Can I cut this long speech down to five minutes?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Okay. I’m in a speech class in college and I thought to myself “It would be a really cool thing if I could deliver a persuasive speech that meant something to a silent minority down here”.

Some of you may remember a version of Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech that I posted in GD I guess a month or two ago. I’d love to be able to deliver the crux of that message in five minutes while still keeping some of the potency in it.

I would link to the post itself, but as I’ve made a few changes to it since I first posted it, that wouldn’t reflect its current status. So here it is:

Two hundred and twenty-seven years ago, a document was signed by rebels of our mother country, some fighting for a cause they felt utterly doomed; others fighting for the same cause they felt utterly necessary. That document called for, proclaimed, principles so simple and obvious we often take them for granted.

But in those two hundred twenty-seven years those principles have been denied to people after people. The reasons are at once varied and unified in their bases. When all is stripped away, we are left with one simple, unadulterated, unavoidable, inexcusable and, above all, imminently mutable fact: they have been denied.

We are now farther than we were then in allowing for the redress of this grievance. And we must go much further to complete that process.

Because we are not faced with the fiftieth anniversary of the last teen to commit suicide because a community did not respond, or a family abandoned their child, or a school let it be known “you … are … not … welcome … here”. We are faced with it every day of our lives and it cannot continue. For those principles our ancestors fought for, bled for, risked their lives for, died for, to ring true, for America to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, for each American citizen to know, breathe, and exude life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, this country must change. A people must change, communities must change, thought must change and hearts must change.

We are told when young that “you can do anything you want to”. The media inundate us with images of people doing what they want. And for so many of us it is not an option. We live our lives in secret, or we deny ourselves the chance at a life, not a mere existence nor the continuous, robotic, automatic intake of oxygen.

America is the land of opportunity, we are told. That opportunity has been withheld from us for reasons unjustified and unjustifiable. We seek redress and are systematically denied. We fight at sometimes-great cost and win. But our victories are small and, many times, isolated. America is the land of opportunity for those who are free. It is the land of desperation, of isolation, of denigration and of condemnation for those who have yet to be free.

And in the two hundred twenty-seven years since we told our mother country “We will not be subjugated, we will not be downtrodden, we will not be your subject, bound and gagged, powerless to your every whim” we have made another people take that yoke and it must stop now, for it cannot continue.

We rise up. And we are checked. We fight, and we win. Slowly. At times, at first, alone. For too long we dared not surface; when we did, we were rebuffed by those sworn to protect every American citizen from harm. And then we said “Enough. We will live our lives and with pride. You will not take that from us; not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever.” And we have been saying that since, and it has brought us to a place where, sometimes, we can be safe. Sometimes we can let it be known who we are.

And sometimes we have been killed for it. Sometimes we have been beaten, we have been imprisoned, we have been denied housing or employment or solace or the chance to give solace. We are denied that which is so heavily emphasized throughout this country’s history and so often the world: a family. Rights so common to most in this country that we do not, cannot conceive of a live without them … they are not ours. As we live and breathe we see others with those rights that, though written in law, have been taken away from us through some force that must needs be alien to those who conceived of this country and fought so hard to guarantee the freedom of her citizens.

Today, and tomorrow, and next week and next month and next year and until we are free we will fight for our rights. You cannot ignore us with any hope of quietude: if you do we will overtake you and it will become our country. You cannot fight us with any hope of victory: truth triumphs over both evil and hubris. You cannot make us hide, afraid of what might happen: we have come too far at too great a price to back down now, either for ourselves or those who made that first stand. You can join us, proud and brave, American citizens instead of merely people living in America, and be known as part of the force that made this country the land of the free for eternity.

We are interrogated with the overbold, haughty “Why can’t you just be like us?” We are like you. We bleed red, we cry tears, we wail out in pain, we jump for joy. We love, we cherish, we adore, we believe, we struggle, we fall back and try again, harder and higher, until we are satisfied. Our desires are yours: to be truly free American citizens, as you are. Our motives are yours: freedom; equality; a share in this American life of promise you have.

This is the greatest country in the world, we are told. Freedoms unimaginable elsewhere are taken for granted here such that when they are violated, the smallest child asleep in the deepest cave under a hundred thousand blankets hears a nation cry out “NO!” Yet in some ways we are no better than those we pity half a world away; rights not given in poor, starving countries are similar to those denied our people, your people, here.

Do you fear us? Do you imagine your American way of life slipping out of your grasp? Is your dream fading as yet more in this country are recognized and afforded the same freedom you have had since your birth? Are you threatened by the idea that a people you had marginalized, denigrated, stuffed into a closet, stomped on and seemingly left for dead is back, and was never gone? Or do you fear that you will be left behind as we step forward once, twice, ten times, a thousand times to claim that same freedom you had before your first step?

We seek prosperity as you do. We, too, wish to see this country greater than it was before us.

You who would block our path to freedom are alone. We are stronger than we were when we were stronger than you are now. We have succeeded, we succeed now and we will continue to succeed until we have ultimate success. And those who join us will taste freedom ever sweeter, seeing it newly bestowed on those who had deserved it so long ago. And will you watch as a nation celebrates? Will you fight it?

You will fight it alone. You will be the fly on the ankle of America, and your greatest measure against us, as you summon your entire being’s strength and concentrate every fiber of your existence to hurt us once and for all, may not be felt. It will be only by looking in your direction that we will be aware of your presence. And on that glorious summer day, in a field of daisies, with those we hold close to our hearts, you will be wholly unnoticed. We will look up to a blue sky, we will dance with our eyes wide open, proud of who we are, and we will fall asleep under a starry sky, free.

We have power, and we are growing stronger than we have ever been. We will not be ignored by America nor her people, and indeed we are not. We have fought and we have won; we are fighting and we are winning. We will continue to fight, and we will continue to win until the final victory is ours. Our fight is with Truth on our side; yours is with a weapon far weaker: fear. You will fight with your fear and it will envelop you until you lose everything you have, or you will see through your transparent fear and the light of our Truth will call you forward to join us.

And you will join us.

And we will be stronger than we have been before, a truly united country. We have been United States, but now we will be united, every one of us, and we will be the strength this world has yet to see.

I have a dream that one day these words will be thought unnecessary to any people, for surely freedom is something for all, and everything to many. I have a dream that one day bigotry, hatred and those words of denigration will be as archaic as the mindset that bore them out of the darkest places on this earth. I have a dream that one day American citizens will be judged not by their ideal mate but by their American ideals. I have a dream that people will live in peace, all of them free, all of them proud, all of them happy.

I have a dream that one day any American citizen will be asked “What do you think of that person?” and respond not “Oh, he’s always being so gay. I wish he’d stop” but “I admire him.”

I have a dream that one day there will be no closet in America that hides the secret of a teen too scared to tell her friends she is gay for fear they will abandon her, or worse.

I have a dream that one day people will die of old age, not from utter despair with a country that promises freedom for all and delivers freedom to few.

I have a dream that one day the parent who disowns a child for who that child is will no longer exist; loving parents who care for their children as they ought will have replaced them. And indeed they must, if this country is to strive toward the greatness her people envisioned two hundred twenty-seven years ago and still cannot hold in her hand and give to her people, that it might flourish and blossom under our care.

I have a dream that throughout the world this country shall be known not for what it has done to some but for what it gives to all.

If America is to be what its founders dreamt of, I cannot dream alone. I must not dream alone. My dreams must be as crowded as the halls of justice, teeming with those newly, truly, free. My dreams must be crowded like the doors of far-off lands that do not know freedom, as their people leave a life of despair for a life of promise, of acceptance, of prosperity and of love.

If America is to live up to the words on her Statue of Liberty, I cannot dream alone. If we are to accept the tired, the weak, the yearning to be free; if we are to accept the downtrodden and the cast-off; if we are to accept those who seek the liberty some of us know and some of us will know, I must not dream alone.

And I do not dream alone.

Tell your friends. Tell your parents. Tell your local government, tell your state government, tell the federal government. Tell every American citizen you see from the Aleutian Islands to the Florida Keys; tell every boy and every girl that I do not dream alone. Shout it in the streets; print it in the papers; “film at 11: I do not dream alone.” Saturate every inch of soil this country has, let every ear be hearing, every mouth be proclaiming, every eye be reading that I do not dream alone.

I do not dream alone.

I know it is repetitive in a few places (past, present, current fighting, for example), but I also think that serves to keep that point fresh. I am, of course, very much open to suggestions.

And if The Powers That Be deem this me trying to get homework help and not doing the work all on my own and wish to shut down this thread, so be it. I think the matter is important enough to warrant discussion. And I have asked for similar suggestions before (“help me turn 14 pages into 7!”, i.e.) without Official Word telling me not to, so I feel fairly safe in posting this thread.

Oh. One last thing. Due to the nature and topic of this message, if someone wishes to debate the relative merits of what I have written in my postspeechthing, there is a forum for debates of such gravity. This is neither the forum nor the thread:) At the risk of sounding cold or harsh, I appreciate what moral or religious criticisms you may have, oh gentle reader, but unless they can help me get this thing down to a 5-6 minute speech while still keeping the overall impact of the message, you are cordially invited (for what THAT’s worth!:D) to open a thread in GD.

2

Have you timed it yet?

I did a presentation class a few years ago… time yourself just reading it, then time it with the inflections you want… if its too long, then you will have to edit - be merciless… if a word doesnt need to be there, take it out. The speeches I made, some I had to reduce by 50%!!

Practice and timing is the key … and ruthless editing. The more you practice, the more polished it will sound.

Good luck :slight_smile: tell us how it went ok?

3

One piece of advice. A speech needs rhythm.

Certainly you can edit it to any length you want, depending on how much detail you’re willing to sacrifice. But to be effectivethe spoken word needs pauses, it needs repetition, it needs rhyme. (I know, that reads geeky, but say it aloud and you’ll hear what I mean.)

Don’t chop it up so much that you sacrifice the impact.

4

I’ve already practiced saying it a few times, and the way that seems most effective takes somewhere around 10 minutes. I’m going to see this weekend, or maybe later, if I can take away some of the repetitive things in it and if that doesn’t affect its flow.

5

You’re a talented writer and I hope you do well. But, then, you aren’t asking for praise, so here’s my (critical) take:

Your speech is repetitive, but repetitiveness can be a good thing in speeches, as long as there’s a strong focus. This speech doesn’t have enough focus given its length.

More important, the “I have a dream” thingy was done very well about 40 years ago. Copying this immortal, hallowed phrase accomplishes the drama for which you might hope, but it also smacks of petty larceny and might sound silly. It might also provoke unease among African-American listeners.

Another thought: the content of this dramatic speech might have been appropriate in the 1970s. Today, I’m not so sure. People have moved on; you’re preaching to the choir. It makes one think that it’s the speaker who hasn’t gotten with the times, rather than the audience.

Too, the speaker comes across as hyperbolic and forced, as though s/he has listened to a few too many “West Wing” episodes featuring President Bartlett’s Kennedyesque stemwinders. In summary: it’s unfocused, overwritten, and plagiaristic. (sorry)

That said, you are talented and have the potential for becoming a gifted speechwriter. Best wishes!

6

Way too many verbose and repetitive examples cited to buttress your main point. Cut to the core of your point. 5 minutes is not enough time for a detailed exposition. You need to get to the point more quickly and forcefully. Use the Gettysburg Address as an example of how to do this.

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7

I don’t know. Can you?

[sup]Maybe if you just talk really, really fast.[/sup]

8

I have found this (admittedly apocriphal) dialog to contain a great deal of truth:
“How long would it take you to prepare a 15-minute speech?”

“Three days”

“How long to prepare a one-hour speech?”

“One day”

“How long to prepare a three hour speech?”

“I can deliver that right now.”

9

Last night I had about a 3-hour convo with B’s stepsister wherein we basically cut the thing down to size. Most of the pretty, expressive language is gone, replaced with more simple stuff. But I managed to cut out more than a page of text (single-spaced), and I hope that will fix things well enough. The main things we did were cut some of the repetitive stuff and adjust the vocab and such for A) a listening audience and B) an audience that is not quite up to the standards of the SDMB.

::tries to clear throat, since he is sick::

::fails miserably and hacks a cough out::

Ah, fuckit. I’ll just C&P it.

Two hundred and twenty-seven years ago, a document was signed by rebels of our mother country, some fighting for a cause they felt utterly doomed; others fighting for the same cause they felt utterly necessary. That document proclaimed principles so simple and obvious we often take them for granted.

But in those two hundred twenty-seven years those principles have been denied too many times. When all is stripped away, we are left with one unavoidable, inexcusable and, above all, imminently changeable fact: they have been denied.

We have come far in fixing this injustice. And we have much further to go to fix it.

We are not faced with the fiftieth anniversary of the last teenager to commit suicide because a community did not respond, or a family abandoned their child, or a school let it be known “you … are … not … welcome … here”. We are faced with it every day of our lives and it cannot continue. For those principles to ring true that our ancestors fought and bled and died for, for America to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, for each American citizen to know and have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, this country must change.

We are told when young that “you can do anything you want”. The media bombard us with images of people doing what they want. Some of us can’t, and so we live our lives in secret, or we deny ourselves the chance at a life and settle for just existing.

America is the land of opportunity, we are told. That opportunity has been withheld from us for reasons unjustified and unjustifiable. We seek to fix this and are denied without second thought. We fight at sometimes-great cost and win. But our victories are small and, many times, isolated. America is the land of opportunity for those who are free. It is the land of little hope, of loneliness, of constant mockery and of little chance of a prosperous future for those who have yet to be free.

And in the two hundred twenty-seven years since we told our mother country “You will not subjugate us, you will not step on us, you will not be our tyrant and have us bound and gagged,” we have made American citizens take that burden and it must stop now.

For too long we didn’t dare speak up; when we did, we were attacked by those sworn to protect us as American citizens. Finally we said “Enough. We will live our lives with pride. You will not take that from us tonight or tomorrow or ever.” And we have been saying that since, and it has brought us to a place where, sometimes, we can be safe and out as who we are.

And sometimes we have been murdered for it. Sometimes we have been beaten or jailed, denied housing or a job or comfort or the chance to give it. We are denied something heavily emphasized throughout human history: a family. You don’t, and maybe can’t, think about a life without the rights some of us don’t have. As we live and breathe we see others who flaunt those rights that, though written in law for all American citizens, have been taken away from us.

You ask us “Why can’t you just be like us?” Here is your answer: we are like you. Our blood is red and our tears are real. We get happy or sad, we fall in love, we cherish, we struggle as you do. Our desires and motives are yours: freedom; equality; a share in this American life of promise you have.

Are you afraid? Do you imagine your American way of life slipping away? Is your dream fading as American citizens are recognized and afforded the same freedom you have had since your birth? Once we get our rights, do you think yours will disappear? Or do you fear that you will be left behind as we step forward once, twice, ten times, a thousand times to claim that same freedom you had before your first step?

Two American citizens with their rights are so much more beneficial to this country than ten without.

Will you join us? Will you watch silently as a nation celebrates when we are given the rights you now have? Or will you fight against us?

You will fight alone. You will be the fly on the ankle of America, and your greatest measure against us, as you summon all your strength and concentrate every fiber of your existence to hurt us once and for all, may not be felt. It will be only by looking in your direction that we will be aware of you. And when we have won, and the suns shines on us as we stand with those we love in triumph, we won’t even know if you’re there.

Our power is growing, and you cannot ignore it. The Defense of Marriage act proved that well enough when a pro-gay American president absolved states of the nasty responsibility of recognizing civil, same-sex unions. Why would he bother if he didn’t know the “sanctity” of marriage was in trouble?

Support for our fight is growing, and you can’t ignore that either. However, we fight with truth on our side, while our opponents have only fear. The choice is yours: either to let your fear imprison you, or to see through it and join us in our struggle for justice.

And you will join us.

And united we will be stronger than we have ever been before. We have been United States, but when this happens we will be united, every one of us, and we will be the strength this world has yet to see.

I have a dream that one day this speech will be preaching to the choir wherever I give it, for freedom is something for all, and everything to some. I have a dream that one day bigotry and hatred will be archaic concepts. I have a dream that one day American citizens will be judged not by their ideal mate but by their American ideals. I have a dream that people will live in peace, all of them free, proud and happy.

I have a dream that one day any American citizen will be asked “What do you think of that person?” and respond not "Oh, he’s so gay. " but “I admire him.”

I have a dream that one day there will be no closet in America hiding a teen afraid to tell her friends she is gay for fear they will abandon her, or worse.

I have a dream that one day people will take matters into their own hands by being out, loud and proud, not by killing themselves.

I have a dream that one day parents will be proud of their children regardless of their sexuality.

I have a dream that throughout the world this country shall be known not for what it has done to some Americans but for what it gives to all Americans.

If America is to be what its founders intended, I cannot and must not dream alone. My dreams must be as crowded as the halls of justice, full of people newly, truly, free. My dreams must be crowded like the doors of far-off lands that do not know freedom, as their people leave a life of despair for a life of promise, acceptance, prosperity and love.

If America is to live up to the words on her Statue of Liberty, I cannot dream alone. If we are to accept the tired, the weak, the yearning to be free; if we are to accept the downtrodden and the cast-off, I must not dream alone.

And I do not dream alone.

Tell your friends. Tell your parents. Tell your local government, tell your state government, tell the federal government. Tell every American citizen you see from the Aleutian Islands to the Florida Keys; tell every boy and every girl that I do not dream alone. Shout it in the streets; print it in the papers; “film at 11: I do not dream alone.” Saturate every inch of soil this country has, let every ear be hearing, every mouth be proclaiming, every eye be reading that I do not dream alone.

I do not dream alone.

10

When I used to compete with my university’s speech team, we had this problem for interp events: how do you make an already-published work fit ten minutes?

The way to do it is not to start with the whole thing and cut things out, but to start with nothing and add things in. Look at it in segments, and say, “okay, what’s the most important part?”

Put that in.

“What’s next most important?”

Put that in.

Keep doing this until you have no more time. There’s your speech.