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. A Chicago Public Library Best Book!

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

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.