Greatest Speeches opf the 20th Century

[nonconformist]

Vids and excerpts, please.

Martin Luther King's last speech before assassination (given the very day before he was murdered)

We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Poignant because of the circumstances, but also because they're the words of a man who almsot knows he's gonna die.

Robert F. Kennedy's speech, given at a Democrat rally the day after

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.....

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

The bolded bit really is quite powerful, seeing as RFK lost his brother, JFK, shortly prior.
Riots broke out across the US, but in Indianapolis, where RFK gave the speech, there wasn't a single one.
RFK was assassinated two months later.

 

[nonconformist]

Last speech of Nicolae
Ceaucescu
Not the speech itself, but the visible, real-time disintegration of the whole country. You can see the exact moment Ceacescu knows sometyhing is wrong, and from that moment, he was doomed.
Some brave soul in the audience decided to screw the Securitate, and started booing. Before long, the whole crowd was. Within a day, open revfolution had broken out. Within a week, Ceacescu and his wife had been executed by the Romanian army, which had thousands of volunteers for the firing squad which would shoot him.