Greatest Orators of The United States

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Helen Todd is another famous woman orator.


The anarchist Lucy Parsons was said to be “More Dangerous Than 1,000 Rioters” because of her speaking skills.

 
In my life time...

JFK
RFK ( not Jr. )
MLK
Barbara Jordan ( the most profound orator in my lifetime )
President Obama
Michelle Obama
 
They say Edward Everett was quite good.

Is/was there no Tar Heel to be listed other than Murrow?
 
My issue with saying people like Lincoln, Daniel Webster,etc is we don't have any recordings to know what they sounded like - so for me I'd say MLK, JFK, Obama, Bill Clinton
 
GoHeelsweeeehoooo said:
My issue with saying people like Lincoln, Daniel Webster,etc is we don't have any recordings to know what they sounded like - so for me I'd say MLK, JFK, Obama, Bill Clinton
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Like I mentioned, we do have, at least for many speakers, primary source material where people recount hearing/experiencing those people giving speeches. A careful and comprehensive researcher can pull a great deal of truth from such documents.
 
Don't think he has been mentioned but have to point out how great Jesse Jackson was in his prime.
His speech at the Democratic Convention where he eloquently talked about the quilt of America and your patch not being enough, was just fantastic. Along with his theme of bringing common sense to high places.
Bonus points for going on SNL and reading from Green Eggs and Ham.
Now if I had to pick one person to read me all my bedtime stories, it would be Morgan Freeman.
 
I tended bar at the Hanover Inn in Virginia when I went to Randolph Macon college in Ashland,Va about 2 miles from Hanover. Apparently Patrick Henry’s wife’s father set them up with the Inn? They had a dinner theater in the basement and coming from working at the Pinehurst dinner theater I walked into the scene I knew. Didn’t care much for the racist culture and dental propensity of the student body but have fond memories of the N & S Anna River both winter and spring. A bar in Ashland had graffiti on the wall that broke my Dartmouth brothers in law down “Oedipus” was a Mother Fucker”!! Even though he’s divorced from my sister he still brings it up! That’s a cool area between Richmond and DC!
 
Ddseddse said:
I don't know about history, but he best orater I've personally heard in my life is the Reverend Doctor William Barber II.
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See, I find Dr. Barber to be a bit tedious and overly morally scolding. There is a fine line where an appeal to humanity becomes that and sometimes he doesnt navigate that line well for me.
 
Early radio technology didn’t handle higher frequencies well.

Also, the technicians would increase the volume of female voices because of beliefs that women spoke more softly than men. Louder volumes didn’t broadcast well on the early radio technology. Increasing the volume made higher pitches shrill and shaky. Early radio was a double-edged sword for many women.
 
Ddseddse said:
I don't know about history, but he best orater I've personally heard in my life is the Reverend Doctor William Barber II.
Click to expand...

I was at the UNC bicentennial celebration as a teen and got to hear Clinton and Kuralt live. I think it is the only time during his presidency that Clinton was overshadowed by another speaker.
 
There's a theme here. Our best orators are disproportionately Black. Wildly so. I think there are a couple of different reasons for that. In my view, one reason is that Black people, for whatever reason, intuitively grasp the musicality of speech in ways that white people generally do not. This is why black people invented hip-hop and continue to dominate the genre after all this time.

I've read that music is a more central part of family life among Black Americans than white. That certainly rings true for me. My house growing up rarely had music in it, except what I was playing in my room.
 
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