Speeches in African American History
Martin Luther King at Cobo Hall

Stokely Carmichael’s Black Power Speech (1966)
On the night of June 16, 1966, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Chair Stokely Carmichael (Later Kwame Ture) proclaimed to...
January 16th, 2024

(2023) Hakeem Jeffries’ First Speech as Leader of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives
On January 6, 2023, New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries gave his first speech before the U.S. House of Representatives as...
February 5th, 2023

(1963) Martin Luther King Cobo Hall Speech
On June 23, 1963, two months before the March on Washington, King stood before a throng of 25,000 people at...
January 16th, 2023

(1970) Huey P. Newton, “The Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements”
On August 15, 1970, Huey P. Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, gave a speech in New York...
April 17th, 2018

(2017) New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Address on the Removal of Confederate Monuments in New Orleans
On May 19, 2017, New Orleans, Louisiana Mayor Mitch Landrieu addressed an audience in his city as a backdrop and...
August 12th, 2017

(1963) Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Religion and Race”
On January 14, 1963, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel gave the speech “Religion and Race,” at a conference of the same...
August 12th, 2017

(1893) Frances E.W. Harper, “Woman’s Political Future”
On May 20, 1893, women’s activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper gave this speech before the World’s Congress of Representative Women,...
August 12th, 2017

(1983) Glenn Loury, “Responsibility and Race”
Glenn C. Loury delivered this presentation at Hillsdale College on November 7, 1982, as part of a Center for Constructive Alternatives...
March 17th, 2017

(1998) Anne Wortham, “Martin Luther King’s Flawed Dream”
In the speech below conservative critic Anne Wortham challenges the central theme of universal brotherhood as promoted in Dr. Martin...
March 17th, 2017