A chronological presentation of 200 speeches -- or extracts thereof -- by the famous (Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Elijah Muhammad, Whitney Young, Dr. King) and the not so well-known (Peter Clark, Jesse Lawson, Frank Crosswaith, Fannie Lee Chancy, et al.). An oratorical catchall -- some rhetoric, some militancy, some eloquence, some dreams. . . .