Monday, November 21, 2005

GED: History: A Century of Great African American Speeches

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/
Say it Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches
(also see review on AELC Constitution Blog http://constitutionaelc.blogspot.com/
of the speech by Clarence Thomas from this site, posted on 11/22/05)

From Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey to Clarence Thomas and Barack Obama, a history of great African American speeches. There is a historical context, the transcript of the speech, and a Real Player rendition of the actual speech.

"The transcripts on this Web site were drawn from the accompanying recordings. In some cases, we were able to start with existing transcripts in the public domain and check them against the recordings. In other instances, we produced the transcripts ourselves with the help of dedicated colleagues.
On some occasions, the available text of a speech differed from the recording. Speakers commonly diverge from their written texts, which are sometimes speeches they give repeatedly, but no one takes the time to document the extemporaneous remarks. Each transcript here has been checked against the recordings by at least two sets of ears. But occasionally, words in some of the recordings can be difficult to hear. We've used our best judgment to make the most faithful transcripts we can."

There is a book available, and also an hour long documentary is available via podcast on site. Sponsored by American RadioWorks and American Public Media. This would be a wonderful tool for Black History Month.