I have a request. If any of you have ever been haunted or inspired by a speech, tell me about it in a comment below. I might even be able to find audio or video and post it for everyone to see.
By the way, I know that some of you have been enraged rather than inspired by speeches. If you took my course on the propaganda of war and genocide, you have heard them too. In fact, I have probably heard more ugliness than inspiration. Someday we might even post a “top ten” list of the most vile and hateful speeches of all time.
But every so often I really get tired of all the ugliness that people inflict on each other and find I need a dose of what Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature.” So let’s stick with inspiration, with love, with selflessness. What speeches have inspired to you to reach for those angels?
We can always get to the ugliness another time.
MEDIA AND MAYHEM 
I’m too cynical these days to be inspired by a political speech, but I do recall the late Rep. Shirley Chisholm as a great speaker (despite a slight speech impediment) during her presidential campaign in 1972. She was one of the angels of which you speak.
POV broadcast an incredible documentary about this amazing woman. . Check out “Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed” at http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/chisholm/