Agents of Change: Lucy Stone & Henry Blackwell

The Woman's Journal was a weekly publication by the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) which provided a major vehicle for articulating the views regarding a desire to influence the law and command greater respect from men especially in light of the sexual violence women experienced at the hands of men.

Different advocacy groups publicized the problem of sexual assault, but Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell's "Crimes against Women" column in the Woman's Journal provided the most extensive coverage linking sexual assault and domestic violence to women's legal disabilities (p.54).

"Stone and Blackwell had been committed abolitionists before the Civil War and ardent supporters of woman suffrage. Each had a deep personal as well as political history of questioning the legal principle of marital coverture, which included a husband's right to his wife's sexual services. The couple used the occasion of their own marriage in 1855 to register a protest against these patriarchal assumptions. Before they wed, Henry Blackwell assured Lucy Stone, 'I wish, as a husband, to renounce all the privilege which the law confers upon me, which are not strictly mutual.' Their wedding-day protest rejected legal powers that gave the husband 'an injurious and unnatural superiority...which no man should possess.' Reflecting their beliefs in the independent identities of spouses, Stone retained her family name rather than take that of her husband, a unique protest in the nineteenth century" (p. 54).

"During the 1870s and 1880s, Stone and Blackwell collected reports from around the country in the style of the crime columns typical of daily newspapers. Their "Crimes against Women" column included accounts about men who assaulted their wives, their daughters, or other women" (p.54).

Stone and Blackwell were a dynamic duo participating in Community Accountability, long before the concept was coined, and worked to address the root of gender violence: a culture that perpetually treated women as less valuable than men.

-Excerpt from "Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation" by Estelle B. Freedman (2013)

Ted Sorensen's 6 Basic Rules for Speechwriting

Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen - the man who advised several Presidents over a period of 50 years, including John F. Kennedy, and was his counsel & speechwriter - compiled a list of six basic rules for speechwriting:

1.) Less Is Almost Always Better Than More

• Make it as simple and direct as the Ten Commandments; as simple of J.P. Morgan's alleged response to the youngster who asked him the secret to the stock market: "It fluctuates." 
• Two examples: 
• Winston Churchill's opening line in his radio address after the fall of France in June 1940: "The news from France is very bad." Not one unclear or unnecessary word. 
• A sign for a fish store window: "Fresh Fish for Sale Here Today." The only necessary word on that sign is "fish."

2.) Choose Each Word As A Precision Tool

• Care and prudence in selecting the right word and sequence of words.
• Stay out of the terminology trap.
• Use metaphors.

3.) Organize The Text To Simplify, Clarify, Emphasize

• A speech should flow from an outline in logical order.
• Number points, when appropriate; each numbered paragraph can start with the same few words.
• There should be a tightly organized, coherent, and consistent theme.

4.) Use Variety And Literary Devices To Reinforce Memorability, Not Confuse Or Distract

• Use of Quotations 
• "Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"
• Rhyming words are more easily remembered and more clearly communicated.
• "Let every nation know...that we shall oppose any foe."
• Alliteration and repetition can help make a speech memorable.
• "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."
• "Bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations."

5.) Employ Elevated But Not Grandiose Language

• JFK and Sorensen tried to elevate and yet simplify his speeches; not to patronize his audiences, but to keep his sentences short, his words understandable, and his organizational structure and ideas clear.
• Kennedy used straightforward declarations, not "maybe" or "perhaps."
• A policy speech is not a statute, which needs to specify every detail in legally precise and comprehensive terms - nor should it be, if it is to be both enjoyed and understood by all its listeners.

6.) Substantive Ideas Are The Most Important Part Of Any Speech

• A great speech is great because of the strong ideas conveyed, the principles, the values, the decisions.
• If the ideas are great, the speech will be great, even if the words are pedestrian; but if the words are soaring, beautiful, eloquent, it is still not a great speech if the ideas are flaw, empty, or mean-spirited.

-Excerpt from "Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History" by Ted Sorensen (2008)