speeches

A whistle-stop train tour, and some plain speaking spur Harry Truman's come from behind win in 1948 over Thomas Dewey.

The president didn’t want to go too far on civil rights in 1948, fearing it would cost him reelection. But an obscure mayor changed the race — and his party.

She was a woman, but she was not the author of the speech attributed to her in popular lore.

At a time of upheaval, we want to believe that better leaders have the power to change the course of history. But counterfactuals are never simple.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s iconic speech, annotated with relevant scholarship on the literary, political, and religious roots of his words.

A behind-the-scenes look at Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Jonathan Alter on Jimmy Carter ditching politics for truth.

In a recent speech, Trump looks to America's past for answers. However, the history he recounts is glaringly limited.

Radio Diaries tells the story behind those infamous words, and the man who delivered them.

Warren G. Harding’s comments about race and equality were remarkable for 1921.

After winning 6 percent of the vote in the 1912 presidential election, Eugene Debs ran afoul of the nation's new anti-sedition laws.

Until his last breath, RFK insisted that Americans confront their country’s shortcomings—and live up to its potential.

For unpopular presidents, the State of the Union is a minefield.

Why is there more than one version of the famous 1851 speech?

A classic New Yorker account of the Henry Ward Beecher adultery trial recalls a time in America that seems both incomprehensible and familiar.

One of the country’s greatest rhetorical traditions still has the power to remind us of our founding principles.

Immigration has been a defining issue in a campaign before, and the consequences transformed the Democratic Party.

Feminist. Preacher. Abolitionist. Civil rights pioneer. Now the full story of the American icon's life and faith is finally coming to light.

In 1840, William Henry Harrison was mocked for his presidential run at age 67 — 15 years younger than President Biden would be at the start of a second term.

The archives of the historically Black Tuskegee University recently released recordings from 1957 to 1971, with a number by powerful civil rights leaders.