The Speeches of President John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy arrived in Berlin on June 26, 1963, following appearances in Bonn, Cologne and Frankfurt. In Berlin, an immense crowd of 120,000 Berliners gathered in the Rudolph Wilde Platz near the Berlin Wall to listen to hear President Kennedy speak. They began gathering in the square long before he was due to arrive, and when President Kennedy finally appeared on the podium after having made a visit to Checkpoint Charlie at the Berlin Wall, they gave him an ovation of several minutes.

In a spirited and eloquent speech before an estimated crowd of 30,000 people in the stadium at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee on May 18, 1963, President Kennedy reminded his listeners that it falls to the educated man to assume the greater obligations of citizenship—for the pursuit of learning, to serve the public and to uphold the law.

Address of President-Elect John F. Kennedy Delivered to a Joint Convention of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at The State House, Boston, January 9, 1961. In the speech, which would later become known as “The City Upon a Hill” speech, Kennedy paid tribute to the early role Massachusetts played in creating a republic – he thanked the citizens of Massachusetts for a lifetime of friendship and trust -- and he laid out the four essential qualities that he hoped would characterize his government: courage, judgment, integrity and dedication.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy urged Congress and the nation to “commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” On September 12, 1962, President Kennedy delivered the following speech describing in greater detail his goals for the nation’s space effort before a crowd of 35,000 people in the football stadium at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

In this speech delivered on October 26, 1963, before an estimated crowd of 10,000 people at the groundbreaking ceremonies for the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College in Massachusetts, President John F. Kennedy made clear the need for a nation to represent itself not only through its strength but also through its art. The event was one of President Kennedy's last public appearances.

Address delivered by President John F. Kennedy to the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 1961, one week after UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold had been killed in a plane crash in the Congo.

On July 25, 1963, the Unites States, Soviet Union, and United Kingdom agreed to ban testing in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater. According to President Kennedy’s Special Counsel Ted Sorensen, “No other single accomplishment in the White House ever gave him greater satisfaction." On July 26, 1963, President Kennedy delivered the following radio and television address to the American people.

Address delivered by John F. Kennedy, 1960 Democratic Presidential nominee and Irish-Catholic American, to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on the subject of separation of church and state, Houston, Texas, September 12, 1960.

Radio and Television Report on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba and the imposition of a Naval quarantine of Cuba delivered by President John F. Kennedy on October 22, 1962.

Televised address delivered by President John F. Kennedy on the integration of the University of Alabama and the moral crisis faced by the nation as black Americans struggled for equal rights, June 11, 1963.

Commencement address delivered by President John F. Kennedy at American University on June 10, 1963, frequently referred to as the Peace Speech.

The Inaugural Address of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivered on January 20, 1961 in Washington, DC.