Influential Speakers Take II

Keeping with the theme of pivotal pitches, here’s another.

It’s one thing to give a persuasive speech for new business or funding, and quite another to speak, off the fly, to one very angry mob.

This is a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy in Indianapolis on April 4, 1968, the night of Martin Luther King’s assassination.

All over the United States riots had broken out upon hearing the news.

Now, he had to announce King’s death to a mostly black audience in a black neighborhood.

The speech he made was off the cuff, to a crowd on the verge of rioting.

That night, race riots broke out in 60 cities, but not Indianapolis.

Some attribute that fact to this speech.