 | Price Comparisons: Rental | | Sorry, the textbook you were looking for is not available as Rental, at any of the stores we searched. | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | This anthology comprises speeches by influential figures in the history of African-American culture and politics. Contents include the famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech by Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass' immortal "What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?" Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s "I Have a Dream," Barack Obama, and many others.
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Average Customer Rating:   Great reading. I really liked this book. It was truly inspiring to me to see these great men really verbalize their viewpoints. I particurarily liked the speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, as most do. I will recommend this to friends, along with Dare to Be a Man: The Truth Every Man Must Know . . . And Every Woman Needs to Know About Him. Obama brings audacious shame to our cause and should be omitted from this book Would You Defend Tillman Act?
The Presidents State Of The Union Address public criticism Of Courts Decision On Citizens United Vs. Federal Elections Commission is wrong and ironic.
Aside from the decisions support of our 1st amendment that says that congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech, it also threw out Tillman Act passed in 1907.
The act is named for Senator Benjamin Ryan "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman (1847-1918) (D-SC). He was one of the most despicable men to have ever served in the US Senate and is said to have done more to establish the Jim Crow system in the South than any other single person. In the post-War south, he was a leader of the "Red Shirts", a terrorist paramilitary group organized to attack and intimidate blacks and Republicans.
His Red Shirts' campaign of murder, violence, and fraud led to the defeat of South Carolina's integrated reconstruction Republican government. Arguing that, "The negro must remain subordinated or be exterminated," He openly called for the murder of blacks in order to, "keep the white race at the top of the heap."
Elected South Carolina Governor in 1890, he then created South Carolina's 1'st literacy test for voters and he promoted a number of property and educational requirements for voting. For his services, South Carolina sent him to the U.S. Senate, where he served from 1895 until his death in 1918
His intent in the Tillman act was aimed to cut the power of northern industrialists, Republicans, whom Tillman hated in part because of their more liberal attitudes on race. That the President should publicly challenge the Supreme court over this matter is unprecedented, that he should decide to defend the Tillman act and all it was intended to represent, is sad and ironic. Great Speeches by African Americans The book was in excellent shape. I purchased it for my daughter for a reading assignment. The book arrived at the time it was due. I received a nice book for a good price. Great Speeches by African Americans Great Speeches by African Americans: Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, and Others (Thrift Edition)
This book really makes one understand the horrid feelings still carried by African Americans after Slavery was officially abolished. the speech by Frederick Douglass is spell binding. A Window into American History More than a book of speeches, this solemn and profound book is a window into the history (or should I say plight?) of African Americans. Of many sagacious passages, here are a few highlights:
Fellow citizens, I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing and a by word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement; the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet your cling to it as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh, be warned! Be warned! A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation's bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear way, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!
Frederick Douglas
July 5, 1852
No, I'm not an American. I'm one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I'm not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver - no, not I. I'm speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.
Malcolm X
April 3, 1964
What will be [your] place in history?
In other eras, across distant lands, this is a question that could be answered with relative ease and certainty. As a servant of Rome, you knew you would spend your life forced to build somebody else's Empire. As a peasant in 11th century China, you knew that no matter how hard you worked, the local warlord might take everything you had - and that famine might come knocking on your door any day. As a subject of King George, you knew that your freedom to worship and speak and build your own life would be ultimately limited by the throne.
And then America happened.
A place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form "a more perfect union" on this new frontier.
And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an Empire for the sake of an idea, they came. Across the oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. This collective dream moved forward imperfectly - it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us, but by us.
Barack Obama
June 4, 2005
None of this will come easy. Every one of us will have to work more, read more, train more, think more. We will have to slough off bad habits - like driving gas guzzlers that weaken our economy and feed our enemies abroad. Our kids will have to turn off the TV sets and put away the video games and start hitting the books.
Barack Obama
June 4, 2005 |  |
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