Speeches

Ketanji Brown Jackson
Speeches
Opening Statement at the U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing - March 21, 2022
March 21, 2022
Chairman Durbin, ranking member Grassley, and distinguished members of the Judiciary Committee—thank you for convening this hearing and for considering my nomination as associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. I am humbled and honored to be here, and I am also truly grateful for the generous introductions that my former judicial colleague, Judge Tom Griffith, and my close friend, Professor Lisa Fairfax, have so graciously provided. I'm also very thankful for the confidence that President Biden has placed in me and for the kindness that he […]
Ketanji Brown Jackson
Speeches
U.S. Supreme Court Nomination Acceptance - Feb. 25, 2022
February 25, 2022
Mr. President, I am truly humbled by the extraordinary honor of this nomination, and I am especially grateful for the care that you have taken in discharging your constitutional duty in service of our democracy with all that is going on in the world today. I also offer my sincerest thanks to you as well, Madam Vice President, for your invaluable role in this nomination process. I must begin these very brief remarks by thanking God for delivering me to this point in my professional journey. My life has been […]
Ketanji Brown Jackson
Speeches
Remarks After U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation - April 8, 2022
April 8, 2022
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered remarks at the White House following her confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her remarks as released by the White House: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you all. Thank you, all, very much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. President. It is the greatest honor of my life to be here with you at this moment, standing before my wonderful family, many of my close friends, your distinguished staff and guests, and the American people. Over these past few weeks, you've heard a […]
Ketanji Brown Jackson
categories: Commencement Address, Speeches
University of Pennsylvania Law School Commencement Address - May 17, 2021
May 17, 2021
Jackson delivered this address for a virtual commencement ceremony. Hello, University of Pennsylvania Law School class of 2021. I am delighted to be able to offer my warmest congratulations to you. As graduates, you've worked really hard to get to this point in your professional journey and I hope that you'll be able to do something fun in celebration of this great achievement. Your graduation from law school is a milestone and it is also a huge accomplishment, especially during this extremely challenging year. I'm sure that when you accepted […]
Lillie Devereux Blake
Speeches
Our Forgotten Foremothers
May 1, 1893
In speaking of "Our Forgotten Foremothers" I shall begin with that great queen who, in some sort, may be considered not only as the foremother of this nation, but of the whole New World–Isabella of Castile. Her clear intellect first grasped the thought that there might be a continent to be discovered, when her husband, her councilors and her courtiers all derided the claims of Columbus as mere idle dreams. Her steadfastness sustained him through all his vicissitudes, and at last her action gave him the money with which to […]
Anna Howard Shaw
Speeches
The Fate of Republics - May 1893
May 1, 1893
The study of the rise and fall of great republics shows a remarkable correspondence in them all. They all had like beginnings, having been established by a body of people whose views were in advance of the age and the people among whom they dwelt; who were driven forth from their native country or became voluntary exiles, wandering into new lands, establishing a new system of government, the central idea of which was civil and religious liberty. About this central idea, by industry, perseverance, indomitable courage and patriotism, republics have […]
Nannie Helen Burroughs
Speeches
Equality of Opportunity Is the Eternal Goal - Sept. 9, 1959
September 9, 1959
From Eleventh Annual Message of Miss Nannie H. Burroughs, President of the Woman’s Convention Auxiliary to the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., San Francisco, California, September 9, 1959. (n.p., National Baptist Convention, 1959), 25–27. God made only one race. He has only one plan for its destiny. The Bible and science declare this fact, unequivocally. Then, the major business of God’s Church and of democratic governments is to accept the fact of the brotherhood of man and initiate and promote plans and programs that will insure the development and building […]
Nannie Helen Burroughs
categories: Commencement Address, Speeches
The Challenge of the New Day: Commencement Address at Tuskegee University - May 24, 1934
May 24, 1934
Burroughs was the first woman to give a spring commencement address at Tuskegee University. We are on the most sacred spot in America and in the world. We are on the grounds dedicated to the future hopes and dreams, aspirations and prophesies of the founders of our democracy. You and I today are surrounded by the most marvelous achievement that has taken place in American history during the past seventy years. The class that returns here today after ten years on the firing line witnesses a new Tuskegee, its magnificent […]
Addie Waites Hunton
Speeches
Y. W. C. A. - 1915
August 1, 1904
Waite's remarks from "Votes for Women: A Symposium by Leading Thinkers of Colored Women" held in Washington, D.C., as published in the August 1915 issue of The Crisis. Waites was a former adviser to the National Board of Directors of the Y.W.C.A.. A membership of more than a half million, representing some seventeen nationalities, makes the Young Women's Christian Association a world movement. In the United States three hundred tho11sand members, distributed in 979 college, city and county associations have as their objective the advancement of the "physical, social, intellectual, […]
Coralie Franklin Cook
Speeches
Votes for Mothers
August 1, 1094
Cook's remarks from "Votes for Women: A Symposium by Leading Thinkers of Colored Women" held in Washington, D.C., as published in the August 1915 issue of The Crisis. Cook was a member of the Board of Education for the District of Columbia. I wonder if anybody in all this great world ever thought to consider man's rights as an individual, by his status as a father? yet you ask me to say something about "Votes for Mothers," as if mothers were a separate and peculiar people. After all, I think […]