Strong Voices: Fifteen American Speeches Worth Knowing

Strong Voices: Fifteen American Speeches Worth Knowing is a collection of significant speeches, made both by those who held the reins of power and those who didn't, at significant times in American history. Read the original words--sometimes abridged and sometimes in their entirety--that have shaped our cultural fabric. A Chicago Public Library Best Book!

"A wide-ranging collection of speeches and a worthwhile resource for students of American history." --Booklist

"A golden celebration of the multicultural voices who demand the U.S.--and the world--do better." --Kirkus

"An important addition to American history collections." --School Library Journal

Introductions by acclaimed writer Tonya Bolden provide historical context and critical insights to the meaning and impact of every speech. Illustrations by award-winning artist Eric Velasquez illuminate what it was really like at each moment in history. This collection includes the following:

• Patrick Henry, "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death"
• George Washington, Farewell Address
• Red Jacket, "We Never Quarrel about Religion"
• Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"
• Sojourner Truth, "I Am a Woman's Rights"
• Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
• Theodore Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a Republic"
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself"
• Lou Gehrig, "Farewell to Baseball"
• Langston Hughes, "On the Blacklist All Our Lives"
• John Fitzgerald Kennedy, "We Choose to Go to the Moon"
• Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream"
• Fannie Lou Hamer, "I Question America"
• Cesar Chavez, Address to the Commonwealth Club of California, 1984
• Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Women's Rights Are Human Rights"

Strong Voices includes a foreword by #1 New York Times bestselling author and celebrated journalist Cokie Roberts, as well as a timeline in the back of the book, along with letters to the reader from Tonya Bolden and Eric Velasquez.

Strong Voices is a tremendous introduction to the extraordinary words spoken in history.