What was the greatest speech?
Half a century ago, Martin Luther King had a dream and JFK said he was a Berliner. Both were famous speeches – but what is the best speech ever made? We asked six writers to make their choice. Sam Leith sets the scene
By Sam Leith
Fifty years ago Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and declared: "I have a dream." His words were heard, it is for once no exaggeration to say, around the world. Whole passages now live in folk memory; and, with its formal links to the black folk pulpit and the language of the Book of Amos, the speech itself drew on folk memory.
Great speeches don’t come out of nowhere. Threads of debt and inheritance tie the earliest recorded oratory to the speeches of the present day. Every speech relies for its power on the common language of the tribe, and that language is itself shaped by the great speeches of the past.
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