Happy birthday, Nelson Mandela.

Today was the 91st birthday of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president.

In his honor, I am streaming on my Vox blog a 4-minute excerpt of “Mandela: An Audio History,” which was produced by National Public Radio in 2004.

Click here to listen.

The voices heard in this clip, interspersed with newsreel audio, are (in order): Coloured activist Eddie Daniels, South African Communist Party member Denis Goldberg, former Member of Parliament Helen Suzman, former political prisoner Sonny Venkatrathnam, African National Congress member Joe Matthews, Mr. Mandela, and activist lawyer Dullah Omar.

Addressing the NAACP

President Obama tomorrow will address to the 100th annual convention of the NAACP. Do you know who was the first U.S. president ever to address the NAACP?

It was Harry S. Truman... on June 29, 1947, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

I’m streaming audio of that event on my Vox blog. Click here to hear a 3½-minute excerpt.

If you’d like to download the complete 12½-minute speech as an MP3, follow this link to the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. Or you can download it from the American Rhetoric website.

Republicans and race in 1908

Everybody knows that the Republican Party – the party of Abraham Lincoln – once enjoyed the loyal support of American Negroes.

This wasn’t just because Lincoln “freed the slaves.” It was because Republicans, for decades after emancipation, proclaimed in their party platform a devotion to racial progress and the defense of black people’s rights.

Listen for yourself.

I found a cool audio artifact via the University of California’s Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project. It is a 1½-minute statement by William Howard Taft, recorded on an Edison cylinder in 1908 when Taft was the Republican nominee for president.

The recording is titled “Rights and progress of the negro.” Click here to hear it on my Vox blog. I think it’s rather remarkable. It is history speaking.

In his 1909 inaugural address, President Taft also spoke directly of the Negro:

“The negroes are now Americans. Their ancestors came here years ago against their will, and this is their only country and their only flag. They have shown themselves anxious to live for it and to die for it.

“Encountering the race feeling against them, subjected at times to cruel injustice growing out of it, they may well have our profound sympathy and aid in the struggle they are making. We are charged with the sacred duty of making their path as smooth and easy as we can.”

Impressive, right? Now comes the turn.

In 1908, the G.O.P. declared:

“The Republican party has been for more than fifty years the consistent friend of the American Negro. ... [W]e condemn all devices that have for their real aim his disfranchisement for reasons of color alone, as unfair, un-American and repugnant to the Supreme law of the land.”

(This referred, of course, to post-Reconstruction policies throughout the South which denied black citizens their right to vote.)

But the 1912 G.O.P. platform contained no mention of the Negro at all, let alone any defense of his voting rights.

And that’s because President Taft didn’t live up to his noblest words from 1908 and 1909... all that “sacred duty” stuff.

No surprise, really. Even in 1908, Taft became the first Republican presidential candidate to campaign for white votes in the South.

And Taft’s 1909 inauguration speech, while paying lip service to the Fifteenth Amendment, justified the voting restrictions in place in the South. He described them as a protection against “the domination of an ignorant, irresponsible element.”

“The colored men must base their hope on the results of their own industry, self-restraint, thrift, and business success,” said President Taft, “as well as upon the aid and comfort and sympathy which they may receive from their white neighbors of the South.”

William H. Taft, you see, had a “Southern strategy.” He wanted to attract white Southern voters to the Republican party.

“[I]t is not the disposition or within the province of the Federal Government to interfere with the regulation by Southern States of their domestic affairs,” Taft announced. (Wink. Nod.)

As long as the U.S. government stayed out of the way, he said, “a better feeling between the negroes and the whites in the South will continue to grow, and more and more of the white people will come to realize that the future of the South is to be much benefited by the industrial and intellectual progress of the negro.

“The exercise of political franchises by those of this race who are intelligent and well-to-do will be acquiesced in, and the right to vote will be withheld only from the ignorant and irresponsible of both races.”

Alas, this bullshit appeal to white southerners didn’t pay off for President Taft. In the 1912 election, he came in third behind Democrat Woodrow Wilson (a straight-up racist) and former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as a Progressive.

Lorraine Hansberry speaks

Fifty years ago tonight – on March 11, 1959 – “A Raisin in the Sun” premiered on Broadway.

It was the first play by a black woman to be produced on the Great White Way. Lorraine Hansberry’s kitchen-sink drama is now an American classic.

Did you know that two original cast members from “A Raisin in the Sun” later found success as writers?

Lonne Elder III received an Oscar nomination for his screenplay “Sounder.” And Douglas Turner Ward co-founded the Negro Ensemble Company.

The Broadway cast also included a 12-year-old Glynn Turman... not to mention Sir Sidney and Ruby Dee and Lou Gossett and Ivan Dixon.

In memory of Lorraine Hansberry, I present a 3½-minute excerpt from a 1961 panel discussion in which she participated. It was called “The Negro in American Culture.”

Click here to stream it on my Vox blog.

(“The Negro in American Culture,” first broadcast on WBAI, is part of the Pacifica Radio Archives. You can download a half-hour of the program – which also features James Baldwin and Langston Hughes – from the Internet Archive for free.

(How mind-blowing is that?)

Hollywood actors do Lincoln and Douglas

My father owned a lot of books. One of them was the complete text of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

I didn’t crack that one open until after I’d graduated college. And I was surprised to discover that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas were debating the very essence of “race” in America... the legal and moral status of black people.

Stephen A. Douglas, one of the nation’s most powerful politicians at the time, didn’t hesitate to declare Negroes a lower form of humanity, unworthy of the rights of citizenship.

Abraham Lincoln, notwithstanding his opposition to slavery, likewise disavowed the ideal of “political and social equality” between blacks and whites.

How did I make it through the public school system and then earn a bachelor’s degree without knowing that Lincoln and Douglas were debating about black folks?

Last month, BBC Audiobooks released a complete audio version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, performed by David Strathairn (as Lincoln) and Richard Dreyfuss (as Douglas).

I’m streaming a 5-minute excerpt on my Vox blog. It starts with Dreyfuss and ends with Strathairn. Click here to listen and learn.

George Washington Carver speaks

It just wouldn’t be Black History Month without George Washington Carver. Am I right, y’all?

I’ve had a 13-second piece of audio on my hard drive since 2007, and it’s time I shared it. This is (to my knowledge) the only sound recording of George Washington Carver’s voice. Can’t even remember where I found it.

Click here to hear Prof. Carver on my Vox blog.

W.E.B. Du Bois speaks

On my Vox blog, I’m streaming a 12-minute excerpt of a 1960 speech given by W.E.B. Du Bois. The title: “Socialism and the American Negro.” To listen, click here.

Amazingly, Dr. Du Bois was 92 years old at the time.

The man had a brilliant mind. But you can’t help but be stunned by the warm, sweet kisses he blows toward the Soviet Union and Red China.

Du Bois describes those totalitarian states as “astonishing[ly] successful” paragons of Communism.

While Du Bois was speaking these words in Madison, Wisconsin, the People’s Republic of China (unbeknownst to the world) was in the middle of a man-made famine that would take many millions of lives.

And the Soviet Union would authorize construction of the Berlin Wall the following year... to prevent East Germans from fleeing Communism.

Du Bois joined the Communist Party USA in 1961. He died in 1963 as a newly naturalized citizen of Ghana.

Martin Luther King’s Motown album

In 1963, Berry Gordy released an LP (on the Gordy label) called “The Great March to Freedom.” It was a speech delivered by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. on June 23, 1963, in Detroit.

British-born historian Brian Ward tells the story behind this record in his 1998 book “Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations.”

Actually, Atlantic Records had expressed an early interest in recording one of Dr. King’s speeches. Dr. King was interested as well, but nothing came of this.

Then, in 1962, black entrepreneur Dootsie Williams released a bootleg album on his Dooto label – “Martin Luther King at Zion Hill” – of Dr. King speaking at a Baptist church in Los Angeles.

A Southern Christian Leadership Conference official recalled: “I asked a gentleman who was preparing to set up a recorder, for what purpose the tape would be used. He replied it was ‘for the church.’ Three months later while we were in Albany, the record came out. … Neither Dr. King nor anyone connected with SCLC knew anything about the record until it was being distributed.”

The SCLC ended up taking Dootsie Williams to court.

In September of 1962, Motown vice president Esther Edwards (Berry Gordy’s sister) reached out to Dr. King regarding an authorized LP release. Dr. King negotiated a deal whereby his artist royalties would go to the SCLC.

The album was released in August of 1963... on the date of Dr. King’s March on Washington. In fact, the Detroit speech concludes with an early version of the “I have a dream” portion of the March on Washington speech.

“The Great March to Freedom” is now available as an MP3 download (from Amazon, eMusic and iTunes).

I’m streaming a 9-minute excerpt on my Vox blog. Click here to listen.

Human Rights Day

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, created by the United Nations to codify the “highest aspiration” of human beings for “freedom, justice and peace.” (December 10 is celebrated as Human Rights Day.)

One interesting aspect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is how Muslim nations responded to it.

When the U.N. General Assembly voted to approve the declaration, eight countries abstained: the Communist nations of the Soviet Bloc (of course), apartheid South Africa (natch)... and Saudi Arabia.

The problematic part for Muslim leaders is Article 18. To wit:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Yeah, right. Tell it to the imam.

Iran under the shah had ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But after the Iranian revolution of 1979, that country’s militant Muslim leadership denounced the U.N. document as a secular manifestation of Judeo-Christian ideals... and inconsistent with Islamic law.

In 1990, 45 Islamic countries put forth their own “Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.” Rather than guarantee the freedom of religion, Article 10 of the Cairo Declaration proclaims:

“Islam is the religion of true unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of pressure on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to force him to change his religion to another religion or to atheism.”

As for freedom of speech: “Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.”

Indeed, according to the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights, “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.”

In other words... tough luck, Hindus. Nice try, Baha’is. Keep on walkin’, Christians. And sayonara, Jews.

I am streaming on my Vox blog a 2-minute excerpt of a 1958 interview with Eleanor Roosevelt, the former First Lady. She chaired the U.N. commission that drafted the Universal Declaration.

Click here to hear Mrs. Roosevelt talk frankly about Muslim opposition to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

RNC flashback: Pat Buchanan, 1992

From the moment Sarah Palin was chosen as John McCain’s running mate, her biggest booster on television has been MSNBC commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.

To understand why, never mind that Palin supported Buchanan in one of his own previous runs for the presidency.

Go straight back to Pugnacious Pat’s address to the Republican National Convention 16 years ago. Buchanan famously talked about a “cultural war” taking place in America. He also called it a “religious war.”

Buchanan articulated the same us-vs.-them politics we heard from Sarah Palin’s lips last night. In the “struggle for the soul of America,” Buchanan proclaimed, Democrat Bill Clinton is “on the other side, and George Bush is on our side.”

McCain – that across-the-aisle-reaching “maverick” – has now structured his offense around the old right-wing Republican playbook.

I’m streaming a 4-minute excerpt of Buchanan’s 1992 “culture war” speech on my Vox blog. Click here to hear it.

To get the entire speech, follow this link to AmericanRhetoric.com.

RNC flashback: Barry Goldwater, 1964

In his acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention, presidential nominee Barry Goldwater delivered one of the great rhetorical couplets in American political history:

“[E]xtremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And... moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

But the conservative icon had more on his mind that night than the Communist menace.

Goldwater, throughout his campaign, made an issue of “crime in the streets.” He was, in fact, the first presidential candidate ever to politicize urban crime.

(By 1968 – after the Watts Riots of ’65, the Newark and Detroit riots of ’67, and widespread rioting after the murder of Martin Luther King – Richard Nixon won the Republican nomination with a tough “law and order” approach, belittling those “bleeding-heart” liberals who said poverty was the problem.)

I’m streaming a 3-minute excerpt from Barry Goldwater’s 1964 speech to the RNC. Click here to listen.

You can stream or download the entire speech by following this link to AmericanRhetoric.com.

DNC flashback: Barack Obama, 2004

The speech that led to this night took place on July 27, 2004 in Boston. Barack Obama – then a candidate for the U.S. Senate – delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.

I’m streaming a 1½-minute except on my Vox blog. Click here to listen.

You can stream or download the entire speech by following this link to AmericanRhetoric.com.

DNC flashback: Bill Clinton, 1992

Bill Clinton tonight gave his full-throated endorsement to Barack Obama, shutting up those (including myself) who wondered whether he might be half- throated... or even quarter-throated.

In President Clinton’s honor, I’m streaming a 3-minute piece of his acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

Click here to hear it. You might be struck by some of the biographical similarities to Obama’s story: raised without a father... formative years spent with grandparents...

You can stream or download the entire speech by following this link to AmericanRhetoric.com.

DNC flashback: Fannie Lou Hamer, 1964

The Democratic National Convention in Denver has begun. Let me slip into historian mode to share sounds from conventions past.

First is from the 1964 convention in Atlantic City, where incumbent President Lyndon Johnson got the nomination.

On August 22, 1964 – two days before the convention proper – the Democratic credentials committee was embroiled in a drama over Mississippi.

The official Mississippi delegation was “lily- white” (as people used to say). That state’s Democratic Party excluded Negroes. But a “rump delegation” also showed up in Atlantic City... the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. It was mostly black.

Which delegation would be seated at the Democratic National Convention?

In the end, the “Freedom Democrats” rejected a compromise pushed by the party leadership: that two black “at large” delegates be seated with the all-white delegation.

It was a moot point as President Johnson was nominated by acclamation. There was no roll call of the states. But the Mississippi showdown caused the Democratic National Committee to change its rules for 1968, and to outlaw segregated delegations.

And into the pages of history stepped voting-rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, vice chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Click here to hear Mrs. Hamer’s 8-minute statement to the DNC credentials committe in 1964. (You can download this MP3 by following this link to AmericanRhetoric.com.)

Johnny Griffin speaks

The passing of jazz giant Johnny Griffin last week caused me to reach for “Talking Jazz: An Oral History,” an incredible 24-CD box set that I hadn’t made time to listen to.

Ben Sidran, a jazz and rock keyboardist, interviewed the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey for his NPR talk show “Sidran on Record.” His conversation with Johnny Griffin took place in 1988.

I’m streaming a 7½-minute excerpt on my Vox blog. Click here to hear it.

Griffin talks about his formative years at Chicago’s DuSable High School under the tutelage of Capt. Walter Dyett, a renowned music instructor.

(Among the famous performers taught by Capt. Dyett were Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Gene Ammons, Bo Diddley, Von Freeman, Eddie Harris, Clifford Jordan, Wilbur Ware and Redd Foxx.)

Griffin also tells how learning to play the oboe saved his life during the Korean War.

If you love jazz, you need to pawn some jewelry and get yourself that “Talking Jazz” set.

Medgar Evers speaks

Civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated on June 12, 1963... shot in the back by a rifleman outside his Mississippi home.

A former Ku Klux Klansman was convicted of the crime... in 1994.

The murder of Medgar Evers shocked white America. Young balladeers wrote songs about it... most famously Bob Dylan’s “Only a Pawn in Their Game.” Phil Ochs wrote “The Ballad of Medgar Evers,” and Dick Weissman wrote “Medgar Evers Lullaby.”

Black activist Matthew Jones, a leader of the SNCC Freedom Singers, also wrote a “Ballad of Medgar Evers.”

My earliest recollection of hearing the name Medgar Evers was an episode of “Good Times.” (Young Michael Evans, the “militant midget,” kickin’ the knowledge.)

I never heard Medgar Evers speak with his own voice until last year, when I found a minutelong track on the album “Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs.”

Click here to hear “Medgar Evers Speaking.” This recording was made shortly before his assassination.

Bruce Lee speaks

I wasn’t deep into the kung-fu movies as a youngster. But I understood the coolness of Bruce Lee.

In honor of APIA Month, I’m streaming a 30-second audio artifact of Bruce Lee. Click here to listen.

It’s one of several vocal snippets available (plus music) on an album called “Dragon Tales.”

April 4, 1968: Jesse Jackson

In 1976, the Rev. Jesse Jackson appeared on a Chicago radio talk show to discuss the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Jackson said flat-out: “We contend that the government was involved in the assassination of Dr. King. ... The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that the FBI either had the drive to kill Dr. King, or to know of his killing and not pursue stopping it very vigorously.”

The complete 23-minute audiocast, from the archives of the Museum of Broadcast Communications, is embedded below.

April 4, 1968: Walter Cronkite

Embedded below is a 3-minute excerpt of the “CBS Evening News” from the night Dr. King was assassinated.

April 4, 1968: Robert F. Kennedy

On the night Martin Luther King was murdered, Robert F. Kennedy was in Indianapolis, campaigning for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.

Kennedy spoke for only 6 minutes that evening, breaking the news to a crowd of his supporters. His remarks are considered one of the most memorable political speeches of the 20th Century. (You can download the sound file from the American Rhetoric website.)

Click here to hear Robert Kennedy’s words on my Vox blog.