爱华网英语演讲水平对于英语专业生的长足发展起着举足轻重的作用。下面是小编带来的优秀英语演讲美文，欢迎阅读!
优秀英语演讲美文篇一
John F. Kennedy
Civil Rights Address
delivered 11 June 1963
Good evening, my fellow citizens:
This afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of Alabama National Guardsmen was required on the University of Alabama to carry out the final and unequivocal order of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Alabama. That order called for the admission of two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro. That they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the University of Alabama, who met their responsibilities in a constructive way.
I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.
Today, we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free. And when Americans are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops. It ought to to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal. It ought to to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case.
The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the State in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is 7 years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as much.
This is not a sectional issue. Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city, in every State of the Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue. In a time of domestic crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics. This is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets, and new laws are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right. We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?
One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.
We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?
Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them. The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.
We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the facts that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame, as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right, as well as reality.
Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law. The Federal judiciary has upheld that proposition in a series of forthright cases. The Executive Branch has adopted that proposition in the conduct of its affairs, including the employment of Federal personnel, the use of Federal facilities, and the sale of federally financed housing. But there are other necessary measures which only the Congress can provide, and they must be provided at this session. The old code of equity law under which we live commands for every wrong a remedy, but in too many communities, in too many parts of the country, wrongs are inflicted on Negro citizens and there are no remedies at law. Unless the Congress acts, their only remedy is the street.
I am, therefore, asking the Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public -- hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments. This seems to me to be an elementary right. Its denial is an arbitrary indignity that no American in 1963 should have to endure, but many do.
I have recently met with scores of business leaders urging them to take voluntary action to end this discrimination, and I have been encouraged by their response, and in the last two weeks over 75 cities have seen progress made in desegregating these kinds of facilities. But many are unwilling to act alone, and for this reason, nationwide legislation is needed if we are to move this problem from the streets to the courts.
I'm also asking the Congress to authorize the Federal Government to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation in public education. We have succeeded in persuading many districts to desegregate voluntarily. Dozens have admitted Negroes without violence. Today, a Negro is attending a State-supported institution in every one of our 50 States, but the pace is very slow.
Too many Negro children entering segregated grade schools at the time of the Supreme Court's decision nine years ago will enter segregated high schools this fall, having suffered a loss which can never be restored. The lack of an adequate education denies the Negro a chance to get a decent job.
The orderly implementation of the Supreme Court decision, therefore, cannot be left solely to those who may not have the economic resources to carry the legal action or who may be subject to harassment.
Other features will be also requested, including greater protection for the right to vote. But legislation, I repeat, cannot solve this problem alone. It must be solved in the homes of every American in every community across our country. In this respect I wanna pay tribute to those citizens North and South who've been working in their communities to make life better for all. They are acting not out of sense of legal duty but out of a sense of human decency. Like our soldiers and sailors in all parts of the world they are meeting freedom's challenge on the firing line, and I salute them for their honor and their courage.
My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all -- in every city of the North as well as the South. Today, there are Negroes unemployed, two or three times as many compared to whites, inadequate education, moving into the large cities, unable to find work, young people particularly out of work without hope, denied equal rights, denied the opportunity to eat at a restaurant or a lunch counter or go to a movie theater, denied the right to a decent education, denied almost today the right to attend a State university even though qualified. It seems to me that these are matters which concern us all, not merely Presidents or Congressmen or Governors, but every citizen of the United States.
This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. We cannot say to ten percent of the population that you can't have that right; that your children cannot have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go in the street and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.
Therefore, I'm asking for your help in making it easier for us to move ahead and to provide the kind of equality of treatment which we would want ourselves; to give a chance for every child to be educated to the limit of his talents.
As I've said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.
We have a right to expect that the Negro community will be responsible, will uphold the law, but they have a right to expect that the law will be fair, that the Constitution will be color blind, as Justice Harlan said at the turn of the century.
This is what we're talking about and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it I ask the support of all our citizens.
Thank you very much.
优秀英语演讲美文篇二
希拉里在第四次联合国世界妇女大会上的演讲
hank you very much, Gertrude Mongella, for your dedicated work that has brought us to thispoint, distinguished delegates, and guests:
I would like to thank the Secretary General for inviting me to be part of this important UnitedNations Fourth World Conference on Women. This is truly a celebration, a celebration of thecontributions women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in the community,as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens, and leaders.
It is also a coming together, much the way women come together every day in every country.We come together in fields and factories, in village markets and supermarkets, in living roomsand board rooms. Whether it is while playing with our children in the park, or washing clothes ina river, or taking a break at the office water cooler, we come together and talk about ouraspirations and concern. And time and again, our talk turns to our children and our families.However different we may appear, there is far more that unites us than divides us. We share acommon future, and we are here to find common ground so that we may help bring newdignity and respect to women and girls all over the world, and in so doing bring new strengthand stability to families as well.
By gathering in Beijing, we are focusing world attention on issues that matter most in our lives-- the lives of women and their families: access to education, health care, jobs and credit, thechance to enjoy basic legal and human rights and to participate fully in the political life of ourcountries.
There are some who question the reason for this conference. Let them listen to the voices ofwomen in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces. There are some who wonder whetherthe lives of women and girls matter to economic and political progress around the globe. Letthem look at the women gathered here and at Huairou -- the homemakers and nurses, theteachers and lawyers, the policymakers and women who run their own businesses. It isconferences like this that compel governments and peoples everywhere to listen, look, and facethe world’s most pressing problems. Wasn’t it after all -- after the women’s conference inNairobi ten years ago that the world focused for the first time on the crisis of domesticviolence?
Earlier today, I participated in a World Health Organization forum. In that forum, we talkedabout ways that government officials, NGOs, and individual citizens are working to address thehealth problems of women and girls. Tomorrow, I will attend a gathering of the United NationsDevelopment Fund for Women. There, the discussion will focus on local -- and highly successful-- programs that give hard-working women access to credit so they can improve their ownlives and the lives of their families.
What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their familieswill flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have achance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. Andwhen families flourish, communities and nations do as well. That is why every woman, everyman, every child, every family, and every nation on this planet does have a stake in thediscussion that takes place here.
Over the past 25 years, I have worked persistently on issues relating to women, children, andfamilies. Over the past two and a half years, I've had the opportunity to learn more about thechallenges facing women in my own country and around the world.
I have met new mothers in Indonesia, who come together regularly in their village to discussnutrition, family planning, and baby care. I have met working parents in Denmark who talkabout the comfort they feel in knowing that their children can be cared for in safe, andnurturing after-school centers. I have met women in South Africa who helped lead the struggleto end apartheid and are now helping to build a new democracy. I have met with the leadingwomen of my own hemisphere who are working every day to promote literacy and betterhealth care for children in their countries. I have met women in India and Bangladesh who aretaking out small loans to buy milk cows, or rickshaws, or thread in order to create a livelihoodfor themselves and their families. I have met the doctors and nurses in Belarus and Ukraine whoare trying to keep children alive in the aftermath of Chernobyl.
The great challenge of this conference is to give voice to women everywhere whoseexperiences go unnoticed, whose words go unheard. Women comprise more than half theworld’s population, 70% of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught toread and write. We are the primary caretakers for most of the world’s children and elderly. Yetmuch of the work we do is not valued -- not by economists, not by historians, not by popularculture, not by government leaders.
At this very moment, as we sit here, women around the world are giving birth, raising children,cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on assembly lines,running companies, and running countries. Women also are dying from diseases that shouldhave been prevented or treated. They are watching their children succumb to malnutritioncaused by poverty and economic deprivation. They are being denied the right to go to schoolby their own fathers and brothers. They are being forced into prostitution, and they are beingbarred from the bank lending offices and banned from the ballot box.
Those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for thosewho could not. As an American, I want to speak for those women in my own country, womenwho are raising children on the minimum wage, women who can’t afford health care or childcare, women whose lives are threatened by violence, including violence in their own homes.
I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good schools, safe neighborhoods, cleanair, and clean airwaves; for older women, some of them widows, who find that, after raisingtheir families, their skills and life experiences are not valued in the marketplace; for women whoare working all night as nurses, hotel clerks, or fast food chefs so that they can be at homeduring the day with their children; and for women everywhere who simply don’t have time to doeverything they are called upon to do each and every day.
Speaking to you today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks for women around theworld who are denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property, or have asay about the direction of their lives, simply because they are women. The truth is that mostwomen around the world work both inside and outside the home, usually by necessity.
We need to understand there is no one formula for how women should lead our lives. That iswhy we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Everywoman deserves the chance to realize her own God-given potential. But we must recognizethat women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected.
Our goals for this conference, to strengthen families and societies by empowering women totake greater control over their own destinies, cannot be fully achieved unless all governments -- here and around the world -- accept their responsibility to protect and promoteinternationally recognized human rights. The -- The international community has longacknowledged and recently reaffirmed at Vienna that both women and men are entitled to arange of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right todetermine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear. No one -- No one shouldbe forced to remain silent for fear of religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse, or torture.
Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even now, in thelate 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armedconflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees. And whenwomen are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse. Ibelieve that now, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break the silence. It is time for usto say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discusswomen’s rights as separate from human rights.
These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history ofsilence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words. But the voices ofthis conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loudly and clearly:
It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, ortheir spines broken, simply because they are born girls.
It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitutionfor human greed -- and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should nolonger be tolerated.
It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, andburned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.
It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities andwhen thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.
It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.
It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degradingpractice of genital mutilation.
It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families,and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights arewomen’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget thatamong those rights are the right to speak freely -- and the right to be heard.
Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in the social and political lives of theircountries, if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure. It is indefensible thatmany women in nongovernmental organizations who wished to participate in this conferencehave not been able to attend -- or have been prohibited from fully taking part.
Let me be clear. Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debateopenly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of theirgovernments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them,mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peacefulexpression of their ideas and opinions.
In my country, we recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage. It took 150years after the signing of our Declaration of Independence for women to win the right to vote.It took 72 years of organized struggle, before that happened, on the part of manycourageous women and men. It was one of America’s most divisive philosophical wars. Butit was a bloodless war. Suffrage was achieved without a shot being fired.
But we have also been reminded, in V-J Day observances last weekend, of the good that comeswhen men and women join together to combat the forces of tyranny and to build a betterworld. We have seen peace prevail in most places for a half century. We have avoided anotherworld war. But we have not solved older, deeply-rooted problems that continue to diminish thepotential of half the world’s population.
Now it is the time to act on behalf of women everywhere. If we take bold steps to better thelives of women, we will be taking bold steps to better the lives of children and families too.Families rely on mothers and wives for emotional support and care. Families rely on women forlabor in the home. And increasingly, everywhere, families rely on women for income needed toraise healthy children and care for other relatives.
As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, aslong as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, notschooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes -- the potential of the humanfamily to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.
Let -- Let this conference be our -- and the world’s -- call to action. Let us heed that call sowe can create a world in which every woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy andgirl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and stable future.That is the work before you. That is the work before all of us who have a vision of the world wewant to see -- for our children and our grandchildren.
The time is now. We must move beyond rhetoric. We must move beyond recognition ofproblems to working together, to have the comment efforts to build that common ground wehope to see.
God's blessing on you, your work, and all who will benefit from it.
Godspeed and thank you very much.
优秀英语演讲美文篇三
芭芭拉布什在韦尔斯利学院的演讲
Thank you very, very much, President Keohane. Mrs. Gorbachev, Trustees, faculty, parents, and I should say, Julia Porter, class president, and certainly my new best friend, Christine Bicknell -- and, of course, the Class of 1990. I am really thrilled to be here today, and very excited, as I know all of you must be, that Mrs. Gorbachev could join us.
These -- These are exciting times. They're exciting in Washington, and I have really looked forward to coming to Wellesley. I thought it was going to be fun. I never dreamt it would be this much fun. So, thank you for that.
More than ten years ago, when I was invited here to talk about our experiences in the People's Republic of China, I was struck by both the natural beauty of your campus and the spirit of this place.
Wellesley, you see, is not just a place but an idea -- an experiment in excellence in which diversity is not just tolerated, but is embraced. The essence of this spirit was captured in a moving speech about tolerance given last year by a student body president of one of your sister colleges. She related the story by Robert Fulghum about a young pastor, finding himself in charge of some very energetic children, hits upon the game called "Giants, Wizards, and Dwarfs." "You have to decide now," the pastor instructed the children, "which you are -- a giant, a wizard, or a dwarf?" At that, a small girl tugging at his pants leg, asked, "But where do the mermaids stand?" And the pastor tells her there are no mermaids. And she says, "Oh yes there are -- they are. I am a mermaid."
Now this little girl knew what she was, and she was not about to give up on either her identity, or the game. She intended to take her place wherever mermaids fit into the scheme of things. "Where do the mermaids stand? All of those who are different, those who do not fit the boxes and the pigeonholes?" "Answer that question," wrote Fulghum, "And you can build a school, a nation, or a whole world." As that very wise young woman said, "Diversity, like anything worth having, requires effort -- effort to learn about and respect difference, to be compassionate with one another, to cherish our own identity, and to accept unconditionally the same in others.
You should all be very proud that this is the Wellesley spirit. Now I know your first choice today was Alice Walker -- guess how I know! -- known for The Color Purple. Instead you got me -- known for the color of my hair. Alice Walker's book has a special resonance here. At Wellesley, each class is known by a special color. For four years the Class of '90 has worn the color purple. Today you meet on Severance Green to say goodbye to all of that, to begin a new and a very personal journey, to search for your own true colors.
In the world that awaits you, beyond the shores of Waban -- Lake Waban, no one can say what your true colors will be. But this I do know: You have a first class education from a first class school. And so you need not, probably cannot, live a "paint-by-numbers" life. Decisions are not irrevocable. Choices do come back. And as you set off from Wellesley, I hope that many of you will consider making three very special choices.
The first is to believe in something larger than yourself, to get involved in some of the big ideas of our time. I chose literacy because I honestly believe that if more people could read, write, and comprehend, we would be that much closer to solving so many of the problems that plague our nation and our society.
And early on I made another choice, which I hope you'll make as well. Whether you are talking about education, career, or service, you're talking about life -- and life really must have joy. It's supposed to be fun.
One of the reasons I made the most important decision of my life, to marry George Bush, is because he made me laugh. It's true, sometimes we've laughed through our tears, but that shared laughter has been one of our strongest bonds. Find the joy in life, because as Ferris Bueller said on his day off, "Life moves pretty fast; and ya don't stop and look around once in a while, ya gonna miss it."
(I'm not going to tell George ya clapped more for Ferris than ya clapped for George.)
The third choice that must not be missed is to cherish your human connections: your relationships with family and friends. For several years, you've had impressed upon you the importance to your career of dedication and hard work. And, of course, that's true. But as important as your obligations as a doctor, a lawyer, a business leader will be, you are a human being first. And those human connections --- with spouses, with children, with friends -- are the most important investments you will ever make.
At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend, or a parent.
We are in a transitional period right now -- We are in a transitional period right now, fascinating and exhilarating times, learning to adjust to changes and the choices we, men and women, are facing. As an example, I remember what a friend said, on hearing her husband complain to his buddies that he had to babysit. Quickly setting him straight, my friend told her husband that when it's your own kids, it's not called babysitting.
Now maybe we should adjust faster; maybe we should adjust slower. But whatever the era twenty -- whatever the era, whatever the times, one thing will never change: fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first. You must read to your children, and you must hug your children, and you must love your children. Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens inside your house.
For over fifty years, it was said that the winner of Wellesley's annual hoop race would be the first to get married. Now they say, the winner will be the first to become a C.E.O. Both -- Both of those stereotypes show too little tolerance for those who want to know where the mermaids stand. So -- So I want to offer a new legend: the winner of the hoop race will be the first to realize her dream -- not society's dreams -- her own personal dream.
And who -- Who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse -- and I wish him well.
Well, the controversy ends here. But our conversation is only beginning. And a worthwhile conversation it has been. So as you leave Wellesley today, take with you deep thanks for the courtesy and the honor you have shared with Mrs. Gorbachev and with me.
Thank you. God bless you. And may your future be worthy of your dreams.
