Speech:

What it Means to be Colored in the Capital

Speaker:

Mary Church Terrell

1900 - 1940 / Civil Rights and Race Equity
As more Black people migrated to Washington D.C. following the Civil War, many white citizens perceived the nation’s capital to be a place that granted Black people the leisure of white society. In 1894, one citizen wrote in the Hawaiian Star that the capital was “a negro aristocracy.” This writer claimed that Washington D.C. was…  Read more.
Speech:

Endorsement of Hubert Humphrey followed by Questions and Answers with Reporters

Speaker:

A. Phillip Randolph

1961 - 1980 / Civil Rights and Race Equity
Philip Randolph was born in Jacksonville, Florida on April 15, 1889. Asa Philip was born to working-class parents that exuberated race pride and religious piety. After attending college and finding the working conditions of the Jim Crow South untenable, Randolph moved to New York in 1911.  Read more.
Speech:

Testimony of Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Director, Office of Civilian Defense

Speaker:

Eleanor Roosevelt

1941 - 1960 / Civil Rights and National Security
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in New York City to the wealthy Roosevelt family. After attending secondary school, she became involved with social reform work for the first time at age 18 by teaching children who were part of poorer, immigrant communities and working with the National Consumers League to end…  Read more.
Speech:

Lewis Statement on Marriage Equality

Speaker:

John Lewis

2001 - present / Civil Rights and Gender Equity
John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was born on his family’s farm outside of Troy, Alabama. His parents, Willie Mae and Eddie Lewis, were sharecroppers. As a child, Lewis attended segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama. In his memoir, Lewis wrote of encounters with racist violence and inequitable segregation during his childhood.  Read more.
Rosalyn Carter
Speech:

Remarks of the First Lady at the Gridiron Dinner

Speaker:

Rosalynn Carter

1961 - 1980 / Civil Rights and Gender Equity
First Lady Rosalynn Carter used her influence to expand the role of first lady. With the potential to be the “most active First Lady in decades,” Carter lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment and mental health programs, and she also encouraged Americans to volunteer for those in need, supported government aid for the elderly, and…  Read more.
Gloria Steinem
Speech:

Speech to Naval Academy

Speaker:

Gloria Steinem / Dorothy Pitman Hughes

1961 - 1980 / Civil Rights and Gender Equity
By 1972, Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes had toured together for two years as a dynamic speaking duo, lecturing on the Women’s Liberation movement. The interracial pair hoped to galvanize grassroots support for the movement and to help establish feminism as intersectional and mainstream. On May 4, 1972, however, the pair faced an audience…  Read more.
Speech:

A Voice from the Eastern Shore

Speaker:

Marie Watson

1941 - 1960 / Civil Rights and Gender Equity
Marie Watson, a field worker for the Maryland League of Planned Parenthood, delivered “A Voice from the Eastern Shore” on November 5, 1945. It was the only speech given at the annual meeting of the Prince George’s League for Planned Parenthood in Hyattsville, Maryland. The speech was recorded by Georgia K. Benjamin, a civic leader…  Read more.
Rose Winslow 1916
Speech:

On Suffrage

Speaker:

Rose Winslow

1900 - 1940 / Civil Rights and Gender Equity
Rose Winslow (Ruża Wenclawska) was one of many Polish immigrants coming to the United States in the late nineteenth century. Even though we do not know her birth date, we know that she was eleven when her family moved to Pennsylvania presumably in the 1890s. To support her family, she worked ten to twelve-hour days…  Read more.