Notable Speeches and Letters by African Americans, From Benjamin Banneker to Barack Obama
Benjamin Banneker
A Letter to Thomas Jefferson
Maryland, August 19, 1791
Mary McLeod Bethune
What Does American Democracy Mean to Me?
New York, N.Y., Nov. 23, 1939
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/
features/sayitplain/mmbethune.html
Stokely Carmichael
Black Power
Berkeley, California, 1966
Shirley Chisholm
Equal Rights For Women
Washington, DC, May 21, 1969
Frederick Douglass
If I Had a Country, I Should Be a Patriot
Syracuse, New York, Sept., 24, 1847
What to the Slave on the Fourth of July?
Rochester, New York, July 4, 1852
Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage
Washington, DC, Jan. 1867
W.E.B. Du Bois
Men of Niagara
Harpers Ferry, W.V., Aug. 16, 1906
Marcus Garvey
Explanation of the Objects of the Universal Negro Improvement Association
New York, N.Y., July 1921
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/
features/sayitplain/mgarvey.html
Fannie Lou Hamer
Democratic National Convention Speech
Atlantic City, N.J., July 22, 1964
Anita Hill
Opening Statement: Sexual Harrassment Hearings
Washington, DC, Oct. 11, 1991
Jesse Jackson
Democratic National Convention Address: The Rainbow Coalition
San Francisco, Calif., July 18, 1984
Barbara Jordan
Statement on the Articles of Impeachment to the House Judiciary Committee
Washington, DC, July 25, 1974
Speech at the Democratic National Convention
New York, N.Y., July 12, 1976
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Letter from Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
http://www.stanford.edu/
group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf (PDF)
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
August 28, 1963
http://www.stanford.edu/
group/King/publications/speeches/address_at_march_on_washington.pdf (PDF)
Acceptance Speech at Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony December 10, 1964 http://www.stanford.edu/ group/King/publications/speeches/acceptance_speech_at_nobel_peace.htm
Beyond Vietnam
April 4, 1967
http://www.stanford.edu/
group/King/publications/speeches/Beyond_Vietnam.pdf (PDF)
I've Been To The Mountaintop
April 3, 1968
http://www.afscme.org/about/kingspch.htm
Thurgood Marshall
The Legal Attack to Secure Civil Rights
Chicago, Ill., July 13, 1942
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/programs/pauleyg/voices/marshal2.htm
The Equality Speech
Washington, DC, Nov. 18, 1978
http://www.thurgoodmarshall.com/speeches/equality_speech.htm
The Sword and the Robe
May 8, 1981
http://www.thurgoodmarshall.com/speeches/sword_article.htm
Remarks on the Bicentennial of the Constitution
Maui, Hawaii, May 8, 1987
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/programs/pauleyg/voices/marshal1.htm
Barack Obama
Inaugural Address
Washington, D.C., January 20, 2009
"A More Perfect Union"
Philadelphia, Pa., March 18, 2008
Speech at the Democratic National Convention
Boston, Mass., July 27, 2004
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/bobama.html
Adam Clayton Powell
Speech on Civil Rights
Washington, DC, Feb. 2, 1955
Mary Church Terrell
What It Means to be Colored in the Capital of the United States
Washington, D.C., Oct. 10, 1906
Sojourner Truth
Ain't I a Woman?
Women's Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio, 1851
Booker T. Washington
Atlanta Compromise
Atlanta, Georgia, Sept.18, 1895
Democracy and Education
Brooklyn, N.Y., Sept. 30, 1896
Ida B. Wells
NAACP Speech Against Lynching
Baltimore, Md., Feb. 12, 1909
Roy Wilkins
The Clock Will Not be Turned Back
San Francisco, Calif., Nov. 1, 1957
http://www.dupage88.net/aths/jrres03/wilkins.htm
Malcolm X
Message to the Grass Roots
Detroit, Mich., Nov. 10, 1963
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/malcolmxgrassroots.htm
The Ballot or the Bullet
Detroit, Mich., April 4, 1964
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2004/election/wvote/x.html
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