Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th century

University of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas A & M University ^ | December 15, 1999 | Stephen Lucas

[jern]

Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th century

We hope to soon feature all the speeches by women listed below. Compiled by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas A & M University, this list reflects the opinions of 137 leading scholars of American public address. (Full text of news release.)

Rank	Title	Speaker	Date	Place
1	"I Have a Dream"	Martin Luther King, Jr.	28 Aug 1963	Washington, DC
2	Inaugural Address	John F. Kennedy	20 Jan 1961	Washington, DC
3	First Inaugural Address	Franklin D. Roosevelt	4 Mar 1933	Washington, DC
4	War Message ("A Date which Will Live in Infamy")	Franklin D. Roosevelt	8 Dec 1941	Washington, DC
5	Keynote Speech to the Democratic National Convention	Barbara Jordan	12 July 1976	New York, NY
6	"My Side of the Story" ("Checkers")	Richard M. Nixon	23 Sept 1952	Los Angeles, CA
7	"The Ballot or the Bullet"	Malcolm X	3 Apr 1964	Cleveland, OH
8	Address to the Nation on the Challenger Disaster	Ronald Reagan	28 Jan 1986	Washington, DC
9	Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association	John F. Kennedy	12 Sept 1960	Houston, TX
10	Address to Congress on the Voting Rights Act ("We Shall Overcome")	Lyndon B. Johnson	15 Mar 1965	Washington, DC
11	Keynote Speech to the Democratic National Convention ("A Tale of Two Cities")	Mario Cuomo	17 July 1984	San Francisco, CA
12	Speech at the Democratic National Convention ("The Rainbow Coalition")	Jesse Jackson	17 July 1984	San Francisco, CA
13	Statement on the Articles of Impeachment	Barbara Jordan	25 July 1974	Washington, DC
14	Farewell Address to Congress ("Old Soldiers Never Die")	Douglas MacArthur	19 Apr 1951	Washington, DC
15	"I've Been to the Mountaintop"	Martin Luther King, Jr.	3 Apr 1968	Memphis, TN
16	"The Man with the Muckrake"	Theodore Roosevelt	14 Apr 1906	Washington, DC
17	Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.	Robert F. Kennedy	4 Apr 1968	Indianapolis, IN
18	Farewell Address	Dwight D. Eisenhower	17 Jan 1961	Washington, DC
19	War Message ("The World Must Be Made Safe for Democracy")	Woodrow Wilson	2 Apr 1917	Washington, DC
20	Farewell Address at the U.S. Military Academy ("Duty, Honor, Country")	Douglas MacArthur	12 May 1962	West Point, NY
21	Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam ("The Great Silent Majority")	Richard M. Nixon	3 Nov 1969	Washington, DC
22	"Ich bin ein Berliner"	John F. Kennedy	26 June 1963	West Berlin, Germany
23	Plea for Mercy at the Trial of Leopold and Loeb	Clarence Darrow	31 July 1924	Chicago, IL
24	"Acres of Diamonds"	Russell Conwell	1900-1925	Delivered at many spots across the U.S.
25	Televised Speech on Behalf of Barry Goldwater ("A Time for Choosing")	Ronald Reagan	27 Oct 1964	Los Angeles, CA
26	"Every Man a King"	Huey Pierce Long	23 Feb 1934	Washington, DC
27	"The Fundamental Principle of a Republic"	Anna Howard Shaw	21 June 1915	Ogdensburg, NY
28	"The Arsenal of Democracy"	Franklin D. Roosevelt	29 Dec 1940	Washington, DC
29	Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals ("The Evil Empire")	Ronald Reagan	8 Mar 1983	Orlando, FL
30	First Inaugural Address	Ronald Reagan	20 Jan 1981	Washington, DC
31	First Fireside Chat ("The Banking Crisis")	Franklin D. Roosevelt	12 Mar 1933	Washington, DC
32	Address to Congress on Greece and Turkey ("The Truman Doctrine")	Harry S Truman	12 Mar 1947	Washington, DC
33	Speech Accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature	William Faulkner	10 Dec 1950	Stockholm, Sweden
34	Statement to the Court	Eugene V. Debs	14 Sept 1918	Cleveland, OH
35	Address to the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women ("Women's Rights Are Humans Rights")	Hillary Rodham Clinton	5 Sept 1995	Beijing, China
36	"Atoms for Peace"	Dwight D. Eisenhower	8 Dec 1953	New York, NY
37	American University Speech	John F. Kennedy	10 June 1963	Washington, DC
38	Keynote Speech to the Democratic National Convention	Ann Richards	18 July 1988	Atlanta, GA
39	Address to the Nation Resigning the Presidency	Richard M. Nixon	8 Aug 1974	Washington, DC
40	"The Fourteen Points"	Woodrow Wilson	8 Jan 1918	Washington, DC
41	Declaration of Conscience	Margaret Chase Smith	1 June 1950	Washington, DC
42	"The Four Freedoms"	Franklin D. Roosevelt	6 Jan 1941	Washington, DC
43	Speech at Riverside Church ("A Time to Break Silence")	Martin Luther King, Jr.	4 Apr 1967	New York, NY
44	"What It Means to Be Colored in the Capital of the United States"	Mary Church Terrell	10 Oct 1906	Washington, DC
45	Speech Accepting the Democratic Presidential Nomination ("Against Imperialism")	William Jennings Bryan	8 Aug 1900	Indianapolis, IN
46	"A Moral Necessity for Birth Control"	Margaret Sanger	1921-1922	Delivered several times for the American Birth Control League
47	Commencement Speech at Wellesley College ("Choices and Change")	Barbara Bush	1 June 1990	Wellesley, MA
48	Address to the Nation on Civil Rights ("A Moral Issue")	John F. Kennedy	11 June 1963	Washington, DC
49	Address to the Nation on the Cuban Missile Crisis	John F. Kennedy	22 Oct 1962	Washington, DC
50	"Television News Coverage"	Spiro Agnew	13 Nov. 1969	Des Moines, IA
51	Speech to the Democratic National Convention ("Common Ground and Common Sense")	Jesse Jackson	20 July 1988	Atlanta, GA
52	Speech to the Republican National Convention ("A Whisper of AIDS")	Mary Fisher	19 Aug 1992	Houston, TX
53	"The Great Society"	Lyndon B. Johnson	22 May 1964	Ann Arbor, MI
54	"The Marshall Plan"	George C. Marshall	5 June 1947	Cambridge, MA
55	"Truth and Tolerance in America"	Edward M. Kennedy	3 Oct 1983	Lynchburg, VA
56	Speech Accepting the Democratic Presidential Nomination ("Let's Talk Sense to American People")	Adlai Stevenson	26 July 1952	Chicago, IL
57	"The Struggle for Human Rights"	Eleanor Roosevelt	28 Sept 1948	Paris, France
58	Speech Accepting the Democratic Vice-Presidential Nomination	Geraldine Ferraro	19 July 1984	San Francisco, CA
59	"Free Speech in Wartime"	Robert M. La Follette	6 Oct 1917	Washington, DC
60	Address at the U.S. Ranger Monument on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day	Ronald Reagan	6 June 1984	Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, France
61	"Religious Belief and Public Morality"	Mario Cuomo	13 Sept 1984	Notre Dame, IN
62	Televised Statement to the People of Massachusetts ("Chappaquiddick")	Edward M. Kennedy	25 July 1969	Boston, MA
63	"Labor and the Nation" ("The Rights of Labor")	John L. Lewis	3 Sept 1937	Washington, DC
64	Speech Accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination ("Extremism in the Defense of Liberty Is No Vice")	Barry Goldwater	16 July 1964	San Francisco, CA
65	"Black Power"	Stokely Carmichael	Oct 1966	Berkeley, CA
66	Speech at the Democratic National Convention ("The Sunshine of Human Rights")	Hubert H. Humphrey	14 July 1948	Philadelphia, PA
67	Address to the Jury	Emma Goldman	9 July 1917	New York, NY
68	"The Crisis"	Carrie Chapman Catt	7 Sept 1916	Atlantic City, NJ
69	"Television and the Public Interest" ("A Vast Wasteland")	Newton W. Minow	9 May 1961	Washington, DC
70	Eulogy to Robert Kennedy	Edward M. Kennedy	8 June 1968	New York, NY
71	Statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee	Anita Hill	11 Oct 1991	Washington, DC
72	Final Address in Support of the League of Nations	Woodrow Wilson	25 Sept 1919	Pueblo, CO
73	Farewell to Baseball	Lou Gehrig	4 July 1939	New York, NY
74	Address to the Nation on the Cambodian Incursion	Richard M. Nixon	30 Apr 1970	Washington, DC
75	"Address to the United States Congress"	Carrie Chapman Catt	Nov 1917	Washington, DC
76	Speech at the Democratic National Convention ("The Dream Shall Never Die")	Edward M. Kennedy	12 Aug 1980	New York, NY
77	Address to the Nation on Vietnam and the Decision Not to Seek Re-Election	Lyndon B. Johnson	31 Mar 1968	Washington, DC
78	Speech to the Commonwealth Club	Franklin D. Roosevelt	23 Sept 1932	San Francisco, CA
79	First Inaugural Address	Woodrow Wilson	4 Mar 1913	Washington, DC
80	"An End to History"	Mario Savio	2 Dec 1964	Berkeley, CA
81	Speech at the Democratic National Convention ("AIDS: A Personal Story")	Elizabeth Glaser	14 July 1992	New York, NY
82	"The Issue"	Eugene V. Debs	23 May 1908	Girard, KS
83	The Children's Era	Margaret Sanger	Mar 1925	New York, NY
84	"A Left-Handed Commencement Address" (Mills College)	Ursula Le Guin	22 May 1983	Oakland, CA
85	"Now We Can Begin"	Crystal Eastman	Sept-Oct 1920	New York, NY
86	Radio Broadcast of March 7, 1935 ("Share Our Wealth")	Huey Pierce Long	7 Mar 1935	Washington, DC
87	Address on Taking the Oath of Office ("Our Long National Nightmare Is Over")	Gerald Ford	9 Aug 1974	Washington, DC
88	Speech on Ending His Fast	Cesar Chavez	10 Mar 1968	Delano, CA
89	Statement at the Smith Act Trial	Elizabeth Gurley Flynn	2 Feb 1953	New York, NY
90	Address to the Nation on Energy and National Goals ("A Crisis of Confidence")	Jimmy Carter	15 July 1979	Washington, DC
91	"Message to the Grassroots"	Malcolm X	10 Nov 1963	Detroit, MI
92	Speech at the Prayer Service for Victims of the Oklahoma City Bombing	Bill Clinton	23 Apr 1995	Oklahoma City, OK
93	"For the Equal Rights Amendment"	Shirley Chisholm	10 Aug 1970	Washington, DC
94	Address at the Brandenburg Gate	Ronald Reagan	12 June 1987	West Berlin, Germany
95	"The Perils of Indifference"	Elie Wiesel	12 Apr 1999	Washington, DC
96	Address to the Nation on Pardoning Richard M. Nixon	Gerald Ford	8 Sept 1974	Washington, DC
97	"For the League of Nations"	Woodrow Wilson	6 Sept 1919	Des Moines, IA
98	Address to Congress after Assuming the Presidency ("Let Us Continue")	Lyndon B. Johnson	27 Nov 1963	Washington, DC
99	Defense of Fred Fisher at the Army-McCarthy Hearings ("Have You No Sense of Decency?")	Joseph Welch	9 June 1954	Washington, DC
100	"Adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights"	Eleanor Roosevelt	9 Dec 1948	Paris, France

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[X-Servative]

W. is part of the 21st century...

[gusopol3]

Agnew's "nattering nobobs of negativism" should have made the list, as it is such an appropriate description of so much that is on it.

[Always Right]

These people seem overly hung up on Democratic speeches (especially at their convention). And what person who is not one of the few members of NOW even has a clue what Hillary's speech was about. At least Bill was correctly snubbed and Reagan had several on the list.

[LarryLied]

The liberals who put this together forgot one:

"LSD: Methods of Control" (Dr. Timothy Leary)

[Always Right]

Where is Clinton's speech to the American People about Monica? That should be number one!

More likely number 68 with Bill owing her one.

[HumanaeVitae]

Reagan's First Inaugural. Hands down.

[palmer]

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." (Sea of Tranquility, lunar surface, July 20, 1969)

It's a short speech but an important one.

[Numbers Guy]

It's not that they don't list the most notable speeches, and it's not like they ignored conservatives. It's the rankings that are bizarre, not to mention the feel-good diversity inclusions.

Barbara Jordan's 1976 keynote speech was well-delivered, but it had no significance other than that she was the first black woman to be a keynoter.

Cuomo's convention speech was a great speech (although it was false as anything and I frankly hated it). His 1984 speech at Notre Dame on abortion was pure claptrap.

Reagan's Challenger speech was rated highest of his speeches because it wasn't ideological in nature. His D-Day speech was way too far down. His "Tear Down This Wall" speech, as someone else noted, should have been in the top 5.

The "Checkers" speech was memorable, but it was by no means worthy of being ranked in the top 10. If I was to choose a Nixon speech it would have been his convention speech in 1968.

Hillary Clinton's "abort 'em all" speech at the Women's Conference was listed as a sop to feminism. She hasn't given a good speech in her life. I can think of half a dozen Bubba speeches that were far more memorable than anything Hillary said.

Maw Richards' speech ("poor George, he can't hep it") was nothing more than poorly argued invective.

Teddy Kennedy's best speech was his one at the 1980 Democratic convention. Why it's lower than his others is beyond me.

As far as acceptance speeches go, Goldwater's is underrated, because it's clear they take into account future significance and Goldwater launched the movement that led to Reagan. Jerry Ford's acceptance speech was the best of his life, but probably not listed because he lost.

Anita Hill's comments weren't a speech. They were a pack of lies delivered in an unconvincing monotone by an utterly dishonest individual. Even if you believed her crap, I can't see how something so unemotionally delivered could leave much of an impression.

[BluesDuke]

Agnew's "nattering nobobs of negativism" should have made the list, as it is such an appropriate description of so much that is on it.

The speech did make the list - at number 50. The compiler didn't use the famous phrase as its title and, anyway, Agnew would not have even thought of the phrase had it not been provided by Nixon White House speechwriter William Safire, who gave the alliteration-addicted vice president a choice between "the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history" and "the nattering nabobs of negativism" - to which Agnew, in Safire's recollection (he tells the story in both Before The Fall and in a scathing review of Agnew's grotesquery The Canfield Decision), said, "What the hell - let's go with both!" (Safire concluded his skewering of Agnew's novel, in fact, by writing, "Now, he has become that which we used to deride so enthusiastically: a nattering nabob of negativism.")

[BluesDuke]

I was surprised the compilers didn't include Edward R. Murrow's tailpiece from the See It Now program devoted entirely to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. (You could call the tailpiece, "The Line Between Investigation and Persecution"); or, his "Evidence of Escapism, Decadence, and Destruction" skewering of prime-time entertainment television from 1959. Not to mention Ted Williams's magnificent Hall of Fame induction speech in 1966...

[Teacher317]

Bill Clinton's top is in the 90's, and Hillary is #35. They have a total of 2 in the top 100.
The Kennedys have 11 in the top 100.
Jesse "the race hustling extortionist" Jackson has #12 and #51, equalling the Clintons by himself.
Roosevelts have 9 of the top 100.

[Willie Green]

Pat Buchanan's Unforgettable Speech To The '92 GOP Convention

Go Pat Go!!!

[fieldmarshaldj]

Yeah, I saw that 94th and I almost had to grab for the air-sickness companion bag. That is one of the single greatest speeches ever made in the past century, bar none (perhaps with the greatest single line -- Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall !). I have not even heard of half these speeches, let alone the rantings of supreme genocidal racist Margaret Sanger and the overrated windbag Barbara Jordan (may she rest in peace) complaining about Nixon, or Mario "Mumbles" Cuomo (MARIO CUOMO !?!) getting ranked so far ahead of the Brandenburg Gate speech. Utterly sickening.

[palmer]

I thought the Dukakis acceptance speech at the 1988 convention was great. Of course I was from Mass. and I wasn't Always Right.

[gitmo]

That is one of the single greatest speeches ever made in the past century, bar none (perhaps with the greatest single line -- Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall !).

I have to rank it even with the "Day of Infamy" speech by President Roosevelt. (Not by Truman, as I stupidly stated in a post yesterday. Sheesh! %*$## public education!)

And if it weren't a list of American speeches, I would have to put Churchill's "Blood Sweat and Tears" speech right up there. (Nothing to do with the rock group.)

[Teacher317]

40 of the top 100 from Washington DC, 13 in NY state, 11 in NYC, 11 in California, 6 outside the US, and 3 in Indiana.

[Bon mots]

92	Speech at the Prayer Service for Victims of the Oklahoma City Bombing	Bill Clinton	23 Apr 1995	Oklahoma City, OK
	Actually, my favorite Bill Clinton speeches started with: "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky..." and ended with his "apology" and impeachment. A really good show. Too bad it wasn't followed up by his imprisonment.

[TxBec]

Thanks! My kids are going to be studying famous speeches this year. Have to bookmark this one!

[gitmo]

Where is Clinton's speech to the American People about Monica? That should be number one!

More likely number 68 with Bill owing her one!

LOL.

[VOA]

2
Inaugural Address
John F. Kennedy
20 Jan 1961
Washington, DC

I'll agree with you that this speech is ranked too high.
BUT...if it is the same speech that I heard (I believe accidentally) played on NPR some
years ago, I'll say it does deserve to be in the top 100.

I was SHOCKED at how openly defiant the tone of the speech was toward Communism;
I guess that being a small child at the time of the speech, I'd not gotten
the direct, unapologeice belligerant tone of the speech.

Heck, it was practically a St. Crispin's Day speech for the Cold Warriors!!!
(That's why I decided that the propaganda officers at National Public Radio must have
taken one too many hits of LSD when they actually played the speech on their "All Things Considered".)

For all of JFK's feet of clay, he hit the right notes for the time with this speech.