Speech & The Mountaintop

In 1863, a tired man stood atop a podium in the small town of Gettysburg.  He uttered words to commemorate an immeasurable loss, the worst of his country's history.  He said, "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."  Unbeknownst to him, the words lived on to represent the honor and bravery of those that fought for a free, united nation.  In 1963, a tired man stood atop a podium underneath the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.  He uttered words not of commemoration or commiseration, but of inspiration and desire, for another kind of free, united nation.  "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last."  His

words, much in the same light, live on as a beacon for the future.  A beacon of hope that shines brightest when put in the darkest of times.  These two men do not stand alone atop their podiums.  Pericles, Demosthenes, and Alexander the Great join them.  They stand on mountains (Jesus), in churches (Patrick Henry), and before the House of Commons (Churchill and Wilberforce).  They inspire great nations (MacArthur, Kennedy, Gandhi, Chief Joseph), they inspire great action (Roosevelt, Anthony, Douglass, Guevara), they inspire our hearts (Benazir Bhutto, Jimmy V, Barack Obama), and they inspire us when inspiration is all that keeps us together (Catt, Reagan, Truth, Washington).  Speeches have the ability to last much longer than the poor bodies in which we inhabit.  As my great great Grandfather once said, "Monuments, not of bronze or stone, builded like the oration of Pericles over the Athenian Dead in the Peloponnesian War, or the three minute talk of Lincoln at Gettysburg, will prove more enduring than granite or bronze, but all evidence the same feeling, all are creatures of men stirred by the same human impulses, with hearts beating warm the same human sympathy and gratitude."  
 
I gave my first speech when I was three years old.  I thought it unfair that the girls got to play with the blocks before the boys.  I'm sure the speech went over quite well, although as I recall, the girls still got to play with the blocks first (revenge was mine when I returned to the school in 6th grade and took one of the blocks home; Grant 1, Preschool 0).  However, powerful the speech may have been, I'm quite sure that it was barely understood by my fellow classmates.  You see, of the many things that I talk about, I rarely discuss the fact that I was born with a speech impediment.  As I am told, it was very hard for anyone to understand me before the age of six.  It was around that time when I received help from a wonderful woman named Mrs. Cannon.  By the fourth grade I was writing speeches, by the fifth I was

Fifth Grade

giving the Gettysburg Address and by the ninth grade I was taking part in speech competitions.  To this day, although I have done many things with my voice, public speaking is something that still terrifies me.  Luckily, it also invigorates and excites me.  I still worry that I will flub my words together (by the way, anytime you see me getting frustrated that I pronounced something wrong, it is for this very reason) or forget my train of thought.  The major difference is that as a kid I was scared, as an adult I relish that fear. 
 
A big reason for my success was due to three extraordinary teachers.  The first, Sarah Richardson, helped me find my voice as a writer.  The second, Tawnua Tenley, helped me find my voice as a student.  The third, Maggie Ellison, helped me find my voice as a person.  "The Art of Finding Your Inner Voice," is the main goal of all the Speech classes that I teach and it came from Maggie Ellison.  For me, Maggie served as much more than a teacher, but as a mentor and a friend.  On the day before the opening of my first produced play, Maggie died in her sleep, and although the world lost an incredible educator, she still lives on in the words that she imparted to her loving students.  Her gift to me was her knowledge and most importantly, her words. 
 
Today, I've come a long way from the incoherent three-year-old standing for block privileges.  Today I am a college instructor of Speech.  Along with the earning of my MFA, I find teaching Speech to have been the highlight of my VCU experience.  As I write this blog, I am taking breaks to review my syllabus for the Business Speech class I will start teaching in two weeks.  I think that the power of words is the single most important thing that we have left in our modern society.  So many of our problems, if not all of them, are all based around the fundamental properties of miscommunication.  Learning how to talk to one another is one of our most basic human traits right along with breathing, eating, and sleeping.  In a professional sense, we learn public speaking to get ourselves jobs, work within them, and strive to do better for ourselves and for our world.  Speech quite simply is as basic of a human necessity as water.  On larger level, well it is hard to get larger than human necessity, so on a more specific level, speeches of all forms have so many qualities, some of which are listed in the first section.  Barack Obama's Speech at the Democratic National Convention in '04 was the beginning of his run at the White House, whether he knew it or not.  In similar fashion, the Lincoln-Douglas debates were the foundation for Abraham Lincoln's presidential bid.  JFK's words put a man on the moon, Washington was given the throne, but his word's honored the nation that he had fought and bled to create, Caesar inspired his troops to cross the Rubicon, and King did more with words than perhaps any other American to date.  Speeches can change lives.  As simple as that.  I know one changed mine.
 
My brother, Nate Freeman, wrote a choral reading (group members recite from a script, at times in unison, with movement and vocal choices used for effect.  In essence, a story told by a chorus) called "The Crucifixion of Innocence."  The piece was on the nature of war and the struggle for piece.  When he competed with the reading at All-State for an association known as the Iowa High School Speech Association, or IHSSA, I was blown away.  His team didn't win the Banner (a banner goes to the school that is rated the highest for their specific competition), but when it was over, I remember Maggie Ellison taking time away from her team to tell me what had just happened.  She told me that one-day I might be able to follow in my brother's footsteps.  So when I reached High School I joined the speech team.  Over the course of three years (I didn't compete my sophomore year for personal reasons) I competed in Group Speech, twice in Improvisation, once in Reader's Theatre; and I competed in Individual Speech, once in After Dinner Speaking, Expository, Public Address, Spontaneous Speaking, and Review.  Although I never won that banner, I did make it to All-State twice, finally competing as an individual during the last days of my senior year.  Speech memories are my fondest memories from High School and rehearsals were my saving grace from tumultuous years.  In college, I would always come home during Winter break to help out the team.  It was a choral reading group that helped me recover from the shooting in Arizona and I took time out of my schedule to Asst. coach the team.  Then in the summer of 2011, Maggie Ellison approached me once again.  She said that Mike Moran was leaving the speech program and that I should apply for the job.  Although I was moving to Olympia, WA, I changed my plans and spent a year as the Head Coach of the MVHS Speech team.  I love that program.  And I will always love that program.  But no matter how many words you speak, eventually you should back up what you say with action, and my action involves my pocketbook. 
 
This is why I am supremely excited to announce that starting this upcoming school year, the Mountaintop Scholarship will now be offered to the Speech students at Mount Vernon High School.  It has been a lifelong dream of mine to give out a Scholarship to my alma mater and I am so very happy that I have decided to do this.  The Mountaintop Scholarship (because Grant's Grant wasn't professional enough) is named in honor of one of the great speeches of the 21st century made by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Mountaintop Speech  Its dual meaning is to represent the great accomplishment that the student will have done while inferring that high school is just the top of many peaks one has to climb in their lifetimes.  The award will be given each year to the student that best exemplifies the speech program through their work ethic, their professional representation, and their earnest teamwork and dedication.  My hope is that in a small way this honors the student that has given their time for something that will dramatically impact the rest of their lives.  In the same way that any competition of sport affects one's body, speech competition enriches the mind.  Speeches can and do change lives.  It is my honor to create the Mountaintop Scholarship.

2012 MVHS Individual Speech Team