feminist, and civil rights activist, Audre Lorde wasn't afraid to critique the second-wave feminism movement for its disregard for the different ways women of color, particularly black women, suffered under the patriarchy. "Uses of Anger" was her keynote speech at the National Women's Studies Association Conference, but in it, Lorde doesn't only express rage at men and the white feminists who silence those marginalized voices. She also declares , "And I am not free as long as one person of color remains chained. Nor is anyone of you." Here and throughout she echoes the language of more inclusive intersectional feminism but also portends the modern solidarity movements between minority groups we see today.

#96. Charles de Gaulle's "Appeal of June 18"

Broadcast June 18, 19, and 22, 1940, via BBC radio

By 1940, things weren't looking great for Allied powers fighting in Europe, and in June 1940, France, one of the last remaining military powers on the continent, fell to the Nazi army. Escaping the country before a complete Nazi takeover, General Charles de Gaulle declared himself the leader of Free France (based in London), and broadcast several messages calling for resistance in his home country. He knew that "the flame of French resistance must not and shall not die," and ultimately he was proved correct four years later when France was liberated from the Nazi party. He would later become President of the French Republic.

#95. Margaret Sanger's "The Children's Era"

Delivered March 30, 1925, in New York City, N.Y.

The founder of what today is Planned Parenthood, and one of America's most famous birth control advocates, has both the reason and experience to be concerned with the plight of the country's children. In this speech at the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference, Margaret Sanger uses the powerful imagery of turning the world into "a beautiful garden of children." This garden, she suggests, must be cultivated from a fetus' conception and lays out several criteria she thinks parents should be forced to meet before having children—echoing several eugenicist talking points popular before World War II.

#94. George C. Marshall's "Marshall Plan"

Delivered June 5, 1947, at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Following World War II, the European continent was in shambles, and after failing to negotiate German reconstruction with the Soviet Union, the United States decided it couldn't wait for the USSR to get involved before stepping in. Secretary of State George Marshall doesn't necessarily outline the specifics of the plan that today bears his name, instead calling on European leaders to accept U.S. help to rebuild (and of course, stop the spread of Communism). American journalists were kept as far away from the speech as possible because the Truman administration feared Americans wouldn't like the plan. But it was delivered and later accepted by Europe.

#93. Corazon Aquino's "Speech Before the Joint Session of the United States Congress"

Delivered: Sept. 18, 1986, in Washington D.C.

Corazon Aquino transformed from a self-described "plain housewife" to the presidency of the Philippines after the assassination of her husband Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. He was outspoken about the dictatorial rule of President Ferdinand Marcos, and Corazon took up the mantle, becoming the face of the People Power Revolution that ultimately ousted Marcos and elevated Aquino to the presidency. In this speech, the newly installed president eloquently recalls her journey thus far and reaffirms her commitment to bringing democracy and prosperity to the Filipino people.

#92. Jimmy Carter's "Energy and National Goals: Address to the Nation"

Delivered: July 15, 1979, in Washington D.C.

Energy policy is one of the signature domestic achievements of the Carter administration , reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil and improving nuclear power in the U.S. However, President Carter's address on energy policy ended up being about more than those policies. Energy is the jumping-off point for those who have lost faith in government—who feel hopeless and fragmented. He tells these frightened people to "have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this nation," and that his energy policy is a start in the right direction for healing the nation.

#91. Eva Perón's "Renunciation of the Vice Presidency of Argentina"

Delivered Aug. 31, 1951, on Argentine radio

Immortalized by the people of Argentina, a Broadway musical, and a movie starring Madonna, Eva "Evita" Perón climbed from a childhood of poverty to First Lady when her husband Juan Perón became president in 1946 with the help of her campaigning. She was active as First Lady, helping women earn the right to vote, furthering her husband's Perónist movement, and meeting with the poor. She became something of a celebrity in the country, and in 1951 she announced her candidacy for the vice presidency alongside her husband, to the delight of the poor and working-class citizens she dedicated her time to. Their joy was short-lived; cancer left Perón unable to run for office, as she announces in this speech .

#90. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's "Statement at the Smith Act Trial"

Delivered April 24, 1952, in New York City, N.Y.

The Smith Act Trial swept up huge numbers of Communist Party members and put them on trial for allegedly trying to overthrow the U.S. government. American Communist Party leader and co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was one of those. She represented herself, made an impassioned statement to the court about her communist beliefs, and argued that she was not, as a communist, advocating for the fall of the government. Despite her remarks, she was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison.

#89. Ronald Reagan's "Speech on the Challenger Disaster"

Delivered: Jan. 28, 1986, via TV broadcast

The explosion of the Challenger Shuttle just seconds after took  off into the sky left seven people dead, including a civilian school teacher, on the same day that President Reagan was to give the State of the Union. Instead, he called in a young speechwriter, Peggy Noonan , to write a new speech that would help the nation process the tragedy they had seen broadcast on live TV. Reagan's speech is lauded even today for its careful balance between honoring the dead while reminding listeners of the importance of exploring the vast and unknown reaches of space, a quest for exploration for which the Challenger astronauts died.

#88. Elizabeth Glaser's "Address at the 1992 Democratic National Convention"

Delivered July 14, 1992, in New York City

Elizabeth Glaser contracted HIV early in the AIDS epidemic after receiving a contaminated transfusion while giving birth; she passed it on to both her children either through breastmilk or in utero. After her daughter passed away at age seven from AIDS, Glasner and two friends started the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and this activism led to her invitation to speak at the DNC in 1992. There, she described the issue as "not politics" but a "crisis of caring" that led the Republican administration to fail to tackle the AIDS crisis, and she called out Democrats as well to do better. She passed away from complications of the disease two years later.

#87. Theodore Roosevelt's "The Man with the Muckrake"

Delivered April 14, 1906, in Washington D.C.

Investigative journalism was booming in the first decade of the 20th century, as Progressive Era muckraking writers continued to publicize injustices to the country. These journalists had one powerful enemy: President Theodore Roosevelt, as he disliked writers who focused on bad things at the exclusion of all the good that was happening. His speech didn't call for these journalists to stop their practices of uncovering corrupt businessmen but reminded writers that their work affects public outlook and opinion, so only focusing on the worst moments could have a negative impact on the fabric of the nation.

#86. Richard Nixon's "The Great Silent Majority"

Delivered Nov. 3, 1969, in Washington D.C.

Richard Nixon was sworn into office in January 1969 after a wave of anti-Vietnam protests across the country left opposition to the war at a peak. Eleven months after he took office, Nixon gave an Oval Office speech that made clear he believed those protesting the war didn't demonstrate what most Americans actually thought about Vietnam—their opinions were just louder. He called on "the great silent majority of Americans" watching to support him in his decision. It was a gamble, but it paid off as Nixon's approval ratings shot up overnight and popularized the use of the term "silent majority," which is still used in politics today .

#85. John F. Kennedy's "Ich Bin Ein Berliner"

Delivered June 26, 1963, in West Berlin, Germany

Huge crowds thronged around the stage where President John F. Kennedy threw away the speech written by his advisers designed not to offend the Soviet Union and instead read one he'd written himself. The president demonstrated his solidarity with the citizens of the divided city by declaring, "Ich bin ein Berliner," or essentially, "I'm a citizen of Berlin in spirit." (For those who may be wondering, it's a popular myth, but JFK did not accidentally call himself a jelly donut when he called himself a Berliner.) Those who saw the speech in West Berlin, as well as those who watched it around the globe, were inspired.

#84. Rachel Carson's "A New Chapter in Silent Spring"

Delivered Jan. 8, 1963, in New York City, N.Y.

In the '60s and '70s, environmentalism sprang up as a social justice organization inspired by the civil rights movement. A seminal text was Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," which detailed the effects of the harmful pesticide DDT. In a speech to the Garden Club of America after her book's publication, Carson discusses the importance of raising public awareness of environmental issues, the next steps for those against pesticides, and new environmental dangers emerging on the horizon.

#83. Dwight Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace"

Delivered Dec. 8, 1953, at the UN General Assembly, New York City, N.Y.

The development of nuclear warfare gave the Cold War higher stakes and led to fears of a potential nuclear holocaust should something go wrong. In his "Atoms for Peace" speech before the UN, Eisenhower admitted that he needed to speak in a " new language...the language of atomic warfare ," and for the first time let the public know what the atomic age actually meant. Ultimately, the speech demonstrated the need for nuclear disarmament due to its destructive power; at the same time, the huge danger offered the U.S. an excuse to continue the arms race with the USSR after the Soviets refused to disarm.

#82. Eugene V. Debs' "Statement to the Court"

Delivered Sept. 18, 1918, in Girard, Kan.

Eugene V. Debs ran for president five times as a candidate for the Socialist Party but ran his final campaign in 1920 from a prison cell. Debs made an enemy of President Woodrow Wilson for his repeated speeches denouncing U.S. entry into World War I and was arrested on 10 charges of sedition. At his trial, Debs was granted permission to testify on his own behalf; the two-hour speech is remembered for its beautiful passages that moved even people who did not support him, such as in his concluding call for listeners everywhere to "take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning." He was sentenced to a decade in prison but only served a few years before his sentence was commuted.

#81. Margaret Chase Smith's "Declaration of Conscience"

Delivered June 1, 1950, in Washington D.C.

Joseph Welch ultimately took down Joseph McCarthy during a 1953 trial investigating communism in the Army, but he was far from the first person to attempt to end the Senator's red-scare fearmongering. Senator Margaret Chase of Maine took aim at him from the Senate to the House floor four months after he became a national figure, with a speech that endorsed " the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, [and] the right of independent thought " as fundamental to American democracy. She was joined by six other moderate Republican Senators in her rebuke, and some publications praised her for taking a stand while others dismissed her concerns. It wasn't until 1954 that the rest of the Senate took her side and formally censured McCarthy .

#80. Gloria Steinem's "Testimony Before Senate Hearings on the Equal Rights Amendment"

Delivered May 6, 1970, in Washington D.C.

While Shirley Chisholm's speech on the Equal Rights Amendment emphasized all the change its passage would bring, Gloria Steinem—a feminist, activist, and journalist—focused on the sex-based myths that she saw as the root of these problems. Among other myths she took down during her testimony, Steinem cited science that proves men aren't biologically superior to women, points out that discrimination keeps women and African Americans from pursuing their dreams as fully as possible, and noted that men, women, and children all benefit when women are treated more equally in the family.

#79. Barbara Bush's "Choices and Change" commencement address

Delivered June 1, 1990, at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.

Unlike most commencement addresses, all three major news networks interrupted their coverage to carry First Lady Barbara Bush's speech to Wellesley College live. Students were unhappy after Bush had replaced author Alice Walker after she withdrew as the speaker, but the First Lady silenced even her most fervent protestors when she showed up with the First Lady of the USSR, Raisa Gorbachev. The speech itself addressed student criticism head-on and exhorted all students, no matter their goals, to prioritize relationships above all .

#78. Lyndon B. Johnson's "The Great Society"

Delivered May 22, 1964, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

This speech launched President Lyndon Johnson's ambitious domestic policy agenda and outlined exactly what he meant by a "Great Society." He defined it as "[demanding] an end to poverty and racial injustice," a place where all children can be educated, and "a challenge constantly renewed." Though the rhetoric in the speech is so sweeping it seems impossible to live up to, Johnson's list of accomplishments is long . He signed the Civil Rights Act, integrated schools, started Medicare, gave federal aid to K-12 schools and created federally backed college loans.

#77. Ronald Reagan's "Address at the U.S. Ranger Monument on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day"

Delivered June 6, 1984, in Pointe du Hoc, France

The title of Ronald Reagan's eloquent D-Day memorial address provides a bland package for the stirring—and at times chilling—speech he gave in honor of the storming of Normandy four decades prior. Reagan spoke of the Rangers that climbed the cliffs, remarking that "when one...fell, another would take his place." The focus, however, did not remain on how the men who died there passed away, but rather on the convictions that drove them; speaking directly to the men who died, Reagan praised them : "You all knew that some things are worth dying for...democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man."

#76. Emma Goldman's "Address to the Jury"

Delivered July 9, 1917, in New York City, N.Y.

A Russian-born feminist and anarchist , Emma Goldman went around the country delivering speeches supporting free speech, birth control, women's rights, labor's right to organize, and other progressive causes. In 1917, she and fellow radical Alexander Berkman were arrested for organizing the anti-war No Conscription League because it encouraged men not to register for a draft. At her trial, Goldman invoked the First Amendment , and like many other free speech advocates at the time, pointed out that "if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America" by safeguarding free speech protections. The jury was not convinced, and both were found guilty.

#75. Edward Kennedy's "Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy"

Delivered June 8, 1968, at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City, N.Y.

Within a decade, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy lost both his brothers to assassination, first President John F. Kennedy in 1963, then Robert "Bobby" Kennedy in 1968, whom he eulogized three days later. His heart-wrenching speech pulled together the past, present, and future , deftly weaving together Bobby's writings, the grief of his family and the nation over his brother's death, and his own vision for the future.

#74. Mario Savio's "Bodies Upon the Gears"

Delivered Dec. 2, 1964, in Berkeley, Calif.

Mario Savio was a student leader during the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, which worked to end the school's restriction on students' political speech. Known for his fiery speeches, Savio delivered his most famous one during a sit-in at Sprout Hall, advocating for civil disobedience: "There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! ... And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels...and you've got to make it stop." This inspired hundreds to occupy an administrative building overnight , and they continue to inspire countercultural and anti-government movements around the world.

#73. Jesse Jackson's "1984 Democratic National Convention"

Delivered July 18, 1984, in San Francisco, Calif.

Perhaps one of the biggest shifts in 20th-century politics was the "great reversal" of each political party's key constituencies: White Southerners became overwhelmingly Republican while black voters abandoned the party of Lincoln in favor of the Democratic presidents who worked to pass civil rights legislation. In the '80s, Democrats thought they should pivot back to the whites who'd abandoned the party, but civil rights leader Jesse Jackson's 1984 DNC address proposed an alternative: build a "rainbow coalition" that "makes room" for diversity, including black, Latino, young, Native American, environmentalist, activist, union, and LGBTQ+ voters. The strategy seems to have worked, if the diversity of the candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination is any indication.

#72. John L. Lewis, "Labor and the Nation"

Delivered Sept. 2, 1937, in Washington D.C.

Powerful unions like the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations—whose founding president was John L. Lewis —emerged in the 1920s and '30s. Lewis' speech lays out the long, occasionally bloody history of unions that brought them to this point and argues that the labor movement's fight for "peace with justice" shouldn't be seen as communist and should be supported by the people. It seems his speech fell on deaf ears, as unions were  significantly weakened in the 1970s and have been on the decline since .

#71. Margaret Sanger's "The Morality of Birth Control"

Delivered Nov. 18, 1921, at Park Theatre, New York

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was one of the most outspoken advocates for every man and woman's right to access birth control and take control of their own family planning. In this speech, she argues that it is not immoral, as some claim, but rather that it's moral for children to be desired and that motherhood should " be the function of dignity and choice ." (She also argues that disabled and impoverished people might not be fit parents, echoing eugenicist ideas of the time , but her fundamental argument is a woman's right to choose.) Open access to birth control for married and unmarried couples wouldn't be realized until the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court decision established a constitutional right to privacy over reproductive choices.

#70. Shirley Chisholm, "For the Equal Rights Amendment"

Delivered Aug. 10, 1970, in Washington D.C.

Versions of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would enshrine women's equality into the Constitution, have been proposed since women earned the right to vote, but it didn't take off until the second-wave feminist movement began to push for its passage. Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman in Congress, delivered an eloquent defense of the ERA in the face of arguments that its passage would do nothing to change sexist attitudes. It passed the Senate two years later but was never ratified by enough states—just one more state needs to do so for it to become law .

#69. Edward Kennedy's "Faith, Truth, and Tolerance in America"

Delivered Oct. 3, 1983, at Liberty Baptist College, Lynchburg, Va.

Polls from the 2018 midterms stuck to a trend that's been evident for decades: White Christians, particularly evangelical Protestants, overwhelmingly vote Republican. The rise of the evangelical or "religious" right in the 1970s, and America's increasing polarization, led to this point, but Senator Edward Kennedy's address at the evangelical Liberty University suggested it didn't have to be this way. The devoutly Catholic Kennedy argued that no one's "convictions about religion should command any greater respect than any other faith in this pluralistic society," leading to a robust separation of church and state . The connection between Americans is not, he suggests, a shared faith but rather " individual freedom and mutual respect ."

#68. Mary Church Terrell's "What It Means to Be Colored in the Capital of the United States"

Delivered Oct. 10, 1906, in Washington D.C.

A trailblazer half a century before the full force of the civil rights movement, Mary Church Terrell was one of the first African American women to earn a college degree. She spent her life working in the D.C. education system and the fight for black women's rights. Her hallmark speech detailed the discrimination and racism she and other African Americans experienced in the nation's capital and called on white listeners to realize the impact this oppression has on the future of black people living in D.C. and across the country.

#67. Winston Churchill's "Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat"

Delivered May 13, 1940, at the House of Commons, London, England

Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister following Chamberlain's failed attempts to prevent war with Nazi Germany through appeasement. Churchill wasn't an immediately obvious choice as his successor , as his reputation left him with few friends in Parliament, but he was the only man with enough experience willing to take on the job in the middle of a war. In his first speech to Parliament , he offered only his "blood, toil, tears, and sweat...to wage war against [the] monstrous tyranny" that was Nazi Germany. The sentiment won him the support of skeptics in Parliament and was the first in a trio of speeches that unified the country in the early years of the war.

#66. Wilma Mankiller's "On Rebuilding the Cherokee Nation"

Delivered April 2, 1993, in Sweet Briar, Va.

An activist from her early days, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to be Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation after decades of community organizing. In her speech at Sweet Briar , Mankiller infuses her story with wry humor and keen insight while at the same time, with gravity, narrating the history of the Cherokee tribe and the deadly removals they faced at the hands of the U.S. government. Mankiller emphasizes trying to rebuild the community that endured within the Cherokee Nation despite all the removals. This theme was made all the more powerful when you remember that Native American children  were separated from their communities and forced into assimilationist boarding schools up through the 1970s.

#65. Russell Conwell's "Acres of Diamonds"

Delivered from 1900 to 1925, in multiple locations across the U.S.

The American Dream and the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" school of thought were  popularized in the Gilded Age , creating an ideology of success that proposes any person in the country can succeed, no matter their circumstance, as long as they work hard. Russell Conwell, a former minister, ushered this school of thought into the 20th century with the "Acres of Diamonds" speech, which claims it is "your duty to get rich," and, in general, that impoverished people are unsympathetic because it was their own shortcomings that got them there.

#64. Ellen DeGeneres' "Vigil for Matthew Shepard"

Delivered Oct. 14, 1998, in Washington D.C.

In 1997, Ellen DeGeneres came out, as did the character on her sitcom (becoming the first LGBTQ+ lead on a TV show), paving the way for more LGBTQ+ representation in Hollywood. The following year, Matthew Shepard's murder sent shock waves through the LGBTQ+ community, evident in the angry, tearful speech DeGeneres gave at a celebrity vigil. She called out the hypocrisy of the church and framed Shepard's murder as "a wake-up call" for straight allies "to help us end the hate" and "raise your children with love and non-judgment." Already emerging as a spokesperson for LGBTQ+ rights, she gave voice to the rage and heartbreak many in the community, and across the nation, felt in the wake of the brutal anti-gay hate crime.

#63. Harry Truman's "Statement by the President Announcing the Use of the A-Bomb at Hiroshima"

Delivered Aug. 6, 1945, via radio address

On Aug. 6, 1945, modern warfare changed forever when the atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In a radio address to the nation announcing both the development of atomic-bomb technology and the attack, President Harry Truman announced "let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war" using the atomic bomb. Three days later, a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, decisively ending the war in the Pacific.

#62. Harold Ickes' "What Is an American?"

Delivered May 1941, in Central Park, New York City, N.Y.

In this speech, Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior during the Roosevelt Administration, asks a question that we're still grappling with in one way or another today . Here, Ickes answers the question to advocate for American involvement in World War II, bemoaning the loss of America's "vaunted idealism" . He characterizes an American as someone who "loves justice," "will fight for his freedom" and "in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence." Ickes appeals to these ideals to establish the necessity of fighting the Nazi threat to democracy; however, the bombing of Pearl Harbor a few months later is ultimately what pulled the U.S. into the war.

#61. Golda Meir's "Speech That Made Possible a Jewish State"

Delivered Jan. 2, 1948, in Chicago, Ill.

As the fight between Israelis and Palestinians intensified over the land to form the Jewish state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion (who would become Israel's first Prime Minister) sent Golda Meir (who would become the third) to America to ask for money to finance the fighting from the American Jewish community. The speech, first delivered in Chicago , then across the U.S., appealed to a sense of unity within the community, suggesting that "if you were in Palestine and we were in the United States," the American Jewish community would do the same thing they did. She then asked for between $25 and $30 million to continue the fight; she returned home with $50 million to finance the effort.

#60. Rigoberta Menchú's "Nobel Peace Prize Lecture"

Delivered Dec. 10, 1992, in Oslo, Norway

Rigoberta Menchú is a fierce advocate for the rights of indigenous people, stemming from racism she's experienced in her home country and the violence that caused her to flee her home. She told her story that resulted in the book, "I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala," which shaped her into a spokeswoman for indigenous rights in the Western Hemisphere. She makes her universal message clear  in her Nobel Lecture , in which she declares her prize "constitutes a sign of hope in the struggle of the indigenous people in the entire Continent."

#59. Robert F. Kennedy's "On the Death of Martin Luther King"

Delivered April 4, 1968, in Indianapolis, Ind.

Brother to John F. Kennedy and candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, Robert F. Kennedy was at a campaign stop in Indiana when news came that Martin Luther King had been shot while marching with striking sanitation workers. His death would lead to marches and protests across the country but when RFK announced the death in Indianapolis, no violence broke out . Instead, in this short and powerful speech, Kennedy empathizes with those hurt by King's death, connecting it with his own brother's murder, and calls for unity and compassion in honor of King's legacy.

#58. Indira Gandhi's "What Educated Women Can Do"

Delivered Nov. 23, 1973, in New Delhi, India

Daughter of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the world's longest-serving female PM, Indira Gandhi had the kind of education that most Indian girls would never dream of receiving, especially in the 1930s and 40s. However, her own story doesn't figure into her famous speech on women's education, instead focusing on the need for more scientifically educated people , both men and women, so the country could achieve great things and become truly modern.

#57. Tony Blair's "Address to the Irish Parliament"

Delivered Nov. 26, 1998, in Dublin, Ireland

The relationship between Britain and Ireland had been characterized by centuries of colonialism and violence, culminating in the partition of Ireland and later the Troubles, decades of intense violence between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The two sides had made peace with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's address to the Irish Parliament a few months later marked the first time a British PM addressed an Irish parliament and affirmed that healing had begun and more could be accomplished by both nations when "our voices speak in harmony."

#56. Richard Nixon's "Checkers"

Delivered Sept. 23, 1952, via television broadcast

This speech, delivered when Nixon was a candidate for Vice President, might be named after the Nixon family dog, but the actual subject proves slightly less adorable. In it, Nixon used a television broadcast to directly answer accusations that he'd used political contributions to pay for personal expenses. He denied the allegations, laid out his financial history and proved his political intelligence by turning the question to the Democrats, asking their candidate to do the same. But what about Checkers the dog? Apparently, she was the only political contribution the Nixon's kept.

#55. Nelson Mandela's "Free at Last"

Delivered May 2, 1994, in Pretoria, South Africa

Decades earlier, Nelson Mandela made a name for himself for his anti-apartheid speech while on trial in Pretoria; now, after 27 years in prison, apartheid had officially ended and Mandela had become South Africa's first democratically elected president. "Free at last" is a reference to a Dr. Martin Luther King speech , showing how closely connected the anti-apartheid and civil rights movement were, though the two leaders never met. The speech emphasizes both the joy of the moment and continued work needed to build " a better life for all South Africans ."

#54. Nikita Khrushchev's "The Cult of the Individual"

Delivered Dec. 5, 1956, in Moscow, Russia

Very few men in the Soviet Union dared insult or question Joseph Stalin, a man who ordered the deaths of millions of his own people , including political rivals. It wasn't until after his death that his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, was willing to say that elevating an individual and worshiping a cult of personality went against the kind of communism that Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin espoused—the communism that formed the foundation of the Soviet Union's political philosophy. Khrushchev's denunciation of his predecessor shocked the world and offered the first thorough account of Stalin's crimes, but his motivations for giving the speech remain unclear.

#53. Franklin D. Roosevelt's "First Inaugural Address"

Delivered March 4, 1933, in Washington D.C.

President Franklin Roosevelt is lauded for guiding the United States through the thick of World War II, but upon first taking office, he was facing down a different kind of war: the one against the Great Depression. When FDR assumed office, the Depression was at its peak, with almost a quarter of the working population unemployed . His inauguration address emphasizes the enormous scale of the project it would take to rebuild the nation; still, he famously invigorated everyone listening by declaring that "  the only thing we have to fear is fear itself ."

#52. Betty Friedan's "Farewell to the National Organization of Women"

Delivered Mar. 20, 1970, in Chicago, Ill.

Betty Friedan's best-selling book, "The Feminine Mystique," got women talking about "the problem with no name" and is often credited with helping spark second-wave feminism. Her voice continued to have power even as she stepped down as president from the National Organization of Women. That day, she called for a general women's strike to be held on Aug. 26, 1970. Despite skepticism from media outlets, thousands of women heeded Friedan's call and took to the street that day—a physical manifestation of the feminist movement's enduring power.

#51. Malcolm X's "Message to the Grassroots"

Delivered on Nov. 10, 1963, in Detroit, Mich.

The divisions between the civil rights movement become obvious in "Message to the Grassroots," which contrasted the "Negro revolution" which was nonviolent and ineffectual, and the "black revolution," which was necessarily violent and had proved itself effective across Africa . This stands alongside the powerful but historically flawed distinction he makes between the self-hating "house slaves" loyal their white owners and "field slaves" as illustrative of X's criticism of black activists whom he thought were too eager to acquiesce to the white people whose oppression the movement was trying to overcome.

#50. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beyond Vietnam: Breaking the Silence"

Delivered on April 4, 1967, in New York City, N.Y.

Though today Martin Luther King is revered by nearly all Americans as a powerful spokesman for equal rights and integration, not every political opinion was popular among the American public. Exactly one year before he was assassinated, King spoke out against the Vietnam War. He accused America of ignoring conflicts at home in favor of war abroad, pointing out the "cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools." Delivered several years before popular opinion on the war changed, King lost many of the powerful allies in government and media due to this speech .

#49. Bill Clinton's "Oklahoma Bombing Memorial Prayer Service Address"

Delivered April 23, 1992, in Oklahoma City, Okla.

Before President Bill Clinton became the nation's "consoler-in-chief" during Columbine, he had to face a nation mourning the 168 people killed in the Oklahoma City Bombing by two domestic terrorists angry about the FBI raid in Waco, Texas. The speech he gave at the memorial service reminded those who had lost loved ones that they "have not lost everything" because they "have certainly not lost America, for we will stand with you for as many tomorrows as it takes" to heal from the tragedy. The sentiment struck a chord with the American public, evident in the boosting of Clinton's poll numbers after the speech.

#48. Nora Ephron's "Commencement Address to the Wellesley Class of 1996"

Delivered June 3, 1996, in Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.

Commencement speeches are usually uplifting addresses to graduating seniors looking to inspire them before they begin the next chapter of their lives. Journalist, filmmaker, and writer Nora Ephron returned to her alma mater, Wellesley College, to discuss all the ways the world had changed for the better since she graduated but also offered a note of warning for the grads. "Don't underestimate how much antagonism there is toward women and how many people wish we could turn the clock back," she remarked , listing off current events that reminded the Wellesley graduates that feminism was still urgently needed at the close of the 20th century.

#47. Barbara C. Jordan's "Statement on the Articles of Impeachment"

Delivered: July 25, 1974, in Washington D.C.

As a newly minted State Senator in Texas, Barbara Jordan won over segregationists to pass an equal rights amendment in the state and became a hugely popular political figure in her state. She was elected to the House of Representatives in 1973 just as the Watergate investigation was heating up, and there she gave a rousing political speech subtly advocating for the president's impeachment. Grounding her argument in the Constitution, she called on her fellow House members to use "reason, and not passion" to "guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision" as she just adeptly demonstrated.

#46. General Douglas MacArthur's "Farewell Address to Congress"

Delivered April 19, 1951, in Washington D.C.

President Harry Truman and five-star general Douglas MacArthur had a combative relationship, which heated up after the President relieved him of command of UN forces in the Korean War for insubordination. General MacArthur's speech before a joint session of Congress questioned Truman's decision not to take on China in the war, commenting that "War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision." He received 50 standing ovations during the address while Truman's approval rating plummeted after firing a popular general and World War II hero.

#45. Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" lectures

Delivered October 20 and 26, 1928, at Cambridge University, Cambridge, England

English author Virginia Woolf's lectures at the women's college at Cambridge are not remembered as stirring works of oratory, but rather as a book. "A Room of One's Own" is a foundational piece of feminist literary theory adapted from this pair of lectures that examines the different types of marginalization women have faced throughout history and the impact on their creative productivity. Among other things,  she posits that in order for women to write literature , they need a "room of one's own" or a private space and financial independence in order to write well—a revolutionary claim in late-1920s Europe.

#44. Joseph Welch's "Have You No Sense of Decency?" testimony

Delivered June 9, 1953, in Washington D.C.

Though not technically a speech, the exchange between Senator Joseph McCarthy and Joseph Welch, a lawyer hired by the U.S. Army, proved to be the final blow in the Wisconsin Senator's fall from grace . McCarthy had been conducting trials of suspected Communists since 1950 and everyone was beginning to tire of his methods. A heated back-and-forth erupted between the two men when McCarthy questioned whether one of the lawyers at Welch's firm had Communist ties, leading Welch to ask heatedly McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" With these famous lines, Senator McCarthy saw the last of his power evaporate and died three years later.

#43. Carrie Chapman Catt's "The Crisis"

Delivered Sept. 7, 1916, in Atlantic City, N.J.

Carrie Chapman Catt was a leading figure in the late stages of the American women's suffrage movement, founding the International Women's Suffrage Alliance and serving as president of the National American Women's Suffrage Association during the final push to pass the 19th Amendment. In "The Crisis," Catt outlines her plan to make pushing for a federal amendment to the Constitution NAWSA's priority. At the same time, she tied their fight for the vote to World War I in Europe and the broader fight for women's rights around the world. Ultimately, her instinct to focus on federal legislation instead of working state-by-state proved correct; white women gained the right to vote just three years after this address.

#42. Lyndon B. Johnson's "We Shall Overcome"

Delivered March 15, 1965, in Washington D.C.

One of the most stirring pieces of American rhetoric was written  by a hungover speechwriter in just eight hours , after President Lyndon B. Johnson decided he wanted to address Congress about the "Bloody Sunday" attacks against protestors in Selma, Ala. In it, Johnson called on all of America to join him in the cause of civil rights. He appealed specifically to white Americans, noting that "it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome." The speech was interrupted for applause 40 times and brought civil rights activists to tears. And overcome they did; five months later, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.

#41. Geraldine Ferraro's "Vice Presidential Nomination Acceptance Address"

Delivered July 19, 1984, in San Francisco, Calif.

In her concession speech in 2016, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton noted that women have yet to shatter the "highest and hardest glass ceiling" of the American presidency or vice presidency. Very few have come close, the first being Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale's VP pick in the 1984 campaign. In her acceptance speech, Ferraro demonstrates her adeptness as a politician, weaving critiques of the Reagan administration together with her career as an avid activist for women's rights. Though they would ultimately lose to the Republicans, Ferraro cemented her place as a prominent voice in the Democratic party and a trailblazer for women in politics .

#40. Richard Nixon's "Resignation Address to the Nation"

Delivered: Aug. 8, 1974, from Washington D.C.

The case against President Richard Nixon had been growing for years as more details about the Watergate scandal emerged. By August 1974, The Supreme Court ordered the release of tapes he made in the Oval Office, articles of impeachment were being drawn up, and Nixon had lost the support of members of his own party. Rather than suffer the shame of being the first president to be removed from office, Nixon opted to be the first president to resign in a speech highlighting his successes and the work that would need to be continued by his successor.

#39. Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation"

Delivered Dec. 8, 1941, via radio broadcast

World War II had been raging since 1939 across the Atlantic but America's historic reluctance to enter global conflict barred President Franklin Roosevelt from taking the direct action he wanted to support U.S. allies in Europe. That changed after the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, killing thousands of Americans. The next day, FDR took to the radio to report what had happened on this "date which will live in infamy" and called on Congress to declare war on Japan, which they did shortly after.

#38. Huey P. Long's "Share the Wealth"

Delivered Feb. 23, 1934, via radio broadcast

Also called the "Every Man a King" speech, Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long addressed the nation and laid out his radical plan to redistribute wealth between the richest and poorest Americans by capping fortunes and guaranteeing a basic income, among other radical policy proposals . This was a break from the Democratic Party's New Deal policies, which Long felt did not address wealth discrepancies that he believed caused the Great Depression. His embrace of radio to speak directly to the people won him many supporters to his cause; though he was assassinated the following year.

#37. Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points"

Delivered Jan. 8, 1918, in Washington D.C.

Woodrow Wilson and many others who lived through World War I wanted the deadly global conflict to be "the war to end all wars." The idealistic, progressive Wilson turned this desire into his Fourteen Points for world peace, which he later laid out before Congress after other combatants failed to articulate their aims in the war. Cornerstones of Wilson's peace plan included self-determination , free trade, open seas, and a League of Nations to enforce peace around the world—a plan that was ultimately hampered by Congress' refusal to join the League.

#36. Margaret Thatcher's "The Lady's Not for Turning"

Delivered Oct. 10, 1980, in Brighton, England

Margaret Thatcher took over as Prime Minister and leader of the Tory Party at a time when conservatism was becoming politically popular in much of the Western world (Ronald Reagan would be elected a month after this speech was given). In it, Thatcher lays out her opposition to changing the conservative economic policies she'd instituted, one that focuses on curbing inflation and removing economic regulations. It's most famous line, "'You turn [U-turn the economy] if you want to. The lady's not for turning!" fed into her formidable reputation as the Iron Lady of British politics.

#35. Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Left-Handed Commencement Address"

Delivered in 1983, at Mills College, Oakland, Calif.

Feminist science-fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin wasn't shy about interrogating the complexities of gender in her work, featuring everything from strong female characters to genderfluid aliens. Her famous commencement address  is shaped around some of her concerns regarding gender, pointing out that "women as women are largely excluded from, alien to, the self-declared male norms of this society," and that language itself is centered around men. Citing many famous feminists and women leaders of the era, Le Guin's speech provides a powerful call to action for women (and men) to "grow human souls" and work toward gender equality in their own lives.

#34. Harold Macmillan's "Wind of Change"

Delivered Feb. 3, 1960, in Cape Town, South Africa

The list of countries that have never been invaded by the British is shorter than the list of those that have, but by 1960, the British Empire no longer stretched around the world. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan signaled this by visiting several British colonies in southern Africa before giving a speech to the South African Parliament announcing that England would no longer stand in the way of colonies wishing to become independent. In his opinion, the emergence of these new nations were the result  of "the wind of change...blowing through this continent," and there was nothing Parliament could do to stop them.

#33. Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation

Delivered Dec. 25, 1991, in Moscow, Russia

The fall of the Soviet Union marked the end of the Cold War, the conflict which defined almost every aspect of the post-World War II era. The Cold War didn't end with nuclear holocaust, as many had feared during the conflict's peak, but rather the resignation of executive President Mikhail Gorbachev after several Soviet bloc countries broke away from the USSR behind his back. In the speech he warned that though the country had acquired freedom, "we haven't learned to use freedom yet," so it was important to tread carefully—a warning that has a new salience as the country slides back into authoritarian rule under President Vladimir Putin.

#32. Frank James' "Suppressed Speech"

Delivered Nov. 1970, in Plymouth, Mass.

Wampanoag elder Frank James was invited to speak at a celebration at Plymouth in honor of the 350th Thanksgiving. Organizers objected to his portrayal of the Puritan Pilgrims and white settlers as people who "sought to tame the 'savage' and convert him," but James had refused to read the more PR-friendly speech they gave him. James instead held a protest nearby that has since become the annual Day of Mourning , in which indigenous Americans come to protest and speak out about their experiences.

#31. Jawaharlal Nehru's "Tryst with Destiny"

Delivered Aug. 14–15, 1947, in New Delhi, India

The struggle against the British Empire on the Indian subcontinent finally came to a triumphant finish with Jawaharlal Nehru's "Tryst with Destiny" speech just before midnight on the eve of India's independence. He honors Gandhi as the leader of the movement, as well as the victory they achieved. He also alludes to the Partition that split India and Pakistan into two countries, as well as the sectarian divides between Hindus and Muslims—problems that still plague the country today.

#30. Sacheen Littlefeather's speech at the 1972 Academy Award ceremony

Delivered March 27, 1973, in Los Angeles, Calif.

Marlon Brando shocked the Academy Awards when he refused his Oscar for mobster classic "The Godfather." Instead, he sent indigenous activist Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse the award and give her a platform to protest the treatment of Native Americans in Hollywood, and more importantly, bring attention to the standoff between federal agents and Native Americans at Wounded Knee that was under a media blackout. Littlefeather delivered a shortened version of his message amid boos; The New York Times later printed Brando's letter in its entirety , and the media blackout at Wounded Knee was lifted.

#29. Bill Clinton's "Presidential Address to Columbine High School"

Delivered May 20, 1999, at Dakota Ridge High School, Littleton, Colo.

One of the most difficult jobs of the U.S. President is to act as "consoler-in-chief" when tragedy strikes the nation. President Bill Clinton found himself in that position—and, in the eyes of many, set the standard for future American leaders —after the shooting at Columbine High School left 12 students and one teacher dead. In the speech given a month after the tragedy, Clinton traveled to Colorado to offer support to grieving families and try to come to terms with an event that " pierced the soul of America ."

#28. Eleanor Roosevelt's "On the Adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights"

Delivered Dec. 9, 1948, in Paris, France

Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated her life to human rights around the world, serving as the chair of the United Nations Human Rights Commission after World War II. In that position, she pushed for creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which lays out 30 articles affirming " that man must have freedom in which to develop his full stature and through common effort to raise the level of human dignity."

#27. Stokely Carmichael's "Black Power"

Delivered Oct. 29, 1966, in Berkeley, Calif.

Stokely Carmichael firmly believed in nonviolent protest in the early days of the civil rights movement, but as the years wore on, he became convinced that "black power for black people" was needed to jump-start the next phase of the civil rights project. Black power, later adopted by groups like the Black Panther Party, required a sense of solidarity between black people and the election of black representatives. As his speech demonstrates , this wasn't an inherently violent concept, but rather questions the notion of nonviolence because, as Carmichael points out, "white people beat up black people every day—don't nobody talk about nonviolence."

#26. Aung San Suu Kyi's "Freedom from Fear"

Delivered Jan. 1 1990, in Myanmar (formerly Burma)

Daughter of the founder of the modern Burmese military and a key figure in Burmese independence, Aung San Suu Kyi followed in her father's footsteps to become a leader in the push for democratic government in the country. The military placed her under house arrest on-and-off for over 20 years while she continued to push for democracy, including in this speech, which calls for "a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear." She ascended to governmental power in 2010 with global praise and hope for change, but the recent ethnic cleansing of a minority group in the country threatens her legacy as an advocate for freedom .

#25. Emmeline Pankhurst's "Freedom or Death"

Delivered Nov. 13, 1913, in Hartford, Conn.

The early decades of the 1900s brought new energy and activism to the push for women's suffrage in England, just as it did in the United States and Canada. Emmeline Pankhurst delivered this speech on a fundraising tour of the U.S. after a long period of hunger striking and arrests, using imagery from the American Revolution and other powerful metaphors to justify militant tactics adopted by her group in the push for the vote.

#24. Severn Cullis-Suzuki's "Speech to the UN Summit in Rio"

Delivered in 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Twelve-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki became "The Girl Who Silenced the World for Five Minutes" after she stunned the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development with a plea for older generations to work to improve the environment. Her demand that "If [adults] don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!" echoes those of modern child climate activists like Greta Thunberg, who has led a worldwide movement of school strikes pushing for action on the climate crisis.

#23. Nellie McClung's "Should Men Vote?"

Delivered Jan. 29, 1914, in Winnipeg, Canada

The Canadian women's suffrage movement was kicked into high gear when prominent activist Nellie McClung turned a rejection of the request for the vote into a piece of theater. Drawing on humor and showmanship, she presented a mock trial of men asking women legislators for suffrage, arguing that "manhood suffrage has not been a success in the unhappy countries where it has been tried," among other satirical moments. McClung later campaigned against the party that previously denied her the right to vote, finally winning suffrage for white Manitoban women in 1916.

#22. Ronald Reagan's "Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate"

Delivered June 12, 1987, in West Berlin, Germany

It might be hard to believe, but, coming just a few short years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan's cry of "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" didn't make much of a splash when he first gave his speech. It didn't reach its status as a famous piece of American political rhetoric until the wall actually began to come down in 1989. While some scholars claim it helped Reagan build support for his plans to work with the Soviet Union, others believe the Wall's destruction had far more to do with reforms going on inside the USSR.

#21. William Faulkner's Nobel lecture

Delivered Jan. 10, 1950, in Stockholm, Sweden

Author of stories rooted in the American South, William Faulkner's Nobel lecture ( for a prize he didn't even want! ) spoke to deeply American concerns. He addresses the difficulty in creating art in an age of anxiety over atomic destruction, noting that until a writer relearns their craft under this condition, " he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man ." He ends the address rejecting this possibility, offering a surprisingly hopeful view in an age characterized by fear of a nuclear holocaust.

#20. John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address

Delivered Jan. 20, 1961, in Washington D.C.

One line from President John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address has endured in the American imagination for nearly half a century: "My fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." However, Kennedy's call to public service has overshadowed the fact that most of the speech focused on global issues. As Kennedy was elected near the height of tensions in the Cold War, he felt the need to address both the Soviet Union and allies abroad to reassure them of his competency and desire for global peace.

#19. Lou Gehrig's "Farewell to Baseball Address"

Delivered July 4, 1939, at Yankee Stadium, The Bronx, N.Y.

The crowd at Yankee Stadium sat silent as Lou "The Iron Horse" Gehrig addressed his retirement from baseball after being diagnosed with a disease that would later be named after him. Declaring himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth," he spoke briefly of the "awful lot [of things] to live for," including his fans, his teammates, and his family members. Following the address, he received a two-minute standing ovation and was showered with gifts and praise.

#18. Winston Churchill's "We Shall Fight on the Beaches"

Delivered: June 4, 1940, in London, England

In the first five weeks after he took over as Prime Minister, Winston Churchill gave three major speeches addressing the worsening war in France. The second of these dealt with the intensifying situation in France. Implying that battle might come to Britain, he declared that "we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets" and never surrender. Parliament praised the rousing address, but the public didn't hear it in Churchill's own words until after the war had ended and caused public pessimism after it was read by broadcasters .

#17. Mahatma Gandhi's "Quit India"

Delivered Aug. 8, 1942, in Bombay (now Mumbai), India

Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi became the face of Indian independence as he organized the "Quit India" movement, which, as he laid out in the speech to fellow leaders , would coerce the British to voluntarily leave India using nonviolent protest. His fellow leaders agreed, passing a resolution to that effect, but thousands of arrests followed and Gandhi's speech was suppressed. Underground presses published his speech, and his call to "either free India or die in the attempt" became a rallying point for the movement.

#16. Nelson Mandela's "I am prepared to die"

Delivered April 20, 1964, in Pretoria, South Africa

The address Nelson Mandela gave instead of testimony at his trial for alleged sabotage became the defining speech of the anti-apartheid movement—and of his legacy as an advocate for equality in South Africa. In it, he argues that his cause is correct and explains his views, before launching into his famous conclusion, in which he states a free and equal state is "an ideal for which I am prepared to die." Mandela was sentenced to life in prison but did not die there, instead continuing his advocacy from prison before his release 27 years later.

#15. William Jennings Bryan's "Against Imperialism"

Delivered Aug. 8, 1900, in Indianapolis, Ind.

Perennial presidential candidate (but never winner) William Jennings Bryan advocated against American imperialism shortly after U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War allowed the country to begin building an empire. He appealed to American ideals, pointing out the lack of "full citizenship" offered to Puerto Ricans and Filipinos, and decried the "gun-powder gospel" that argued imperial wars should be fought due to Christianity. Unfortunately, his status as perennial presidential loser continued into the early 1900s and none of his proposed reforms were taken into consideration.

#14. Dolores Huerta's speech at the NFWA march and rally

Delivered April 10, 1966, in Sacramento, Calif.

Dolores Huerta worked alongside César Chávez to establish the National Farm Workers Association and direct the Delano grape strike, where she quickly emerged as a leading feminist figure. Her speech at the NFWA march illustrates her dedication and zeal , exclaiming "La huelga [the strike] and la causa is our cry, and everyone must listen. Viva la huelga!" Huerta's success with the Delano strike led to continued labor organizing and support for feminist causes, activities which she continues today.

#13. Gabriel García Márquez's "The Solitude of Latin America"

Delivered Dec. 8, 1982, in Stockholm, Sweden

Gabriel García Márquez, storied Colombian author whose books "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera" helped fuel the Latin American literature boom, used his Nobel acceptance speech to make a political statement . In it, he spoke of Latin America's isolation in the world, despite decades of imperialism and outside influence in the region. However, with the same magical realism for which his writing was famous, he envisioned " a new and sweeping utopia of life ...where the races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second opportunity on earth."

#12. Ryan White's "Testimony before the President's Commission on AIDS"

Delivered: March 3, 1988, in Washington D.C.

Born with a rare blood disorder, Ryan White became infected with HIV as a young child because of the factor 8 used for his treatment, which was collected using untested, anonymous blood donors. After his diagnosis in 1984, White attempted to return to school but faced huge stigma and attempts to bar him from the classroom, experiences which formed the basis of his testimony before the commission. This speech, and the court battles over his schooling, led to his becoming a leading HIV/AIDS activist, dispelling myths about the disease for the American public before his death in 1990 at 18.

#11. Elie Wiesel's "The Perils of Indifference"

Delivered April 12, 1999, in Washington D.C.

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel survived the Holocaust as a teenager, losing his family in the process. The experience fueled his lifelong activism ; he became an educator about the Holocaust and advocate of victims of other atrocities, such as apartheid in South Africa and genocides around the world. His "Perils of Indifference" speech criticized those who ignored the horrors of the Holocaust and reminded listeners that " indifference is not a response " and "in denying [victims] their humanity we betray our own."

#10. Anita Hill's Opening Statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee

Delivered Oct. 11, 1991, in Washington D.C.

Anita Hill's testimony at the Supreme Court confirmation of Clarence Thomas, alleging that he sexually harassed her, proved to be a powerful and occasionally painful day in Washington D.C. Hill, a black woman, shared her experience staring down a Senate Judiciary Committee composed entirely of white men, who have since admitted to mishandling Hill's testimony . Thomas was confirmed to the bench despite Hill's allegations, but her testimony in part spurred record-breaking numbers of women to run for elected office and is seen by some as a precursor to the modern #MeToo movement.

#9. Hillary Rodham Clinton's "Women's Rights are Human Rights"

Delivered Sept. 5, 1995, in Beijing, China

Advisors to then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton advised her to soften her rhetoric in her speech at the United Nations Fourth World Congress on Women , but Clinton refused, seizing the opportunity to shine a spotlight on the abuse of women in China and around the world. Though she is not the first person to declare " human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all," she popularized use of the phrase on that day, in a speech that defined Clinton's career apart from her husband's. Since then, it's become a rallying cry in the fight for women's rights and became a focal point in Clinton's 2016 bid for president.

#8. Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address

Delivered Jan. 6, 1941, in Washington D.C.

Delivered just under a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union emphasized the value of democracy in a world embroiled in a devastating war. It's most famous for FDR's declaration of the four freedoms : freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want (meaning economic security), and freedom from fear (meaning global disarmament and prevention of wars).

#7. César Chávez's "The Mexican American and the Church"

Delivered: March 10, 1968, in Delano, Calif.

César Chávez is an iconic figure in movements for labor rights and Latino rights due to his organization and leadership of the National Farm Workers Association (alongside colleague Dolores Huerta), particularly during the five-year Delano grape strike. Chávez adopted historical tactics of nonviolence and resistance, such as fasting; after breaking a 25-day fast, the religious Chávez spoke at a conference about the relationship between Mexican Americans and the church, calling on the ministry to use their " tremendous spiritual and economic power " to support the striking farm workers. His work with the NFWA formed a cornerstone of the Chicano Movement that pushed for Mexican American rights in the 1960s and beyond.

#6. Harvey Milk's "Hope Speech"

Delivered June 25, 1978, in San Francisco, Calif.

Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, used his "Hope Speech" as his stump speech during his 1977 run for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; he expanded on it for its final delivery at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade the following year. The rousing speech emphasizes the importance of electing LGBTQ+ leaders so that young LGBTQ+ people across the country surrounded by homophobia can have those to look up to and regain their hope. Milk's life was cut short when he was assassinated only months later, but he continued to inspire hope as a martyr for the LGBTQ+ movement.

#5. Malcom X's "The Ballot or the Bullet"

Delivered April 12, 1964, at King Solomon Baptist Church, Detroit, Mich. (also delivered nine days earlier in Cleveland)

Malcolm X stands alongside Martin Luther King as one of the leading figures of the civil rights movement, but X's advocacy for black nationalism and defeating racism by "any means necessary" often conflicted with King's support for integration and nonviolent protest. "The Ballot or the Bullet," considered by many to be one of Malcolm X's best orations, urges African Americans to exercise their power at the ballot box in the 1964 election and select leaders who will pass civil rights legislation and care about issues affecting black communities.

#4. Dennis Shepard's "Statement to the Court"

Delivered Nov. 4, 1999, in Laramie, Wyo.

Matthew Shepard, a young gay man attending college in Laramie, Wyo., was beaten to death in an apparent hate crime in October 1998. His father gave an emotional impact statement to the court (since excerpted in several movies and plays about the crime), emphasizing the effect of his son's life and death on his family and the world. After their son's death, Dennis Shepard and his wife, Judy, helped to fulfill the promise he made "to see that this never, ever happens to another person or another family again" by advocating for the passage of hate crime legislation that became the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

#3. Sylvia Rivera's "Y'all Better Quiet Down"

Delivered in 1973, at Washington Square Park, New York City, N.Y.

On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City, and the riots that resulted jumpstarted the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Sylvia Rivera participated in the riots that day (she's said to have thrown one of the first bottles at police) and began a storied career as an activist . Rivera, a transgender Puerto Rican woman, wasn't afraid to call out what she saw as shortcomings in the movement; she delivered her "Y'all Better Quiet Down" to the crowd at the Christopher Street Liberation Rally, decrying white, middle-class gay men and lesbians for ignoring transgender people and other marginalized voices in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

#2. John F. Kennedy's "We choose to go to the moon"

Delivered Sept. 12, 1962, at Rice Stadium, Houston, Texas

In 1962, the U.S. and Soviet Union were in the thick of the Space Race, and the U.S. government was fighting over how much money to put into the project to put a man on the moon. With this speech , President Kennedy put an end to the squabbling; he laid out why it was important for the U.S. to lead the way to the stars and famously declared, " We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." This speech inspired the American people, and the Apollo mission was made a priority, leading to Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon on July 20, 1969.

#1. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream"

Delivered Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington D.C.

While Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was giving a speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, gospel singer (and King's close friend) Mahalia Jackson spurred him to go off-script , calling out, "Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!" He did, and today, King's dream that his four children "live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" is one of the most lauded pieces of American rhetoric. It cemented King's place as the face of the civil rights movement, for which he's still celebrated today. Pictured here is Martin Luther King (center) leading the "March on Washington" the day he gave the speech. 

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40 famous persuasive speeches you need to hear.

Written by Kai Xin Koh

Across eras of calamity and peace in our world’s history, a great many leaders, writers, politicians, theorists, scientists, activists and other revolutionaries have unveiled powerful rousing speeches in their bids for change. In reviewing the plethora of orators across tides of social, political and economic change, we found some truly rousing speeches that brought the world to their feet or to a startling, necessary halt. We’ve chosen 40 of the most impactful speeches we managed to find from agents of change all over the world – a diversity of political campaigns, genders, positionalities and periods of history. You’re sure to find at least a few speeches in this list which will capture you with the sheer power of their words and meaning!

1. I have a dream by MLK

“I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification – one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!”

Unsurprisingly, Martin Luther King’s speech comes up top as the most inspiring speech of all time, especially given the harrowing conditions of African Americans in America at the time. In the post-abolition era when slavery was outlawed constitutionally, African Americans experienced an intense period of backlash from white supremacists who supported slavery where various institutional means were sought to subordinate African American people to positions similar to that of the slavery era. This later came to be known as the times of Jim Crow and segregation, which Martin Luther King powerfully voiced his vision for a day when racial discrimination would be a mere figment, where equality would reign.

2. Tilbury Speech by Queen Elizabeth I

“My loving people, We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do assure you on a word of a prince, they shall be duly paid. In the mean time, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.”

While at war with Spain, Queen Elizabeth I was most renowned for her noble speech rallying the English troops against their comparatively formidable opponent. Using brilliant rhetorical devices like metonymy, meronymy, and other potent metaphors, she voiced her deeply-held commitment as a leader to the battle against the Spanish Armada – convincing the English army to keep holding their ground and upholding the sacrifice of war for the good of their people. Eventually against all odds, she led England to victory despite their underdog status in the conflict with her confident and masterful oratory.

3. Woodrow Wilson, address to Congress (April 2, 1917)

“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for. … It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us—however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship—exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live among us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few. It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.”

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson of the USA delivered his address to Congress, calling for declaration of war against what was at the time, a belligerent and aggressive Germany in WWI. Despite his isolationism and anti-war position earlier in his tenure as president, he convinced Congress that America had a moral duty to the world to step out of their neutral observer status into an active role of world leadership and stewardship in order to liberate attacked nations from their German aggressors. The idealistic values he preached in his speech left an indelible imprint upon the American spirit and self-conception, forming the moral basis for the country’s people and aspirational visions to this very day.

4. Ain’t I A Woman by Sojourner Truth

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? … If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.”

Hailing from a background of slavery and oppression, Sojourner Truth was one of the most revolutionary advocates for women’s human rights in the 1800s. In spite of the New York Anti-Slavery Law of 1827, her slavemaster refused to free her. As such, she fled, became an itinerant preacher and leading figure in the anti-slavery movement. By the 1850s, she became involved in the women’s rights movement as well. At the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention held in Akron, Ohio, she delivered her illuminating, forceful speech against discrimination of women and African Americans in the post-Civil War era, entrenching her status as one of the most revolutionary abolitionists and women’s rights activists across history.

5. The Gettsyburg Address by Abraham Lincoln

“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

President Abraham Lincoln had left the most lasting legacy upon American history for good reason, as one of the presidents with the moral courage to denounce slavery for the national atrocity it was. However, more difficult than standing up for the anti-slavery cause was the task of unifying the country post-abolition despite the looming shadows of a time when white Americans could own and subjugate slaves with impunity over the thousands of Americans who stood for liberation of African Americans from discrimination. He urged Americans to remember their common roots, heritage and the importance of “charity for all”, to ensure a “just and lasting peace” among within the country despite throes of racial division and self-determination.

6. Woman’s Rights to the Suffrage by Susan B Anthony

“For any State to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people is to pass a bill of attainder, or an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are for ever withheld from women and their female posterity. To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the right govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters of every household–which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord and rebellion into every home of the nation. Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office. The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no State has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several States is today null and void, precisely as in every one against Negroes.”

Susan B. Anthony was a pivotal leader in the women’s suffrage movement who helped to found the National Woman Suffrage Association with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and fight for the constitutional right for women to vote. She courageously and relentlessly advocated for women’s rights, giving speeches all over the USA to convince people of women’s human rights to choice and the ballot. She is most well known for her act of righteous rebellion in 1872 when she voted in the presidential election illegally, for which she was arrested and tried unsuccessfully. She refused to pay the $100 fine in a bid to reject the demands of the American system she denounced as a ‘hateful oligarchy of sex’, sparking change with her righteous oratory and inspiring many others in the women’s suffrage movement within and beyond America.

7. Vladimir Lenin’s Speech at an International Meeting in Berne, February 8, 1916

“It may sound incredible, especially to Swiss comrades, but it is nevertheless true that in Russia, also, not only bloody tsarism, not only the capitalists, but also a section of the so-called or ex-Socialists say that Russia is fighting a “war of defence,” that Russia is only fighting against German invasion. The whole world knows, however, that for decades tsarism has been oppressing more than a hundred million people belonging to other nationalities in Russia; that for decades Russia has been pursuing a predatory policy towards China, Persia, Armenia and Galicia. Neither Russia, nor Germany, nor any other Great Power has the right to claim that it is waging a “war of defence”; all the Great Powers are waging an imperialist, capitalist war, a predatory war, a war for the oppression of small and foreign nations, a war for the sake of the profits of the capitalists, who are coining golden profits amounting to billions out of the appalling sufferings of the masses, out of the blood of the proletariat. … This again shows you, comrades, that in all countries of the world real preparations are being made to rally the forces of the working class. The horrors of war and the sufferings of the people are incredible. But we must not, and we have no reason whatever, to view the future with despair. The millions of victims who will fall in the war, and as a consequence of the war, will not fall in vain. The millions who are starving, the millions who are sacrificing their lives in the trenches, are not only suffering, they are also gathering strength, are pondering over the real cause of the war, are becoming more determined and are acquiring a clearer revolutionary understanding. Rising discontent of the masses, growing ferment, strikes, demonstrations, protests against the war—all this is taking place in all countries of the world. And this is the guarantee that the European War will be followed by the proletarian revolution against capitalism”

Vladimir Lenin remains to this day one of the most lauded communist revolutionaries in the world who brought the dangers of imperialism and capitalism to light with his rousing speeches condemning capitalist structures of power which inevitably enslave people to lives of misery and class stratification. In his genuine passion for the rights of the working class, he urged fellow comrades to turn the “imperialist war” into a “civil” or class war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. He encouraged the development of new revolutionary socialist organisations, solidarity across places in society so people could unite against their capitalist overlords, and criticised nationalism for its divisive effect on the socialist movement. In this speech especially, he lambasts “bloody Tsarism” for its oppression of millions of people of other nationalities in Russia, calling for the working class people to revolt against the Tsarist authority for the proletariat revolution to succeed and liberate them from class oppression.

8. I Have A Dream Speech by Mary Wollstonecraft

“If, I say, for I would not impress by declamation when Reason offers her sober light, if they be really capable of acting like rational creatures, let them not be treated like slaves; or, like the brutes who are dependent on the reason of man, when they associate with him; but cultivate their minds, give them the salutary, sublime curb of principle, and let them attain conscious dignity by feeling themselves only dependent on God. Teach them, in common with man, to submit to necessity, instead of giving, to render them more pleasing, a sex to morals. Further, should experience prove that they cannot attain the same degree of strength of mind, perseverance, and fortitude, let their virtues be the same in kind, though they may vainly struggle for the same degree; and the superiority of man will be equally clear, if not clearer; and truth, as it is a simple principle, which admits of no modification, would be common to both. Nay, the order of society as it is at present regulated would not be inverted, for woman would then only have the rank that reason assigned her, and arts could not be practised to bring the balance even, much less to turn it.”

In her vindication of the rights of women, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the pioneers of the feminist movement back in 1792 who not only theorised and advocated revolutionarily, but gave speeches that voiced these challenges against a dominantly sexist society intent on classifying women as irrational less-than-human creatures to be enslaved as they were. In this landmark speech, she pronounces her ‘dream’ of a day when women would be treated as the rational, deserving humans they are, who are equal to man in strength and capability. With this speech setting an effective precedent for her call to equalize women before the law, she also went on to champion the provision of equal educational opportunities to women and girls, and persuasively argued against the patriarchal gender norms which prevented women from finding their own lot in life through their being locked into traditional institutions of marriage and motherhood against their will.

9. First Inaugural Speech by Franklin D Roosevelt

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. … More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly. … I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken Nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption. But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis — broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”

Roosevelt’s famous inaugural speech was delivered in the midst of a period of immense tension and strain under the Great Depression, where he highlighted the need for ‘quick action’ by Congress to prepare for government expansion in his pursuit of reforms to lift the American people out of devastating poverty. In a landslide victory, he certainly consolidated the hopes and will of the American people through this compelling speech.

10. The Hypocrisy of American Slavery by Frederick Douglass

“What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”

On 4 July 1852, Frederick Douglass gave this speech in Rochester, New York, highlighting the hypocrisy of celebrating freedom while slavery continues. He exposed the ‘revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy’ of slavery which had gone unabolished amidst the comparatively obscene celebration of independence and liberty with his potent speech and passion for the anti-abolition cause. After escaping from slavery, he went on to become a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York with his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. To this day, his fierce activism and devotion to exposing virulent racism for what it was has left a lasting legacy upon pro-Black social movements and the overall sociopolitical landscape of America.

11. Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

“You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.”

With her iconic poem Still I Rise , Maya Angelou is well-known for uplifting fellow African American women through her empowering novels and poetry and her work as a civil rights activist. Every bit as lyrical on the page, her recitation of Still I Rise continues to give poetry audiences shivers all over the world, inspiring women of colour everywhere to keep the good faith in striving for equality and peace, while radically believing in and empowering themselves to be agents of change. A dramatic reading of the poem will easily showcase the self-belief, strength and punch that it packs in the last stanza on the power of resisting marginalization.

12. Their Finest Hour by Winston Churchill

“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.””

In the darkest shadows cast by war, few leaders have been able to step up to the mantle and effectively unify millions of citizens for truly sacrificial causes. Winston Churchill was the extraordinary exception – lifting 1940 Britain out of the darkness with his hopeful, convicted rhetoric to galvanise the English amidst bleak, dreary days of war and loss. Through Britain’s standalone position in WWII against the Nazis, he left his legacy by unifying the nation under shared sacrifices of the army and commemorating their courage.

13. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

“Life for both sexes – and I looked at them (through a restaurant window while waiting for my lunch to be served), shouldering their way along the pavement – is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself. By feeling that one has some innate superiority – it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose, or the portrait of a grandfather by Romney – for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination – over other people. Hence the enormous importance to a patriarch who has to conquer, who has to rule, of feeling that great numbers of people, half the human race indeed, are by nature inferior to himself. It must indeed be one of the great sources of his power….Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. Without that power probably the earth would still be swamp and jungle. The glories of all our wars would be on the remains of mutton bones and bartering flints for sheepskins or whatever simple ornament took our unsophisticated taste. Supermen and Fingers of Destiny would never have existed. The Czar and the Kaiser would never have worn their crowns or lost them. Whatever may be their use in civilised societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action. That is why Napoleon and Mussolini both insist so emphatically upon the inferiority of women, for if they were not inferior, they would cease to enlarge. That serves to explain in part the necessity that women so often are to men. And it serves to explain how restless they are under her criticism; how impossible it is for her to say to them this book is bad, this picture is feeble, or whatever it may be, without giving far more pain and rousing far more anger than a man would do who gave the same criticism. For if she begins to tell the truth, the figure in the looking-glass shrinks; his fitness in life is diminished. How is he to go on giving judgment, civilising natives, making laws, writing books, dressing up and speechifying at banquets, unless he can see himself at breakfast and at dinner at least twice the size he really is?”

In this transformational speech , Virginia Woolf pronounces her vision that ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’. She calls out the years in which women have been deprived of their own space for individual development through being chained to traditional arrangements or men’s prescriptions – demanding ‘gigantic courage’ and ‘confidence in oneself’ to brave through the onerous struggle of creating change for women’s rights. With her steadfast, stolid rhetoric and radical theorization, she paved the way for many women’s rights activists and writers to forge their own paths against patriarchal authority.

14. Inaugural Address by John F Kennedy

“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility–I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it–and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”

For what is probably the most historically groundbreaking use of parallelism in speech across American history, President JFK placed the weighty task of ‘asking what one can do for their country’ onto the shoulders of each American citizen. Using an air of firmness in his rhetoric by declaring his commitment to his countrymen, he urges each American to do the same for the broader, noble ideal of freedom for all. With his crucial interrogation of a citizen’s moral duty to his nation, President JFK truly made history.

15. Atoms for Peace Speech by Dwight Eisenhower

“To pause there would be to confirm the hopeless finality of a belief that two atomic colossi are doomed malevolently to eye each other indefinitely across a trembling world. To stop there would be to accept helplessly the probability of civilization destroyed, the annihilation of the irreplaceable heritage of mankind handed down to us from generation to generation, and the condemnation of mankind to begin all over again the age-old struggle upward from savagery towards decency, and right, and justice. Surely no sane member of the human race could discover victory in such desolation. Could anyone wish his name to be coupled by history with such human degradation and destruction?Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the “great destroyers”, but the whole book of history reveals mankind’s never-ending quest for peace and mankind’s God-given capacity to build. It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive,not destructive. It wants agreements, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom and in the confidence that the peoples of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life. So my country’s purpose is to help us to move out of the dark chamber of horrors into the light, to find a way by which the minds of men, the hopes of men, the souls of men everywhere, can move forward towards peace and happiness and well-being.”

On a possibility as frightful and tense as nuclear war, President Eisenhower managed to convey the gravity of the world’s plight in his measured and persuasive speech centred on the greater good of mankind. Using rhetorical devices such as the three-part paratactical syntax which most world leaders are fond of for ingraining their words in the minds of their audience, he centers the discourse of the atomic bomb on those affected by such a world-changing decision in ‘the minds, hopes and souls of men everywhere’ – effectively putting the vivid image of millions of people’s fates at stake in the minds of his audience. Being able to make a topic as heavy and fraught with moral conflict as this as eloquent as he did, Eisenhower definitely ranks among some of the most skilled orators to date.

16. The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action by Audre Lorde

“I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences. What are the words you do not have yet? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am black, because I am myself, a black woman warrior poet doing my work, come to ask you, are you doing yours?”

Revolutionary writer, feminist and civil rights activist Audre Lorde first delivered this phenomenal speech at Lesbian and Literature panel of the Modern Language Association’s December 28, 1977 meeting, which went on to feature permanently in her writings for its sheer wisdom and truth. Her powerful writing and speech about living on the margins of society has enlightened millions of people discriminated across various intersections, confronting them with the reality that they must speak – since their ‘silence will not protect’ them from further marginalization. Through her illuminating words and oratory, she has reminded marginalized persons of the importance of their selfhood and the radical capacity for change they have in a world blighted by prejudice and division.

17. 1965 Cambridge Union Hall Speech by James Baldwin

“What is dangerous here is the turning away from – the turning away from – anything any white American says. The reason for the political hesitation, in spite of the Johnson landslide is that one has been betrayed by American politicians for so long. And I am a grown man and perhaps I can be reasoned with. I certainly hope I can be. But I don’t know, and neither does Martin Luther King, none of us know how to deal with those other people whom the white world has so long ignored, who don’t believe anything the white world says and don’t entirely believe anything I or Martin is saying. And one can’t blame them. You watch what has happened to them in less than twenty years.”

Baldwin’s invitation to the Cambridge Union Hall is best remembered for foregrounding the unflinching differences in white and African Americans’ ‘system of reality’ in everyday life. Raising uncomfortable truths about the insidious nature of racism post-civil war, he provides several nuggets of thought-provoking wisdom on the state of relations between the oppressed and their oppressors, and what is necessary to mediate such relations and destroy the exploitative thread of racist hatred. With great frankness, he admits to not having all the answers but provides hard-hitting wisdom on engagement to guide activists through confounding times nonetheless.

18. I Am Prepared to Die by Nelson Mandela

“Above all, My Lord, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy. But this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the only solution which will guarantee racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not true that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial domination. Political division, based on colour, is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one colour group by another. The ANC has spent half a century fighting against racialism. When it triumphs as it certainly must, it will not change that policy. This then is what the ANC is fighting. Our struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by our own suffering and our own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, My Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Apartheid is still considered one of these most devastating events of world history, and it would not have ended without the crucial effort and words of Nelson Mandela during his courageous political leadership. In this heartbreaking speech , he voices his utter devotion to the fight against institutionalised racism in African society – an ideal for which he was ‘prepared to die for’. Mandela continues to remind us today of his moral conviction in leading, wherein the world would likely to be a better place if all politicians had the same resolve and genuine commitment to human rights and the abolition of oppression as he did.

19. Critique on British Imperialism by General Aung San

“Do they form their observations by seeing the attendances at not very many cinemas and theatres of Rangoon? Do they judge this question of money circulation by paying a stray visit to a local bazaar? Do they know that cinemas and theatres are not true indicators, at least in Burma, of the people’s conditions? Do they know that there are many in this country who cannot think of going to these places by having to struggle for their bare existence from day to day? Do they know that those who nowadays patronise or frequent cinemas and theatres which exist only in Rangoon and a few big towns, belong generally to middle and upper classes and the very few of the many poor who can attend at all are doing so as a desperate form of relaxation just to make them forget their unsupportable existences for the while whatever may be the tomorrow that awaits them?”

Under British colonial rule, one of the most legendary nationalist leaders emerged from the ranks of the thousands of Burmese to boldly lead them towards independence, out of the exploitation and control under the British. General Aung San’s speech criticising British social, political and economic control of Burma continues to be scathing, articulate, and relevant – especially given his necessary goal of uniting the Burmese natives against their common oppressor. He successfully galvanised his people against the British, taking endless risks through nationalist speeches and demonstrations which gradually bore fruit in Burma’s independence.

20. Nobel Lecture by Mother Teresa

“I believe that we are not real social workers. We may be doing social work in the eyes of the people, but we are really contemplatives in the heart of the world. For we are touching the Body Of Christ 24 hours. We have 24 hours in this presence, and so you and I. You too try to bring that presence of God in your family, for the family that prays together stays together. And I think that we in our family don’t need bombs and guns, to destroy to bring peace–just get together, love one another, bring that peace, that joy, that strength of presence of each other in the home. And we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world. There is so much suffering, so much hatred, so much misery, and we with our prayer, with our sacrifice are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do. It is to God Almighty–how much we do it does not matter, because He is infinite, but how much love we put in that action. How much we do to Him in the person that we are serving.”

In contemporary culture, most people understand Mother Teresa to be the epitome of compassion and kindness. However, if one were to look closer at her speeches from the past, one would discover not merely her altruistic contributions, but her keen heart for social justice and the downtrodden. She wisely and gracefully remarks that ‘love begins at home’ from the individual actions of each person within their private lives, which accumulate into a life of goodness and charity. For this, her speeches served not just consolatory value or momentary relevance, as they still inform the present on how we can live lives worth living.

21. June 9 Speech to Martial Law Units by Deng Xiaoping

“This army still maintains the traditions of our old Red Army. What they crossed this time was in the true sense of the expression a political barrier, a threshold of life and death. This was not easy. This shows that the People’s Army is truly a great wall of iron and steel of the party and state. This shows that no matter how heavy our losses, the army, under the leadership of the party, will always remain the defender of the country, the defender of socialism, and the defender of the public interest. They are a most lovable people. At the same time, we should never forget how cruel our enemies are. We should have not one bit of forgiveness for them. The fact that this incident broke out as it did is very worthy of our pondering. It prompts us cool-headedly to consider the past and the future. Perhaps this bad thing will enable us to go ahead with reform and the open policy at a steadier and better — even a faster — pace, more speedily correct our mistakes, and better develop our strong points.”

Mere days before the 4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping sat with six party elders (senior officials) and the three remaining members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the paramount decision-making body in China’s government. The meeting was organised to discuss the best course of action for restoring social and political order to China, given the sweeping economic reforms that had taken place in the past decade that inevitably resulted in some social resistance from the populace. Deng then gave this astute and well-regarded speech, outlining the political complexities in shutting down student protests given the context of reforms encouraging economic liberalization already taking place, as aligned with the students’ desires. It may not be the most rousing or inflammatory of speeches, but it was certainly persuasive in voicing the importance of taking a strong stand for the economic reforms Deng was implementing to benefit Chinese citizens in the long run. Today, China is an economic superpower, far from its war-torn developing country status before Deng’s leadership – thanks to his foresight in ensuring political stability would allow China to enjoy the fruits of the massive changes they adapted to.

22. Freedom or Death by Emmeline Pankhurst

“You won your freedom in America when you had the revolution, by bloodshed, by sacrificing human life. You won the civil war by the sacrifice of human life when you decided to emancipate the negro. You have left it to women in your land, the men of all civilised countries have left it to women, to work out their own salvation. That is the way in which we women of England are doing. Human life for us is sacred, but we say if any life is to be sacrificed it shall be ours; we won’t do it ourselves, but we will put the enemy in the position where they will have to choose between giving us freedom or giving us death. Now whether you approve of us or whether you do not, you must see that we have brought the question of women’s suffrage into a position where it is of first rate importance, where it can be ignored no longer. Even the most hardened politician will hesitate to take upon himself directly the responsibility of sacrificing the lives of women of undoubted honour, of undoubted earnestness of purpose. That is the political situation as I lay it before you today.”

In 1913 after Suffragette Emily Davison stepped in front of King George V’s horse at the Epsom Derby and suffered fatal injuries, Emmeline Pankhurst delivered her speech to Connecticut as a call to action for people to support the suffragette movement. Her fortitude in delivering such a sobering speech on the state of women’s rights is worth remembering for its invaluable impact and contributions to the rights we enjoy in today’s world.

23. Quit India by Mahatma Gandhi

“We shall either free India or die in the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery. Every true Congressman or woman will join the struggle with an inflexible determination not to remain alive to see the country in bondage and slavery. Let that be your pledge. Keep jails out of your consideration. If the Government keep me free, I will not put on the Government the strain of maintaining a large number of prisoners at a time, when it is in trouble. Let every man and woman live every moment of his or her life hereafter in the consciousness that he or she eats or lives for achieving freedom and will die, if need be, to attain that goal. Take a pledge, with God and your own conscience as witness, that you will no longer rest till freedom is achieved and will be prepared to lay down your lives in the attempt to achieve it. He who loses his life will gain it; he who will seek to save it shall lose it. Freedom is not for the coward or the faint-hearted.”

Naturally, the revolutionary activist Gandhi had to appear in this list for his impassioned anti-colonial speeches which rallied Indians towards independence. Famous for leading non-violent demonstrations, his speeches were a key element in gathering Indians of all backgrounds together for the common cause of eliminating their colonial masters. His speeches were resolute, eloquent, and courageous, inspiring the hope and admiration of many not just within India, but around the world.

24. 1974 National Book Award Speech by Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde

“The statement I am going to read was prepared by three of the women nominated for the National Book Award for poetry, with the agreement that it would be read by whichever of us, if any, was chosen.We, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Alice Walker, together accept this award in the name of all the women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world, and in the name of those who, like us, have been tolerated as token women in this culture, often at great cost and in great pain. We believe that we can enrich ourselves more in supporting and giving to each other than by competing against each other; and that poetry—if it is poetry—exists in a realm beyond ranking and comparison. We symbolically join together here in refusing the terms of patriarchal competition and declaring that we will share this prize among us, to be used as best we can for women. We appreciate the good faith of the judges for this award, but none of us could accept this money for herself, nor could she let go unquestioned the terms on which poets are given or denied honor and livelihood in this world, especially when they are women. We dedicate this occasion to the struggle for self-determination of all women, of every color, identification, or derived class: the poet, the housewife, the lesbian, the mathematician, the mother, the dishwasher, the pregnant teen-ager, the teacher, the grandmother, the prostitute, the philosopher, the waitress, the women who will understand what we are doing here and those who will not understand yet; the silent women whose voices have been denied us, the articulate women who have given us strength to do our work.”

Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker wrote this joint speech to be delivered by Adrienne Rich at the 1974 National Book Awards, based on their suspicions that the first few African American lesbian women to be nominated for the awards would be snubbed in favour of a white woman nominee. Their suspicions were confirmed, and Adrienne Rich delivered this socially significant speech in solidarity with her fellow nominees, upholding the voices of the ‘silent women whose voices have been denied’.

25. Speech to 20th Congress of the CPSU by Nikita Khruschev

“Considering the question of the cult of an individual, we must first of all show everyone what harm this caused to the interests of our Party. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had always stressed the Party’s role and significance in the direction of the socialist government of workers and peasants; he saw in this the chief precondition for a successful building of socialism in our country. Pointing to the great responsibility of the Bolshevik Party, as ruling Party of the Soviet state, Lenin called for the most meticulous observance of all norms of Party life; he called for the realization of the principles of collegiality in the direction of the Party and the state. Collegiality of leadership flows from the very nature of our Party, a Party built on the principles of democratic centralism. “This means,” said Lenin, “that all Party matters are accomplished by all Party members – directly or through representatives – who, without any exceptions, are subject to the same rules; in addition, all administrative members, all directing collegia, all holders of Party positions are elective, they must account for their activities and are recallable.””

This speech is possibly the most famed Russian speech for its status as a ‘secret’ speech delivered only to the CPSU at the time, which was eventually revealed to the public. Given the unchallenged political legacy and cult of personality which Stalin left in the Soviet Union, Nikita Khruschev’s speech condemning the authoritarian means Stalin had resorted to to consolidate power as un-socialist was an important mark in Russian history.

26. The Struggle for Human Rights by Eleanor Roosevelt

“It is my belief, and I am sure it is also yours, that the struggle for democracy and freedom is a critical struggle, for their preservation is essential to the great objective of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security. Among free men the end cannot justify the means. We know the patterns of totalitarianism — the single political party, the control of schools, press, radio, the arts, the sciences, and the church to support autocratic authority; these are the age-old patterns against which men have struggled for three thousand years. These are the signs of reaction, retreat, and retrogression. The United Nations must hold fast to the heritage of freedom won by the struggle of its people; it must help us to pass it on to generations to come. The development of the ideal of freedom and its translation into the everyday life of the people in great areas of the earth is the product of the efforts of many peoples. It is the fruit of a long tradition of vigorous thinking and courageous action. No one race and on one people can claim to have done all the work to achieve greater dignity for human beings and great freedom to develop human personality. In each generation and in each country there must be a continuation of the struggle and new steps forward must be taken since this is preeminently a field in which to stand still is to retreat.”

Eleanor Roosevelt has been among the most well-loved First Ladies for good reason – her eloquence and gravitas in delivering every speech convinced everyone of her suitability for the oval office. In this determined and articulate speech , she outlines the fundamental values that form the bedrock of democracy, urging the rest of the world to uphold human rights regardless of national ideology and interests.

27. The Ballot or The Bullet by Malcolm X

“And in this manner, the organizations will increase in number and in quantity and in quality, and by August, it is then our intention to have a black nationalist convention which will consist of delegates from all over the country who are interested in the political, economic and social philosophy of black nationalism. After these delegates convene, we will hold a seminar; we will hold discussions; we will listen to everyone. We want to hear new ideas and new solutions and new answers. And at that time, if we see fit then to form a black nationalist party, we’ll form a black nationalist party. If it’s necessary to form a black nationalist army, we’ll form a black nationalist army. It’ll be the ballot or the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death.”

Inarguably, the revolutionary impact Malcolm X’s fearless oratory had was substantial in his time as a radical anti-racist civil rights activist. His speeches’ emancipatory potential put forth his ‘theory of rhetorical action’ where he urges Black Americans to employ both the ballot and the bullet, strategically without being dependent on the other should the conditions of oppression change. A crucial leader in the fight for civil rights, he opened the eyes of thousands of Black Americans, politicising and convincing them of the necessity of fighting for their democratic rights against white supremacists.

28. Living the Revolution by Gloria Steinem

“The challenge to all of us, and to you men and women who are graduating today, is to live a revolution, not to die for one. There has been too much killing, and the weapons are now far too terrible. This revolution has to change consciousness, to upset the injustice of our current hierarchy by refusing to honor it, and to live a life that enforces a new social justice. Because the truth is none of us can be liberated if other groups are not.”

In an unexpected commencement speech delivered at Vassar College in 1970, Gloria Steinem boldly makes a call to action on behalf of marginalized groups in need of liberation to newly graduated students. She proclaimed it the year of Women’s Liberation and forcefully highlighted the need for a social revolution to ‘upset the injustice of the current hierarchy’ in favour of human rights – echoing the hard-hitting motto on social justice, ‘until all of us are free, none of us are free’.

29. The Last Words of Harvey Milk by Harvey Milk

“I cannot prevent some people from feeling angry and frustrated and mad in response to my death, but I hope they will take the frustration and madness and instead of demonstrating or anything of that type, I would hope that they would take the power and I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let the world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody could imagine. I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights. … All I ask is for the movement to continue, and if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door…”

As the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, Harvey Milk’s entire political candidature was in itself a radical statement against the homophobic status quo at the time. Given the dangerous times he was in as an openly gay man, he anticipated that he would be assassinated eventually in his political career. As such, these are some of his last words which show the utter devotion he had to campaigning against homophobia while representing the American people, voicing his heartbreaking wish for the bullet that would eventually kill him to ‘destroy every closet door’.

30. Black Power Address at UC Berkeley by Stokely Carmichael

“Now we are now engaged in a psychological struggle in this country, and that is whether or not black people will have the right to use the words they want to use without white people giving their sanction to it; and that we maintain, whether they like it or not, we gonna use the word “Black Power” — and let them address themselves to that; but that we are not going to wait for white people to sanction Black Power. We’re tired waiting; every time black people move in this country, they’re forced to defend their position before they move. It’s time that the people who are supposed to be defending their position do that. That’s white people. They ought to start defending themselves as to why they have oppressed and exploited us.”

A forceful and impressive orator, Stokely Carmichael was among those at the forefront of the civil rights movement, who was a vigorous socialist organizer as well. He led the Black Power movement wherein he gave this urgent, influential speech that propelled Black Americans forward in their fight for constitutional rights in the 1960s.

31. Speech on Vietnam by Lyndon Johnson

“The true peace-keepers are those men who stand out there on the DMZ at this very hour, taking the worst that the enemy can give. The true peace-keepers are the soldiers who are breaking the terrorist’s grip around the villages of Vietnam—the civilians who are bringing medical care and food and education to people who have already suffered a generation of war. And so I report to you that we are going to continue to press forward. Two things we must do. Two things we shall do. First, we must not mislead the enemy. Let him not think that debate and dissent will produce wavering and withdrawal. For I can assure you they won’t. Let him not think that protests will produce surrender. Because they won’t. Let him not think that he will wait us out. For he won’t. Second, we will provide all that our brave men require to do the job that must be done. And that job is going to be done. These gallant men have our prayers-have our thanks—have our heart-felt praise—and our deepest gratitude. Let the world know that the keepers of peace will endure through every trial—and that with the full backing of their countrymen, they are going to prevail.”

During some of the most harrowing periods of human history, the Vietnam War, American soldiers were getting soundly defeated by the Vietnamese in guerrilla warfare. President Lyndon Johnson then issued this dignified, consolatory speech to encourage patriotism and support for the soldiers putting their lives on the line for the nation.

32. A Whisper of AIDS by Mary Fisher

“We may take refuge in our stereotypes, but we cannot hide there long, because HIV asks only one thing of those it attacks. Are you human? And this is the right question. Are you human? Because people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being. They are human. They have not earned cruelty, and they do not deserve meanness. They don’t benefit from being isolated or treated as outcasts. Each of them is exactly what God made: a person; not evil, deserving of our judgment; not victims, longing for our pity ­­ people, ready for  support and worthy of compassion. We must be consistent if we are to be believed. We cannot love justice and ignore prejudice, love our children and fear to teach them. Whatever our role as parent or policymaker, we must act as eloquently as we speak ­­ else we have no integrity. My call to the nation is a plea for awareness. If you believe you are safe, you are in danger. Because I was not hemophiliac, I was not at risk. Because I was not gay, I was not at risk. Because I did not inject drugs, I was not at risk. The lesson history teaches is this: If you believe you are safe, you are at risk. If you do not see this killer stalking your children, look again. There is no family or community, no race or religion, no place left in America that is safe. Until we genuinely embrace this message, we are a nation at risk.”

Back when AIDS research was still undeveloped, the stigma of contracting HIV was even more immense than it is today. A celebrated artist, author and speaker, Mary Fisher became an outspoken activist for those with HIV/AIDS, persuading people to extend compassion to the population with HIV instead of stigmatizing them – as injustice has a way of coming around to people eventually. Her bold act of speaking out for the community regardless of the way they contracted the disease, their sexual orientation or social group, was an influential move in advancing the human rights of those with HIV and spreading awareness on the discrimination they face.

33. Freedom from Fear by Aung San Suu Kyi

“The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit, born of an intellectual conviction of the need for change in those mental attitudes and values which shape the course of a nation’s development. A revolution which aims merely at changing official policies and institutions with a view to an improvement in material conditions has little chance of genuine success. Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration. It is not enough merely to call for freedom, democracy and human rights. There has to be a united determination to persevere in the struggle, to make sacrifices in the name of enduring truths, to resist the corrupting influences of desire, ill will, ignorance and fear. Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying. So free men are the oppressed who go on trying and who in the process make themselves fit to bear the responsibilities and to uphold the disciplines which will maintain a free society. Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people who would build a nation in which strong, democratic institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against state-induced power must first learn to liberate their own minds from apathy and fear.”

Famous for her resoluteness and fortitude in campaigning for democracy in Burma despite being put under house arrest by the military government, Aung San Suu Kyi’s speeches have been widely touted as inspirational. In this renowned speech of hers, she delivers a potent message to Burmese to ‘liberate their minds from apathy and fear’ in the struggle for freedom and human rights in the country. To this day, she continues to tirelessly champion the welfare and freedom of Burmese in a state still overcome by vestiges of authoritarian rule.

34. This Is Water by David Foster Wallace

“Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

Esteemed writer David Foster Wallace gave a remarkably casual yet wise commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005 on the importance of learning to think beyond attaining a formal education. He encouraged hundreds of students to develop freedom of thought, a heart of sacrificial care for those in need of justice, and a consciousness that would serve them in discerning the right choices to make within a status quo that is easy to fall in line with. His captivating speech on what it meant to truly be ‘educated’ tugged at the hearts of many young and critical minds striving to achieve their dreams and change the world.

35. Questioning the Universe by Stephen Hawking

“This brings me to the last of the big questions: the future of the human race. If we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy, we should make sure we survive and continue. But we are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history. Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million. Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward-looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space. The answers to these big questions show that we have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space. That is why I am in favor of manned — or should I say, personned — space flight.”

Extraordinary theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking was a considerable influence upon modern physics and scientific research at large, inspiring people regardless of physical ability to aspire towards expanding knowledge in the world. In his speech on Questioning the Universe, he speaks of the emerging currents and issues in the scientific world like that of outer space, raising and answering big questions that have stumped great thinkers for years.

36. 2008 Democratic National Convention Speech by Michelle Obama

“I stand here today at the crosscurrents of that history — knowing that my piece of the American dream is a blessing hard won by those who came before me. All of them driven by the same conviction that drove my dad to get up an hour early each day to painstakingly dress himself for work. The same conviction that drives the men and women I’ve met all across this country: People who work the day shift, kiss their kids goodnight, and head out for the night shift — without disappointment, without regret — that goodnight kiss a reminder of everything they’re working for. The military families who say grace each night with an empty seat at the table. The servicemen and women who love this country so much, they leave those they love most to defend it. The young people across America serving our communities — teaching children, cleaning up neighborhoods, caring for the least among us each and every day. People like Hillary Clinton, who put those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters — and sons — can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher. People like Joe Biden, who’s never forgotten where he came from and never stopped fighting for folks who work long hours and face long odds and need someone on their side again. All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do — that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be. That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack’s journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope. That is why I love this country.”

Ever the favourite modern First Lady of America, Michelle Obama has delivered an abundance of iconic speeches in her political capacity, never forgetting to foreground the indomitable human spirit embodied in American citizens’ everyday lives and efforts towards a better world. The Obamas might just have been the most articulate couple of rhetoricians of their time, making waves as the first African American president and First Lady while introducing important policies in their period of governance.

37. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

“I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t think about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope — Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.”

Now published into a book, Barack Obama’s heart-capturing personal story of transformational hope was first delivered as a speech on the merits of patriotic optimism and determination put to the mission of concrete change. He has come to be known as one of the most favoured and inspiring presidents in American history, and arguably the most skilled orators ever.

38. “Be Your Own Story” by Toni Morrison

“But I’m not going to talk anymore about the future because I’m hesitant to describe or predict because I’m not even certain that it exists. That is to say, I’m not certain that somehow, perhaps, a burgeoning ménage a trois of political interests, corporate interests and military interests will not prevail and literally annihilate an inhabitable, humane future. Because I don’t think we can any longer rely on separation of powers, free speech, religious tolerance or unchallengeable civil liberties as a matter of course. That is, not while finite humans in the flux of time make decisions of infinite damage. Not while finite humans make infinite claims of virtue and unassailable power that are beyond their competence, if not their reach. So, no happy talk about the future. … Because the past is already in debt to the mismanaged present. And besides, contrary to what you may have heard or learned, the past is not done and it is not over, it’s still in process, which is another way of saying that when it’s critiqued, analyzed, it yields new information about itself. The past is already changing as it is being reexamined, as it is being listened to for deeper resonances. Actually it can be more liberating than any imagined future if you are willing to identify its evasions, its distortions, its lies, and are willing to unleash its secrets.”

Venerated author and professor Toni Morrison delivered an impressively articulate speech at Wellesley College in 2004 to new graduates, bucking the trend by discussing the importance of the past in informing current and future ways of living. With her brilliance and eloquence, she blew the crowd away and renewed in them the capacity for reflection upon using the past as a talisman to guide oneself along the journey of life.

39. Nobel Speech by Malala Yousafzai

“Dear brothers and sisters, the so-called world of adults may understand it, but we children don’t. Why is it that countries which we call “strong” are so powerful in creating wars but so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so difficult? As we are living in the modern age, the 21st century and we all believe that nothing is impossible. We can reach the moon and maybe soon will land on Mars. Then, in this, the 21st century, we must be determined that our dream of quality education for all will also come true. So let us bring equality, justice and peace for all. Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to contribute. Me. You. It is our duty. So we must work … and not wait. I call upon my fellow children to stand up around the world. Dear sisters and brothers, let us become the first generation to decide to be the last. The empty classrooms, the lost childhoods, wasted potential-let these things end with us.”

At a mere 16 years of age, Malala Yousafzai gave a speech on the severity of the state of human rights across the world, and wowed the world with her passion for justice at her tender age. She displayed tenacity and fearlessness speaking about her survival of an assassination attempt for her activism for gender equality in the field of education. A model of courage to us all, her speech remains an essential one in the fight for human rights in the 21st century.

40. Final Commencement Speech by Michelle Obama

“If you are a person of faith, know that religious diversity is a great American tradition, too. In fact, that’s why people first came to this country — to worship freely. And whether you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh — these religions are teaching our young people about justice, and compassion, and honesty. So I want our young people to continue to learn and practice those values with pride. You see, our glorious diversity — our diversities of faiths and colors and creeds — that is not a threat to who we are, it makes us who we are. So the young people here and the young people out there: Do not ever let anyone make you feel like you don’t matter, or like you don’t have a place in our American story — because you do. And you have a right to be exactly who you are. But I also want to be very clear: This right isn’t just handed to you. No, this right has to be earned every single day. You cannot take your freedoms for granted. Just like generations who have come before you, you have to do your part to preserve and protect those freedoms. … It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed us to rise above the voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear that we have faced in our own lives and in the life of this country. Our hope that if we work hard enough and believe in ourselves, then we can be whatever we dream, regardless of the limitations that others may place on us. The hope that when people see us for who we truly are, maybe, just maybe they, too, will be inspired to rise to their best possible selves.”

Finally, we have yet another speech by Michelle Obama given in her final remarks as First Lady – a tear-inducing event for many Americans and even people around the world. In this emotional end to her political tenure, she gives an empowering, hopeful, expressive speech to young Americans, exhorting them to take hold of its future in all their diversity and work hard at being their best possible selves.

Amidst the bleak era of our current time with Trump as president of the USA, not only Michelle Obama, but all 40 of these amazing speeches can serve as sources of inspiration and hope to everyone – regardless of their identity or ambitions. After hearing these speeches, which one’s your favorite? Let us know in the comments below!

Article Written By: Kai Xin Koh

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The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500

Remarks by President   Biden at the IBEW Construction and Maintenance Conference

Washington Hilton Hotel Washington, D.C.

12:08 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT:  Hello!  (Applause.)  Hello, hello, hello!  (Applause.)  It’s good to be home.  (Applause.)

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  As my mother would say, “God love you.”  Please have a seat if you have one.  I don’t wa- — (laughs) — want you all to have to stand for me.  (Laughter.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Four more years, Joe!

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I tell you what, man — (applause) —

AUDIENCE:  Four more years!  Four more years!  Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT:  The reason I got the first four years is the IBEW, and that’s no malarkey.  You guys stood up first.  (Applause.)

Kenny, thanks for that introduction.  I tell you what, I caught the tail end of the little film there.  Pretty impressive.  He’s now a movie star.  (Laughter.)

Look, most of all, I want to thank Kenny and all of you for your partnership and your friendship.  Union workers, IBEW, I’m President and that’s not — no malarkey, because of you.  That’s no joke.  I wouldn’t be standing here had you not stepped up when you did in 2020.  (Applause.)

I was home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where I was raised, and I visited a — the place I used to live in, et cetera.  I tell you what, my grandfather, Ambrose Finnegan, he’d be proud as hell I’m listed as the most pro-union president in history.  He — (applause).

I had an uncle named Ed Finnegan.  He’d say, “Joey, you are union from belt buckle to shoe sole.”  Well, I tell you what, it’s because you built the country.  You’re proof of what I’ve always known.

And I mean this sincerely.  I’ve been saying it for a long time, and it’s finally getting through — not to you but to everybody.  Wall Street didn’t build America.  The middle class built America.  And unions — unions built the middle class.  (Applause.)  And that’s no — you built the middle class.  There would be no middle class without you.

Folks, you’ve been hosting this conference for a long time.  But it’s fair to say in the last four years, there’s been more excitement and energy than ever — of all the work you’re doing.  I know because I see you all across America as I go across the country. 

Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 51,000 new infrastructure projects have been announced so far, and we’re just beginning — roads, bridges, ports, airports, clean water systems, affordable high-speed Internet — all across America, installed by IBEW workers.  (Applause.)

I said when you guys endorsed me, “When I think of climate, I think of unions.  I think of jobs.  Jobs.” 

Improved power grids, new offshore wind turbines put up by the IBEW workers.

A national network of 500,000 electric vehicle stations are going to be built by IBEW workers.

And let’s hear it for Davis-Bacon requirements.  (Applause.)  They guarantee these projects will pay a prevailing wage.

Project Labor Agreements that make sure they hire highly skilled workers who have a voice on the job. 

And, by the way, these projects are using American-made materials, creating even more good-paying American jobs — union jobs.  (Applause.)

You know, since the 1930s — and I have to admit to you, in my early days in the Senate, I didn’t realize this law said it would — the law that established the rights of a union to organize back in the ‘30s — well, that law said — a little piece in it no one paid much attention to.

The law said that when the federal government spends taxpayers’ dollars, it has to — it has to buy American products with it and it has to use American labor.  But that was honored in a — in the exception.  The vast majority of the presidents didn’t do it, and the last guy didn’t even know it.  (Laughter.)  A lot of things he doesn’t know.  (Applause.)

But, look, that’s “Buy American.”  Past administrations, including my predecessor, failed to uphold it. 

But not anymore.  My administration uses American products and American labor to build those products.  (Applause.) 

And, by the way, for all you trade — skilled trade representatives out there, it’s totally within all the rules and regulations.  And there’s no violation.  We’re not violating anything, man, except we’re showing the world what we can do.

At the same time, we’re making the most significant climate investments ever.  When I think — I said, when I think of climate, I think of jobs: union jobs, good-paying jobs, many that don’t require a college degree.  And that’s what we’re seeing. 

We’ve attracted $700 billion in private investments in advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and more here in America, creating tens of thousands of good-paying IBEW jobs. 

The bottom line is — this is not an exaggeration — the next decade and beyond, you’ll be coming to this conference seeing how critical the IBEW is and how transformative the proje- — the process you’re going to be making for the country.  And I mean transformative.  

Take nuclear power, the biggest source of clean energy.  It employs over 60,000 workers, including many of you.  The key to meeting the goal of a 100 percent clean power grid by 2035 depends a lot on it.  That’s why we’re keeping existing plants open, restarting shuttered plants, and building America’s first new nuclear plants in decades.  (Applause.) 

And we’re investing to make sure America leads the way on new technologies, like advanced small modular reactors of the future.  That also means manufacturing the fuel that’s needed to run these reactors. 

For too long, we’ve relied on imported uranium to power nuclear reactors — imports from places like Russia, who we can’t trust at all.  My administration is working to change all that.  We’re investing $3.4 billion — $3.4 billion in producing advanced nuclear fuel right here in America. 

You know, folks — (applause) — this — this is — I know we — we’re going to look back on this 20 years from now and be talking about what a revolutionary period this was for the country.  We’re going to make a real gigantic difference. 

Today, I can announce that the IBEW plant in southern Ohio has already produced the first 200 pounds of that powerful enriched uranium — the first ever — first ever made in America.  And it’s on track to produce nearly a ton by the end of the year, enough to power 100,000 homes in this country. 

Folks, thanks to your partnership revitalizing key American industries, we’re reducing reliance on imported oil, creating more jobs for IBEW workers.  So far, more than 2,000 new clean energy projects have come online nationwide since I took office, creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs. 

We’re giving tax breaks that are five-times greater to projects that are prevailing — providing a prevailing wage.  If you don’t provide a prevailing wage, you don’t get the tax break.  And we use registered apprenticeships to train their workers. 

Look, we’ve invested $440 million to expand registered apprenticeship programs.

Most Americans may not know — and I love it.  And you guys should talk more about it, in my humble opinion.  Everybody thinks, “I — I want to be an electrician; I’ll show up and I….”  “Well, here.  Here, here’s your card.”  Come on, man.  (Laughter.)  Think about it.  (Applause.)

You — by the way, go on out and ask people who know you — that you’re acquainted with who aren’t in the business at all, “What’s it take to be an electrician?”  You say, “Oh, well, you just say (inaudible).  You get a little bit of training.”  Four to five years of training to become an electrician.  You’re the best in the world.  That’s why it’s the (inaudible).  (Applause.) 

No, I really mean it.  I mean it.  You’re the best in the world.  It’s like having to go college, for God’s sake.  I’m serious.  (Applause.) 

And I tell you what, every businessman I talk to, I remind them of who you are.  Not a joke.  Not a joke. 

And once workers are trained, we’re making sure they get the good pay and benefits they deserve.  

Through my American Rescue Plan, I also enacted the Butch Lewis Act, the most pro-labor union worker law for retirees in 50 years.  (Applause.)  All we’re doing is protecting pensions for thousands of IBEW workers and others.  The idea made — they made it hard for you to get it done is just — it blows my mind.

But we made it happen, while my predecessor never lifted a finger to do hel- — any help.  A matter of fact, he lifted a finger — he put a thumb on it.

Look, not only that, he put union busters on the National Labor Relations Board.  The people I’ve appointed to the National Labor Relations Board actually care about American workers.  (Applause.)  No, I’m not kidding. 

And despite the Supreme Court and our Republican friends trying to block us, they haven’t stopped me from pursuing an alternative path to relieve the crushing burden of student debt.  That includes forgiving loans for vocational schools, community college, and some apprentice programs as well.  (Applause.) 

And, by the way, all these things are saving America money.  We’re not costing money.  It’s saving America.  It’s growing the economy, for God’s sake.  People are doing better.

I could go on, but I’m not going to.  I’m going to resist the temptation.  (Laughter.)  Because, boy, I’m tempted these days.  (Laughter.) 

Together, we’re doing what always worked best for this country: We’re investing in America.  It’s — that’s not complicated.  We’re investing in Americans — not just America, Americans — building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down — not the top down.  Because when you do that, the poor have a ladder up, the middle class does very well, and the wealthy still do very well, except they don’t pay enough taxes.  (Applause.) 

By the way, just parenthetically, you know how much — we have a thousand billionaires in America.  You know what the average federal tax rate is for them?  Billionaire — billion — not million, billion.  8.3 percent federal tax.

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE PRESIDENT:  No, I’m serious.  Isn’t it bizarre?  Anybody willing to trade their tax rate for yours — (laughter) — raise your hand.

Look — and, folks, our plan is working.  So far, we’ve created 15 million new jobs.  Unemployment hasn’t been this low for this long in 50 years.  And that includes record-low unemployment for Black and Hispanic workers as well.  Wages are rising.  Manufacturing is booming.  We’ve created close to eight hun- — you’ve created close to 800,000 new manufacturing jobs since I became president.  (Applause.) 

And I got to tell you, when I was a senator and vice pre- — I got so sick and tired — I know a little about corporations.  There are more corporations in — in — (laughs) — registered in my home state of Delaware than every other state in the Union combined.  They’re not all bad guys, but they ain’t all good guys, either.  (Laughter.)

Look, think what’s happened, all kidding aside, for the years — the previous 15 years, 20 years.  Corporations look for the cheapest labor in the world, sent the jobs — sent the product to those — sent the jobs to those laborers, whether they’re in Asia or Europe, wherever they were, and then they sent the product back home.

Well, instead of importing foreign products, I’m exporting f- — their products, and we’re making those jobs American jobs, created here in America where they belong.  (Applause.)

It’s not that complicated.  No, I really mean it.

Five hundred fifty thousand jobs brought home — home, home home.  (Applause.)

But it’s pretty basic stuff.  I won’t get off course here talking about chips, but all those computer chips, we — we invented.  We s- — we made s- — about the tip of the finger, the size of it.  Well, guess what?  I — you know, I went over to South Korea.  They said, “What are you doing that for?”  I said, “I’m going to get them to invest in America instead of us having to import all of this stuff.”  We had this — this space between what we needed and what we could get.

Well, guess what?  We’ve been — we created $500 bi- — $50 billion in investments here.  They’re bringing it here.  And I asked the guy at Samsung why.  You know what he said to me?  He said, “You have the best workers in the world, and you have the safest place in the world to invest.”

But, look, folks, my predecessor and his MAGA f- — allies have a very different view. 

He promised “Infrastructure Week” every week for four years and never built a damn thing.  (Laughter and applause.)  That’s a fact.

Now, he’s saying Republicans, they want — this is not your father’s Republican party; this is a different breed of cat — these MAGA Republicans.  Now they want to repeal the climate law that would gut all those new jobs and industries we’re creating here in America. 

My predecessor rolled back protection for American workers.  He opposed increases in federal minimum wage.  And he was proud — very proud of his $2 trillion tax cut when he was president that overwhelmingly benefitted the — the wealthy and created the — and the biggest corporations and exploded — exploded the federal debt.  I cut the federal deficit.  He exploded it.  (Applause.)

By the way, this is no — there’s no exaggeration here. It’s going to expire.  And if I’m reelected, it’s going to stay expired.  (Applause.)

Look, let me close with this.  There are two different ways of looking at our economy.  Some folks learn very different lessons growing up than you and I did.  I learned the best way to get — I — or they learned and my opponent learned the best way to get rich is inherit it.  (Laughter.)  I can’t argue much with that, but they — you know?  They learned that paying taxes is for working people, not the super wealthy.  They learned that telling people “you’re fired” is something to be laughed about.

Not where I come from, not where I was raised.  I guess that’s how they look at the world from Park Avenue and Mar-a-Lago, but I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware — working-class and middle-class towns, like many of you did as well. 

Nobody handed you anything.  You paid your taxes.  And being told you were fired wasn’t entertainment; it was a devastating nightmare to a family. 

Folks, where we come from it matters. 

That’s why when I look at the economy, I don’t see it through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago.  I literally see through the eyes of Scranton and where I grew up and my grandpop’s kitchen table.  I see it through the eyes of working people like you and the basic value set you represent: honesty, decency, hard work, faith.  It matters.  Fairness matters. 

And if you believe like I do everyone in America deserves just an even shot — no guarantee, just a shot — but guaranteed to have a shot.  In America, we leave nobody behind where we come from. 

Folks, that’s the America you all are building.  That’s the America you’re recreating. 

And let me ask you: Are you going to keep doing it?  (Applause.)

I know we can do this because of you, the American worker. 

And I give you my — I’ve never been more optimistic about our future than I am today.  Folks, we just have to remember who the hell we are.  We’re the United States of America.  And there’s nothing beyond our capacity — nothing, nothing, nothing.  (Applause.)

God bless you all.  Thank you, thank you.  And on behalf of America, thank you.  You’ve really done it.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.

12:25 P.M. EDT

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Biden is marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal solar power grants

W ASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal grants for residential solar projects serving 900,000-plus households in low- and middle-income communities. He also plans to expand his New Deal-style American Climate Corps green jobs training program .

The grants are being awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency, which unveiled the 60 recipients on Monday. The projects are expected to eventually reduce emissions by the equivalent of 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and save households $350 million annually, according to senior administration officials.

Biden's latest environmental announcements come as he is working to energize young voters for his reelection campaign. Young people were a key part of a broad but potentially fragile coalition that helped him defeat then-President Donald Trump in 2020. Some have joined protests around the country of the administration's handling of Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Senior administration officials said young Americans are keenly invested in the Biden climate agenda and want to actually help enact it. The Climate Corps initiative is a way for them to do that, the officials said.

Solar energy is gaining traction as a key renewable energy source that could reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels, which emit planet-warming greenhouse gases. Not only is it clean, but solar energy can also boost the reliability of the electric grid.

But solar energy can have high costs for initial installation, making it inaccessible for many Americans — and potentially meaning a mingling of environmental policy with election-year politics.

Forty-nine of the new grants are state-level awards, six serve Native American tribes and five are multi-state awards. They can be used for investments such as rooftop solar and community solar gardens.

Biden is making the announcement at northern Virginia’s Prince William Forest Park, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Washington. It was established in 1936 as a summer camp for underprivileged youth from Washington, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps to help create jobs during the Great Depression.

“Broad community-based solar is our brightest hope for protecting people and our climate from the scourge of fossil fuels," said Jean Su, director of the Energy Justice program at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These targeted investments mean low-income families get clean energy that is affordable, resilient and protects our ecosystems. It’s great to see President Biden jumpstart this landmark program.”

Biden, a Democrat, used executive action last year to create the American Climate Corps modeled on Roosevelt's New Deal. He is announcing Monday that nearly 2,000 corps positions are being offered across 36 states, including jobs offered in partnership with the North American Building Trades Unions.

The president has often used Earth Day as a backdrop to further his administration's climate initiatives. Last year, he signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Environmental Justice, meant to help ensure that poverty, race and ethnic status do not lead to worse exposure to pollution and environmental harm.

He has tried to draw a contrast with GOP congressional leaders, who have called for less regulation of oil production to lower energy prices. Biden officials counter that GOP policies benefit highly profitable oil companies and could ultimately undermine U.S. efforts to compete with the Chinese in the renewable energy sector.

Biden is using his Virginia visit to discuss how "a climate crisis fully manifest to the American people in communities all across the country, is also an opportunity for us to come together,” said White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi.

He said the programs can "unlock economic opportunity to create pathways to middle-class-supporting careers, to save people money and improve their quality of life.”

The awards came from the Solar for All program , part of the $27 billion “green bank” created as part of a sweeping climate law passed in 2022. The bank is intended to reduce climate and air pollution and send money to neighborhoods most in need, especially disadvantaged and low-income communities disproportionately impacted by climate change.

EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said she was “looking forward to these funds getting out into the community, giving people skills, putting them to work in their local communities, and allowing people to save on their energy bills so that they can put those dollars to other needs.”

Among those receiving grants are state projects to provide solar-equipped roofs for homes, college residences and residential-serving community solar projects in West Virginia, a non-profit operating Mississippi solar lease program and solar workforce training initiatives in South Carolina.

The taxpayer-funded green bank has faced Republican opposition and concerns over accountability for how the money gets used. EPA previously disbursed the other $20 billion of the bank’s funds to nonprofits and community development banks for clean energy projects such as residential heat pumps, additional energy-efficient home improvements and larger-scale projects like electric vehicle charging stations and community cooling centers.

St. John reported from Detroit.

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @alexa_stjohn . Reach her at [email protected] .

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

Senate passes bill renewing key FISA surveillance power moments after it expires

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted to reauthorize a powerful surveillance tool the U.S. government describes as critical to combating terrorism, after defeating efforts by civil liberties advocates on the left and right to rein it in.

The vote of 60-34 sends the bill to President Joe Biden, who has championed it. The legislation extends Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act , or FISA, for two more years.

The final vote came after the Senate defeated six amendments from progressive and conservative senators who said the spying powers are too broad and demanded protections for Americans’ civil liberties and privacy. The Biden administration and FISA supporters had warned that even a brief lapse could have a detrimental impact on the intelligence-gathering process.

Senators just missed the midnight deadline to reauthorize the FISA Section 702 statute but voted to reauthorize it minutes later. Had any amendments been adopted, the bill would have been sent back to the House, potentially forcing a lengthy lapse of the law.

“In the nick of time, bipartisanship has prevailed here in the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said.

“It wasn’t easy, people had many different views, but we all know one thing: letting FISA expire would have been dangerous. It’s an important part of our national security to stop acts of terror, drug trafficking, and violent extremism,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Thank you to all my Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their good work in getting this done.”

The House passed a two-year FISA renewal last week after defeating, by the slimmest of margins, an amendment to require a warrant to search through the communications of Americans as part of data collected while surveilling foreigners. Senators delayed a vote for days by pushing for amendments to make changes to the bill.

The bill’s passage came on the heels of a pitched battle between the U.S. intelligence community and an unusual coalition of progressive and conservative civil liberties advocates, who argued that the powers are too expansive and impinge on the privacy of Americans.

“It’s important that people understand how sweeping this bill is,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Intelligence Committee and outspoken proponent of privacy protections. “Something was inserted at the last minute, which would basically compel somebody like a cable guy to spy for the government. They would force the person to do it and there would be no appeal.”

In a rare break with Schumer and Biden, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the president pro tempore, opposed the bill, saying: “I have strong concerns that this expansion of FISA Section 702 authorities would allow for increased abuse and misuse of the law — infringing on the rights of Americans here at home.”

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner, D-Va., pushed back on that and other criticisms of a House amendment added to the FISA reauthorization bill, arguing that it “is narrowly focused on a significant intelligence gap,” but some members like Wyden worry it could be abused.

“Contrary to what some have been saying, it expressly excludes coffee shops, bars, restaurants, residences, hotels, libraries, recreational facilities and a whole litany of similar establishments,” Warner said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “It also absolutely would not, as some critics have maintained, allow the U.S. government to compel, for example, a janitor working in an office building in Northern Virginia to spy for the intelligence community.”

Warner said that allowing FISA to expire would have put the U.S. in “uncharted territory” as companies who work with the government to provide intelligence might have stopped doing so without a reauthorization.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said that “60% of the president’s daily brief is composed of 702-derived materials, so this is absolutely critical.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland called Section 702 "indispensable" in a statement.

“This reauthorization of Section 702 gives the United States the authority to continue to collect foreign intelligence information about non-U.S. persons located outside the United States, while at the same time codifying important reforms the Justice Department has adopted to ensure the protection of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties," he said.

Frank Thorp V is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.

Sahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.

Ryan Nobles is a correspondent covering Capitol Hill.

Venezuela: why Maduro is ramping up his attack on free speech

Professor of Management and Co-director of the Centre for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, University of Essex

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Nicolas Forsans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Oscar Alejandro Pérez , a popular Venezuelan YouTuber who uploads travel videos, was arrested on terrorism charges on Sunday, March 31.

Pérez was detained, and subsequently held for 32 hours, over a video he uploaded in 2023. In the video, he points to the Credicard Tower, a building in Caracas that hosts the servers that facilitate the country’s financial transactions, and jokingly adds: “If a bomb were to be thrown at that building, the whole national banking system would collapse.” He was accused of urging people to blow up the building, something Pérez denies .

His arrest is the latest evidence of President Nicolás Maduro’s growing crackdown on human rights and civil liberties as the country prepares for presidential elections in July.

Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, was a hugely popular president. While in office, he led a social and political movement called the “Bolivarian Revolution” , which aimed to address social, economic and political inequalities through a series of progressive reforms funded by Venezuela’s vast oil wealth.

Then, in 2013, Chávez died and Maduro (who was then vice president) came to power after narrowly winning a special election. Initially, Maduro enjoyed the sympathy and support of many Venezuelans loyal to Chávez and his socialist ideals.

But since taking office Maduro has presided over a series of economic crises . Hyperinflation, shortages of basic goods, and a deep recession have all made him increasingly unpopular. And Venezuela’s economy has contracted by about 70% under Maduro’s leadership.

Consolidating power

The last time Venezuelans went to the polls was in 2018. The contest was so rigged that many neighbouring countries branded the election illegitimate. Two of the most popular opposition candidates were disqualified or barred from running, and Maduro won the contest amid claims of vote rigging and other irregularities.

Many Venezuelans have grown disillusioned with Maduro and have taken to the streets to vent their anger. But widespread discontent and protests have only fed more insecurity, criminality, poverty and social unrest.

Now lacking support from within the Chavista political movement and the Venezuelan military, Maduro has turned to criminal groups to promote a state where illegal armed groups act at the service of the government.

Maduro has consolidated power by using state institutions to silence critics, while at the same time engaging in human rights abuses and profiting from corruption. He has been accused of committing crimes against humanity, including torture, kidnapping and extrajudicial killings. And according to Amnesty International, between 240 and 310 people remain arbitrarily detained on political grounds.

Unsurprisingly, around 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled repression and economic hardship at home. Roughly 3 million of those displaced have started a new life in Colombia, 1.5 million of them have migrated to Peru, while others have made their way north to the US.

The Venezuelan migrant crisis has become the largest in the world, with the number of displaced people exceeding that seen in Ukraine and Syria.

Silencing dissent

Venezuelans will head to the polls on July 28. The arrest of Pérez is part of a wider strategy aimed at silencing dissent and strengthening the regime’s hold over its people as Maduro seeks re-election.

On February 9, a prominent lawyer and military expert Rocío San Miguel was arrested in Caracas before several members of her family disappeared . San Miguel is known for her work exposing corruption in the Venezuelan army. She appeared at a hearing four days later accused of “treason, conspiracy and terrorism” for her purported role in an alleged plot to assassinate Maduro.

Her arrest set off a wave of criticism both inside and outside Venezuela, including from the UN Human Rights Council. Its office in Caracas was subsequently ordered to stop operations on the grounds that it promoted opposition to the country and staff were told to leave the country within 72 hours. It is unclear whether San Miguel remains in jail.

In March, Ronald Ojeda, a 32-year-old former lieutenant in Venezuela’s military, was found dead in Chile ten days after he had gone missing. He had protested against the Maduro government on social media wearing a T-shirt with “freedom” written on the collar and prison bars drawn on the map of Venezuela.

His body was found in a suitcase beneath a metre of concrete. Chilean prosecutors later announced that his abduction and killing was the work of El Tren de Aragua, one of Venezuela’s most powerful criminal organisations.

Don’t bank on free and fair elections

The crackdown on civic society poses a dilemma for the Biden administration. In October 2023, Maduro secured a partial lifting of US economic sanctions (which have been in place since 2019) in return for a commitment to holding “free and fair” presidential elections, in addition to political reforms and the release of political prisoners.

But that deal is quickly unwinding. In January, the leader of the opposition and a clear favourite in the polls, María Corina Machada was banned from holding office for 15 years. The Biden administration has since reimposed some sanctions and has threatened new ones on Venezuela’s vital oil sector if political reforms are not made.

Venezuela has become a deeply corrupt, authoritarian and criminal state that shuts down dissent, forces millions of its own people to flee, and kills or abducts whoever threatens the regime. Its occasional displays of reason are motivated purely by economic gain.

In many ways, Maduro’s political repression reflects his growing fear that his regime’s days are numbered, driving him to desperate measures to force a different fate. Once a dictator takes hold, it becomes very difficult to dislodge them.

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Administrator Samantha Power at the Moldovan-American Conference

The library of congress.

ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Hello, everybody. It is really, really wonderful to be here. And congratulations on the tenth anniversary of the convention. Elena [Dragalin], as founder and chairperson, and you have been absolutely instrumental in guiding the diaspora to support Moldova's development, which lately has been meteoric really, really is a pace of economic and political development that I can say with my global vantage point is very, very unusual. It's exceptional.

I also want to thank the Deputy Prime Minister [Mihai] Popsoi, who this is my second appearance with today. Two of what I'm sure will be many, because we certainly in the Biden Administration, as DFC’s CEO Scott Nathan will also attest, we are always interested in lending whatever political support or platforms we can, to giving Moldovan leaders the chance to tell their story, and you tell it so well, and it's a hell of a story to tell. So, really grateful for you being here and helping deepen the connections between the government and the diaspora, which are already very rich.

Thanks for everyone who has flown in, here, into the Thomas Jefferson Library of Congress building. There is, as is often the case in libraries, an interesting story about Thomas Jefferson, the Library of Congress, and Moldova – who knew. Two hundred and ten years ago, the Library of Congress was destroyed in a fire, along with most of its books. So Thomas Jefferson sold his collection of nearly 7,000 books to the U.S. government to restart the library, including one written by the Moldovan [leader], Dimitrie Cantemir, who was also a historian, a philosopher, a composer, and a linguist. Cantemir wrote the first substantial history of the Ottoman Empire in any European language that was the go-to text on the subject, as many of you know, for a century.

Fast forward today – to today – and right now the Library of Congress has more than 12,000 volumes on Moldova alone. From early histories exploring the Principality of Moldavia, two collections of Moldova literature, and it is a true testament to the reach and the power of Moldovan culture, its history and its heritage. A heritage that you are doing so much to protect, an independent spirit that so many of you are doing so much to nurture. So I think we've come to the right place.

We are, in the present, committed to supporting the Moldovan people as they chart their own future. Moldova is critical to its own region’s development, the broader region’s development, to its peace and security; and we, the United States, view Moldova as a really important long term partner for us. USAID has supported Moldova since the very beginning of its independence from the Soviet Union. Since 1992, we've invested more than a billion dollars in Moldova, and we are continuing that support today at what is a critical inflection point for the people of Moldova.

As you all in this room know, and indeed, thanks to many of your efforts, Moldova is at a moment of transformation. Today, the Moldovan people are strengthening their democracy, building their security and independence of their energy supply, and driving economic growth and investment that benefits all Moldovans. Again, with a focus not just on economic growth, but on inclusive economic growth – which has not always been the area of emphasis. And is doing all this even as, unfortunately, the Kremlin is doing everything in its power, anything possible really, to try to derail many of these ambitions. So what I'm going to just use the brief time I have left in doing, is describing a little bit about the work that USAID is doing in Moldova and with Moldovans, in the hopes that, as I described it, you will see a role for yourselves somehow, or people you know, in connecting with us and connecting with the work that we do. Because this is an all hands on deck moment for Moldova.

So, first, I’ll just talk about core democratic strengthening. Some of you may know that Moldova is a part of a flagship initiative, for President Biden and for me personally, which is called the Democracy Delivers Initiative. And this is a global effort, but that handpicks specific countries where there are significant reform efforts underway. Basically where there are democratization, openings, reform openings, bright spots for democracy, in a world that is backsliding in really profound ways when it comes to democratic progress. So we have looked to find where in the world are there countries where leaders are trying to enact democratic reform, root out corruption, and expand human rights rather than curtail human rights. And when these inspiring windows of opportunity arise, our goal is to open them further, or to have whatever the political space is that a leader has to do hard things to try to have that lasts longer, and then space to be larger.

And so we come together with our partners and we try to surge catalytic support, mainly resources. We try to help brave reformers as they work to deliver, economically specifically, because that's where the rubber meets the road for citizens. And Moldova is one of the countries that we chose very early on, it is clear that this reform effort was serious and that it had an awful lot of headwind coming at it that was trying to get in the way. So when it comes to democratic strengthening, we have supported independent media, which in turn, is holding the current government accountable. So even though we appear often with the government, we are supporting the checks and balances as well on the government. We are working to help citizens get access to more credible information. Obviously, citizens and governments alike are being bombarded with misinformation. We have trained more than 16,000 students in media literacy since 2017, equipping them with the skills to evaluate the reliability and objectivity of the information they are receiving. And this is really great. We are already seeing the results of these investments in the media sector, and in media literacy.

On the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, Moldova has moved from a rank of 55 out of 179 countries a decade ago, to now the rank of 28. And under the leadership of President [Maia] Sandu, who I've met many times as I know so has Scott – including my two trips to Moldova as USAID Administrator where I got to sample Moldovan wine, which I will never forget, and may come back to here in my remarks. Moldova has recently led a series of really important reforms to try to bring it closer to EU membership, and so these are democratic reforms fulfilling EU accession requirements – it has to be clear, is no easy task for any country, as many of those countries who have been in the queue and trying to fulfill all the various chapters can can attest. But the government of Moldova is meeting this challenge, already fulfilling seven of nine EU Commission requirements necessary for official accession negotiations. Last December, as you well know, the European Council agreed to formally open those negotiations with Moldova, a testament to the transformational work that public servants, entrepreneurs, and citizens are undertaking to advance the country's progress.

The second area of really important collaboration between USAID and the U.S. government and Moldova is in helping the country build its energy security and independence, which of course is necessary, it's also a significant vulnerability. It is well known that historically, Moldova has been almost completely reliant on Russia for its energy needs, and dependence that has become a tool for malign influence, and indeed what you might call economic blackmail. And that has come to a head, really in the wake of Putin's brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

So we helped Moldova to stand up its newly reconstituted Ministry of Energy just last year, and have since worked with this Ministry, Energocom, and other international donors to offset the costs of more expensive energy during high energy use times, like of course, winter – the tough Moldovan winter. Last year, and this is really extraordinary, the U.S. Congress approved $300 million to help Moldovans improve domestic electric power generation and energy connections with Europe. And why’s this [inaudible] a large sum of resources and difficult budget time. But really, it speaks to, actually, how much better known Moldova and its story is becoming in Washington, up on Capitol Hill, and more broadly, in the United States.

And you all have a role to play here. I remember back when I was first traveling to Moldova and I was asking, you know, how many CODELS [Congressional Member Delegation] had been to Moldova recently? The answer was not a very encouraging one, because I was thinking to myself, we have to build a constituency on Capitol Hill – well how many members of Congress have tasted the wine? You know, how many have seen the industry, or the people, or the determination, you know, of citizens to forge a democratic and a European path. Once you feel it up close as you know as Moldovan Americans, it's an entirely different commitment that is changing. More and more, we've been able to encourage members of Congress and others, or their staff – because that matters sometimes almost as much – to stop into Moldova and to see for themselves what this little country that could, is up to.

In just a year, Moldova is rapidly expanding its connections to the European energy grids and has transitioned 100 percent of the gas needs on the right bank of the Nistru river to alternative sources, like solar and natural gas. Now, the Moldovan people are on the way to accessing energy when they need to without fear of blackmail, or without fear of the lights going off.

Lastly, I would just say USAID is working with the Moldovan government to revitalize the economy, particularly focusing on key sectors. We are supporting entrepreneurs and business people to diversify the economy by building up exports like wine, textiles, and stone fruits. These efforts have been fruitful. USAID has supported farmers in getting the equipment and the certifications that they need to get produce on a scale and at a guaranteed quality that international buyers are seeking. And that has been the key matchmaking – is working on the ground in Moldova with these sectors to make sure that they are actually meeting the tastes, and the needs, and the actual regulatory requirements of the export markets that farmers and other businesses seek to reach.

Since Moldova's plum exports, as part of this initiative, nearly doubled from 2022 to 2023. And it has now become the largest exporter of plums in the northern hemisphere, the country has, and the third largest in the world. Last year, grape exports also doubled, while sweet cherry exports increased fivefold. So these are real results, and again, attributed above all to Moldova determination. We are also supporting the Moldovan people's efforts to bolster the economy through tech advances. Since your last conference in Chicago, USAID facilitated a $1 million commitment from Google to support cyber resilience in Moldova, which is so important to all else, including the upcoming opening of the new Cyber Academy in the capital, which is going to train the next generation of Moldova's cybersecurity experts – it's going to spearhead research, and innovation, and shore up the country's civilian cyber defenses.

I’m glad to share that just a week ago, USAID also facilitated a partnership with the global technology company Cisco to support the Cyber Academy by offering the software, analytics, and tech equipment it needs at a nearly 70 percent discount. We are excited to see what the future holds in store for Moldova, particularly with you, the diaspora community, at the ready to support Moldova’s progress.

As you are here to discuss, and I won't say much about this as I close, but there are so many different ways for you to get involved. You can invest and expand your businesses in Moldova, as I know many of you here today have done, or are trying to do. We’ll hear, again, more from DFC CEO Scott Nathan, about how we can work together to attract the private sector to invest more in Moldova. You can choose to contribute your skills and knowledge as public servants in Moldova. As I know, several of you here today have done, and this I will say I find incredibly inspiring. Special shout out to Elena’s daughter, Veronica [Dragalin], who has become the Chief Prosecutor in the anti-corruption body in Moldova. Such an important job in not only spearheading democratic progress, but also paving the way for investors to feel more excited about being in Moldova, when they know that corruption is being tackled it's an entirely different conversation.

You can advocate for more policy changes in Moldova and here in the United States, particularly, as our own U.S. Congress is voting tomorrow, just steps from here, on critical national security legislation that will determine whether or not we can continue to give our Ukrainian partners and assistance they need to stand up to Putin’s aggression, which threatens, of course, the entire region. You can directly contribute your skills and resources through organizations like DHub and Moldova AID. And I want to congratulate you all on creating an official NGO that can help channel the extraordinary potential of the diaspora community to support Moldova – as somebody who likes this shout out here, so I'm glad about that.

And very last thing I'll say, but really, in some ways, the most fundamental, you can vote. I don't know if you've heard, but there's an important election coming up this fall and not only the American presidential election, there's a major important election happening in Moldova in October of this year. Moldova, for the first time in its history is accepting mail-in votes from the United States and Canada, as it gears up for a substantial increase in overseas votes. Having had some discussions today about this, this is not going to be easy. Word of mouth is going to be absolutely critical. Everyone, you will need to find ten friends who themselves find ten friends, and ten friends, and so on and so on.

So, using your voice to get out the vote. This is an election, honestly, that is going to decide whether this dramatic transformation continues, whether it accelerates and deepens, or whether it is stopped in its tracks. This election matters so very much. I urge you to connect with your relatives, your friends and your neighbors, in Moldova as well, to get out the vote there.

We are standing ready to assist you. We have colleagues at our Mission from Moldova who are here today to engage with you if you have an idea, no idea is too crazy. You’d be amazed what we've managed to hatch together, from what started as a wild and crazy idea. But you have the resources, you have the knowledge, you have the intellectual capital, we would love to work with you, and of course, the government to help you deploy all of those resources to great effect in a country that is doing really remarkable things.

So thank you so much, and thank you for having me.

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