Famous public speakers are impressive people, through the ages the best of them still inspire us as Americans, inspire us to greatness.  We produce not only the great leaders of the country, but the whole world’s great leaders, people the everywhere research and learn from our brilliant speakers.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Delivered in 1963, Dr. King’s revolutionary “I Have a Dream” speech still sends chills down my spine when I hear it, even though I have never known a day of injustice in my life.  Dr. King’s message of peace and non violence is so important that every child in the world should have it etched into their skulls, lest we lose this priceless wisdom as a nation.   The idea that we are all equal, and more importantly, that we are all one nation, black and white together, and that we should love each as true brothers, and as God’s children, they way He meant us to live.  Dr. King was deemed so dangerous to the violent people fighting the civil rights movement  that he was murdered for preaching brotherly love and non violent dissent, but his sacrifice lives on in all men, of every persuasion and color, who love life and liberty not just for themselves, but for all of America ,and beyond.

Abraham Lincoln

Everyone knows good old Abe.  He is most famous for the Gettysburg Address, which almost every school child can recite at least the first line from. The Gettysburg Address is the speech Americans of the time needed to hear, the words that propelled them forward into freeing almost three million slaves throughout the south. Abraham Lincoln also added the thirteenth amendment to the constitution, and brought a close to the traumatic civil war.  Abraham Lincoln must have been an amazing public speaker, because a lot of the things that he was forcing through at the time did not endear him to the nation he was leading, and the Republicans who were running him were afraid he would not be able to achieve re election the following year.  He is certainly one of the most famous public speakers today.

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan was known for his amazing and passionate speeches, but then he was an actor in his earlier years.  His so called “Wall Speech” is credited with the fall of the Berlin wall, and with helping to bring down the communism juggernaut to the east.  Many people were freed from the Soviet trap when that happened and the event signaled the close of the cold war.  I remember as a small child watching the wall come down on television with my father, a man who had seen a man go to the moon, who had seen a million amazing and terrible things in his lifetime, and he said to me, you will watch this, and always remember that there is a cost to being free, never take it for granted.  Hearing Reagan’s speech, I believe he gave the world courage enough to be a little bigger than the petty differences in which it was normally consumed in at the time, and though Reagan gave many brilliant speeches during his time as President, this one is one of the most influential of all time and transcends even the Soviet Empire itself.