Ripples of Hope: Great American Civil Rights Speeches (Hardcover)

by Josh Gottheimer (Editor), Bill Clinton (Author), Mary Frances Berry (Author) "Contrary to popular perception today, many African Americans in the early colonial era never experienced the sting or indignity of slavery..." (more)
Key Phrases: civil rights speech, United States, Martin Luther King, San Francisco (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Despite its uplifting title, this wide-ranging anthology admirably includes both the most famous civil rights speeches of American history and lesser known, often angrier voices. Organizing the speeches chronologically, editor Gottheimer, who was one of President Clinton's speechwriters, delves as far back as 1789, when "a free Negro," name unknown, eloquently lamented the fact that "there are men who will not be persuaded that it is possible for a human soul to be lodged within a sable body." The second chapter, "Measured Gains: Two Steps Forward, One Step Backward," covers the period from 1866 to 1949, and encompasses voices as diverse as Marcus Garvey, Eleanor Roosevelt and Alonso Perales ("Defending Mexican Americans"). Although Gottheimer has limited the collection to speeches about African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, gays and lesbians and women, the astounding variety of rhetorical and political strategies enlisted by the speakers are not only instructive but make for engaging reading. In speeches from the civil rights era, for example, Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" appears with Howard "Judge" Smith's "Sex Discrimination in the Civil Rights Act," Malcolm X's "The Ballot or the Bullet," and Stokely Carmichael's "Black Power." As Gottheimer acknowledges, the pickings among present-day civil rights speeches are slim and acidic (ACT UP pioneer Larry Kramer rails against his own audience in 1987, for example), but the selection is never less than judicious, revealing and notably authoritative. 8 pages of photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gottheimer, onetime speechwriter for former president Clinton (who wrote the foreword), offers an incredible collection of inspiring speeches on the social movements that have changed America. Gottheimer examines speeches as tools of persuasion and relates the history behind the speakers and their movements and their fervor and passion, which caused them to put their careers and sometimes their lives at risk. Organized chronologically, beginning with an antislavery speech by an unknown freedman in 1789, the book focuses on five distinct social movements--African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, gay, and women's--from the colonial period to the present. The collection includes speeches by Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eleanor Roosevelt, Cesar Chavez, Harvey Milk, Jesse Jackson, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as lesser-known speakers. Gottheimer precedes each speech with historical context, emphasizing that many speakers drew on the experiences of African Americans, from uneducated freed slaves who relied on oral traditions to the more polished speeches of the civil rights era. For readers interested in speech as a protest tool. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 502 pages
• Publisher: Basic Civitas Books (April 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465027520
• ISBN-13: 978-0465027521
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #640,155 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An invaluable collection, April 17, 2003

By A Customer

This book fills a stunning gap -- I've never seen another collection dedicated to the civil rights speeches that have played such a crucial role in American history. It includes all the famous speeches (I Have a Dream, etc.), but it also covers activists most of us haven't heard of, from movements most civil rights histories ignore. Each speech is accompanied by an introduction with just enough information to set the scene and put the speech in the context of its own and the other movements, but not so much that it gets in the way of the speeches themselves. Anyone who cares about how America's many peoples live together -- and how we wish they would -- must have this book on their shelf.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much more than a desk reference, July 23, 2003

By A Customer

This compilation is much more than just a desk reference for quotes ? it?s a thoroughly readable history of the civil rights movement in its leaders' own words. Ripples of Hope is a trove filled with speeches whose famous lines we?ve all heard but probably never bothered to read in their entirety, as well as several speeches that have been restored from relative obscurity. It elevates the speech from an archive to a new form ? an accessible, living source meant to be read, reflected upon, and drawn from as a source of motivation.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful Painful Poignant Speeches and a great history., April 21, 2006

By	Conor Cunneen "IrishmanSpeaks - Keynote Speak... (Naperville, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Ripples Of Hope: Great American Civil Rights Speeches (Paperback)

Admission: Had this book not been in a Barnes & Noble discount bin I probably would not have purchased it. Had I not, I would have missed a tome that in the words of those MasterCard gurus is `priceless.'

I had expected to use it as a reference, one where I could dip in and out of. Instead, I have read almost every one of the 96 speeches in this excellent work. Gottheimer has set the book out in chronological order, covering not just African-American civil rights, but also Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, the suffragette movement, gays and lesbians.
Rather than taking it in this chronological order, I chose to read it by subject so I read all black civil rights speeches as one block. It has been an eye-opening, hugely instructive history lesson. And that highlights one of the wonders of this book.

It is not just a book of speeches. It is a history book. One of the many lessons I learned: While Martin Luther King can credibly lay claim to being the greatest orator of the civil rights movement, he most assuredly was not the only great speaker.

The anger, the power, the pain, the passion of many black speakers flows aggressively and often poignantly through these pages. Never before, had I appreciated so well, the suffering of the "negro" community, a suffering was not just physical, but also mental. The evil of slavery for many was greater because the family unit was regularly broken up and abused, with the young black girl often never more than a sex slave for her white master.

I never knew:
That the first African American Governor, Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback took office, even if in a pro tempore role in December 1872 for the state of Louisiana.
That the Civil Rights act of 1875 granted all citizens, regardless of color, full access to public facilities and accommodation. Mind you it appears the Jim Crow South did not know it either!
That the introduction of the sex discrimination amendment into the 1964 Civil Rights Act happened only because Congressman Howard Smith introduced it, believing that this amendment would scupper the whole Civil Rights bill. Gosh, who would have thought politicians could be so devious?

I have often thought that much of Jesse Jackson's speechmaking is clich?d but some of his phrasing and imagery when he spoke at the 1984 Democratic National Convention is absolutely superb.

"My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised."

Or

"America is not like a blanket - one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt - many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt."

Gottheimer does not present Jackson's speech to the 1988 Democratic Convention where he used similar imagery. Good communicators know what works and as Martin Luther King showed often, are not afraid to repeat strong phrases in many different speeches. In '88, Jackson said,
"America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth. When I was a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina and grandmama could not afford a blanket, she didn't complain and we did not freeze. Instead she took pieces of old cloth -- patches, wool, silk, gabardine, crockersack -- only patches, barely good enough to wipe off your shoes with. But they didn't stay that way very long. With sturdy hands and a strong cord, she sewed them together into a quilt, a thing of beauty and power and culture. Now, Democrats, we must build such a quilt."

One of the compelling aspects of the book is how history's so called "second-class citizens" - Blacks, Women, Chinese-Americans, Gays, Hispanics were able to overcome similar prejudice to build better futures for themselves. No one should believe that complete success has been achieved.

Bill Clinton's speech to African-American ministers at the Church of God of Christ, in Memphis in 1993 rebukes their community for in a sense swapping one form of tyranny for another. He imagined what Dr. Martin Luther King might say if he were to return. King might have said "I did not live and die to see 13-year-old boys get automatic weapons and gun down 9-year-olds just for the kick of it. I did not live and die to see young people destroy their own lives with drugs and then build fortunes destroying the lives of others. That is not what I came here to do."

Gottheimer (who was a Clinton speechwriter) indicated that Clinton did this speech almost extemporaneously, relying on some hand written notes. If so, kudos to a great communicator who by the way writes the foreword to Ripples of Hope. Kudos also to Gottheimer for putting this great edition together. I am boring people telling them how good it is.