Greatest Presidential speech ever?

Friday on my mind

Friday on my mind

http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3386


IMO this is the greatest speech I ever saw from an American President.No matter what we may say about LBJ and Vietnam for just this speech and his dedication to civil rights he must go down in history as a great President.Many talk about how politicians really never beleive a lot of what they say and show little passion.That can't be said about LBJ and civil rights.Some of this speech gives me chills he is so passionate about it and there is no doubt of his true dedication to the struggle for civil rights.There is a shorter version of this at YouTube but it doesn't play well(keeps pausing) so I have posted the link to the full version.LBJ was a big forcefull man who no one ever accused of being soft, so forget the bleeding heart liberal stereotype for LBJ.A Texan who was minority senate leader before becoming VP and then President,well known for arm twisting (almost literally) his senate comrades to get their votes.As a southerner he was perfectly positioned to be the spokesman for the voting rights act and knew how to get it passed from his experience and did.
To bad Presidents since (and that includes all of them IMO) have not shown the dedication and balls to tell America the truth about such an issue.That is a leader!
Some will find this indescribably boring ,some will find it as compelling as I do I hope.

Gotta love LBJ when he says "WE SHALL OVERCOME!"
 
PlasmaTwa2

PlasmaTwa2

The Second-Hottest Man in my Mother's Basement
J

JohnnyThompson

LBJ did lie a lot though on other very important issues.;)

However, he does not get enough credit for the effort he put into the passing of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Many people credit the circumstances surrounging JFK's death as the reason for the passing of those two statutes; but it was reallty Johnson's legislative brilliance and his aggressive demeanor.

The Johnson Treatment: http://www.uiowa.edu/~commstud/resources/nonverbal/lbj.htm

Greatest Presidential speech ever? It's always difficult to pick the greatest or best of anything, because the criteria for determining such a thing is vague. I will base my choice on historical importance. I consider WWII not only the most important event in U.S. History, but World History over the last 500 years. So I will have to say Infamy Speech by FDR on December 8, 1941.
 
D

D-rock

I seem to remember some minor president or other giving a speech called the Gettysburg something...maybe The Gettysburg Address or something like that. Not many people know about it, so maybe it has a chance to be up at the top for greatest presidential speeches if historians ever paid attention to it. ;):D
 
Friday on my mind

Friday on my mind

Actually i was trying to refer to relatively modern speeches,I guess LBJ is before most of the peoples here times.But I know Lincoln and FDR were before mine.:1orglaugh
And what makes this different and what I referenced in my initial post was that this speech took political courage on LBJ's part while FDR declaring war while memorable was not unpopular.And of course the Gettysburg address was a IMO a great speech.But I really was asking has any President since LBJ even come close to really putting his ass on the line and making a great speech to promote something unpopular.I know GWB has taken unpopular stands but can't think of any decent speech he made to defend them.And I hope that anyone who is passing judgement on the LBJ speech has at least watched a good portion of it.
 
jewelcity

jewelcity

Approved Content Owner
Approved Content Owner
William Henry Harrison, our 9th President. He took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, an extremely cold and wet day. He faced the weather without his overcoat and delivered the longest inaugural address in American history. At 8,444 words, it took nearly two hours to read. He caught a cold and a month later he died.
 
Violator79

Violator79

Take a Hit, Spunker!
The Gettysburg Address is the best speech I've ever heard. It says so much about what America is and it pays tribute to the men who died in the Civil War and all wars. No speech will ever be as powerful and influential as that speech.
 
YMIHERE

YMIHERE

Nixon's "Checkers" Speech

Checkers was Nixon's dog and was given to him as a gift. Some said the dog was a bribe. He said "the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqWMI0Ch5cM
 
Fresno

Fresno

The Greatest Presidential speech ever
The Gettysburg Address


The Gettysburg National Cemetery was dedicated by President Abraham Lincoln a brief four months after the Battle. Lincoln's speech lasted only two minutes, but it went into history as the immortal Gettysburg Address.

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth. "​
 
Sicario

Sicario

Fidel Castro's 1986 speech at the 3rd Communist Party Congress in Havana that lasted 7 hours and 10 minutes. I don't care what anyone thinks, but that had to be one hell of a speech!
 
DukeLaCrosse

DukeLaCrosse

"i did not have sexual relations with that woman"
 
Member2019

Member2019

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