Doris Kearns Goodwin’s New Memoir of the 1960s

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is on a media tour for her new book, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s. Her husband Richard was a speechwriter for the Kennedys, Lyndon Johnson and Al Gore. She was a presidential scholar who became a confidante of President Johnson. NPR interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIJ6PDUMX3k NYT: She wasn't …

Ask A Presidential Speechwriter

the1a.org on National Public Radio, a podcast: "It’s easy to forget that for every speech delivered by political figures in Washington, a person – or more likely a team of people – put their minds and pens together to write it. What exactly goes into crafting the perfect speech? And in an increasingly polarized political …

Barbara Jordan, Pioneering Black Congresswoman, Gave Memorable Speeches: Freedom in America Is An ‘Eternal Embryo’

Barbara Jordan (1936-1996), an impressive lawyer, educator, and politician with an authoritative baritone voice, was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. Wikipedia. She is still widely remembered for her speech tracing the history of the First Amendment …

JFK’s Magnificent Speech 11 Days Before Assuming the Presidency

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRDL2qEttA8&t=377s It is important for leaders to articulate to their followers a sense of history, the opportunities of the moment, and the moral tests they face. John F. Kennedy, speaking at the Massachusetts State House on January 9, 1961, compared the journey he was about to embark on as President of the United States to …

Baseball Legend Lou Gehrig’s Inspiring Speech in 1939

New York Yankees' first baseman and famous hitter Lou Gehrig (1903-1941) famously inspired the world with a speech after being diagnosed with the degenerative disease ALS. It is now known in popular culture as "Lou Gehrig's disease." Read more about Gehrig here.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Gehrig Watch a 4 minute, 43 second excerpt from historian Ken Burns' documentary …

How MLK’s ‘I Have A Dream Speech’ Evolved

Great speeches are often somewhat different renditions of previous speeches a leader has given. For example, Martin Luther King Jr's classic "I Have A Dream" speech delivered at the March on Washington in August, 1963 echoed themes he used in at least two previous speeches, one in Albany, GA and the other in Rocky Mount, …

Greatest Recorded Speeches in Modern American History

From 1933 when radio became a mass medium through the early 1960s when television became a mass medium through 2008 when the Internet became a mass medium, powerful speeches have transformed American politics, or have lifted the county's imagination. They do tend to contribute to the "great man theory" of history -- just because a …

MLK: ‘I’m So Glad I Didn’t Sneeze’ Because I Got to Live Longer And Participate in a Great Movement

Excerpts from this speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 3, 1968, the night before he was killed, have particular resonance to the concept that "slender threads" shape history and our personal lives. He carried with him a sense of the fragility of life, a historical perspective and a sense of gratitude about …

Lameduck: A History of Presidential Transitions and Concession Speeches

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idncgCMwDlo For only the fifth time in American history, a president will not attend his successor's inauguration. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin says Donald Trump's denigration of the ritual of peaceful transitions is "a real loss" that will have long-term implications. "Once the electorate has voted them out, what have politicians accomplished as they linger in …

The Greatest Speech in History? Alexander the Great & The Opis Mutiny

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlKJDwViNKs Epic History TV: "Alexander the Great is one of the most extraordinary individuals in history. He became king of the fringe Greek kingdom of Macedonia in 336 BC at the age of just 20, and before his death twelve years later, had imposed Macedonian overlordship on Greece, destroyed the mighty Persian Empire and …