Publisher Description
"A wide-ranging collection of speeches and a worthwhile resource for students of American history." —Booklist
"A golden celebration of the multicultural voices who demand the U.S.—and the world—do better." —Kirkus
"An important addition to American history collections." —School Library Journal
Strong Voices: Fifteen American Speeches Worth Knowing is a collection of significant speeches, made both by those who held the reins of power and those who didn’t, at significant times in American history. Read the original words—sometimes abridged and sometimes in their entirety—that have shaped our cultural fabric.
Introductions by acclaimed writer Tonya Bolden provide historical context and critical insights to the meaning and impact of every speech. Illustrations by award-winning artist Eric Velasquez illuminate what it was really like at each moment in history. This collection includes the following:
- Patrick Henry, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”
- George Washington, Farewell Address
- Red Jacket, “We Never Quarrel about Religion”
- Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
- Sojourner Truth, “I Am a Woman’s Rights”
- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
- Theodore Roosevelt, “Citizenship in a Republic”
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”
- Lou Gehrig, “Farewell to Baseball”
- Langston Hughes, “On the Blacklist All Our Lives”
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy, “We Choose to Go to the Moon”
- Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”
- Fannie Lou Hamer, “I Question America”
- Cesar Chavez, Address to the Commonwealth Club of California, 1984
- Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights”
Strong Voices includes a foreword by #1 New York Times bestselling author and celebrated journalist Cokie Roberts, as well as a timeline in the back of the book, along with letters to the reader from Tonya Bolden and Eric Velasquez.
Strong Voices is a tremendous introduction to the extraordinary words spoken in history.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
Download and start listening now!
“A golden celebration of the multicultural voices who demand that the US—and the world—do better.”
—
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
About the Authors
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama and as a singer. When he was fourteen, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. In 1829 his first book was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. His stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and Disney cartoons, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.
Dion Graham is an award-winning narrator named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine. He has been a recipient of the prestigious Audie Award numerous times, as well as Earphones Awards, the Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards, IBPA Ben Franklin Awards, and the ALA Odyssey Award. He was nominated in 2015 for a Voice Arts Award for Outstanding Narration. He is also a critically acclaimed actor who he has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, internationally, in films, and in several hit television series. He is a graduate of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, with an MFA degree in acting.
Cokie Roberts (1943–2019) was an American journalist, a political commentator, senior news analyst, and bestselling author. She had been cited as one of the fifty greatest women in the history of broadcasting by the American Women in Radio and Television.She won the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress, and a 1991 Emmy Award for her contribution to Who Is Ross Perot? In 2000, she won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. She and her mother, Lindy, won the Foremother Award from the National Center for Health Research in 2013. She was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2000.
About the Narrators
Lisa Renee Pitts is an award-winning actress in theater, television, and film, as well as an accomplished audiobook narrator and an AudioFile Earphones Award winner.
Prentice Onayemi is an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator and a voice and film actor who is known for his roles in The Steam-Room Crooner, AmeriQua, and as Joey in the Tony Award–winning play War Horse.