AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY
SPEECHES
“If I had a thousand tongues and each tongue were a thousand thunderbolts and each thunderbolt had a thousand voices, I would use them all today to help you understand a loyal and misrepresented and misjudged people.”
These were the words of Joseph C. Price, founder and President of Livingston College in North Carolina, who in 1890 delivered an address to the National Education Association annual convention held in Minneapolis. Price’s words reflect on the long tradition of African American oratory. Listed below are some of the most significant orations by African Americans with links to the actual speeches.
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(1866) Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “We Are All Bound Up Together”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Voices of Black Suffragists A free-born native of Baltimore, Maryland, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper gave her first anti-slavery...
(1838) Sara T. Smith, “Loosening the Bonds of Prejudice”
On May 17, 1838, abolitionist Sara T. Smith addresses the second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women which was originally scheduled...
(1838) Angelina Grimke, “Address to the Massachusetts Legislature”
In February 1838, Angelina Grimke became the first woman in U.S. history to address the members of an American legislative...
(1963) Josephine Baker, “Speech at the March on Washington”
Josephine Baker is remembered by most people as the flamboyant African American entertainer who earned fame and fortune in Paris...
(1928) Henry F. Coleman, “The Philosophy of the Race Problem (From a Negro’s Viewpoint)”
Very little is known about Henry F. Coleman including the actual date of his 1928 speech which appears below. Nonetheless,...
(1787) Gouverneur Morris, “The Curse of Slavery”
Image Ownership: Public Domain The Constitutional Convention in 1787 debated the institution of slavery. In the speech below Gouverneur Morris,...
(1833) Maria W. Stewart, “An Address at the African Masonic Hall”
On February 27, 1833 Maria W. Stewart gave this speech before a racially integrated audience at the African Masonic Hall...
(1921) Marcus Garvey “Address to the Second UNIA Convention”
By 1921 the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was well on its way to becoming the largest predominately black organization...
(1947) Henry A. Wallace, “Ten Extra Years”
Henry A. Wallace, the Vice President of the United States from 1941 to 1945 and the future candidate for the...
