Guides
Famous American Eulogies Worth Reading With Their Sources Checked
Famous American eulogies worth reading hold up only when the text is checked against a US archive, and six of them are named here with their sources.
What to take away
- Six American eulogies are worth reading in full: Robert F. Kennedy on Martin Luther King Jr. (1968), Edward Kennedy on Robert Kennedy (1968), Barack Obama on Clementa Pinckney (2015), Maya Angelou on Coretta Scott King (2006), Bill Clinton on Ronald Reagan (2004) and Bruce Springsteen on Danny Federici (2008).
- Every one has a dated, page-scanned or audio-verified source, not a quote card.
- The failure mode is quieta misquote circulates for years before anyone checks the transcript.
- Check the venue and the date before you check the wording. Wrong date is the first sign of a bad copy.
Why eulogy texts drift out of shape
A eulogy is spoken once and printed later. Between the podium and the page sit a pool reporter, a wire editor and a funeral program, and each one can trim a clause.
The Kennedy eulogy for Martin Luther King Jr. is the standard example. Delivered in Indianapolis on April 4, 1968, it was transcribed by reporters on site, and shorter versions spread through quotation collections within a decade. The full text runs longer than most reprints suggest.
That is the trap. A shortened quote is not always false, but it is unverifiable as written, and it invites a second editor to shorten it again.
One passage the one-line reprints drop:
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And 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.'
Six eulogies and where the text lives
| Eulogy | Delivered | Short excerpt (check it against the source) | Where the text lives |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robert F. Kennedy on Martin Luther King Jr. | April 4, 1968, Indianapolis | "to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world" | JFK Library speech archive, audio of April 4, 1968; full text also at American Rhetoric |
| Edward Kennedy on Robert F. Kennedy | June 8, 1968, St. Patrick's Cathedral | "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life." | Congressional Record, 90th Congress, 2nd session, June 1968; also at American Rhetoric |
| Barack Obama on Clementa Pinckney | June 26, 2015, Charleston | "Blinded by hatred, the alleged killer could not see the grace surrounding Reverend Pinckney and that Bible study group." | White House transcript of June 26, 2015, in the Obama White House archive |
| Maya Angelou on Coretta Scott King | February 7, 2006, Lithonia, Georgia | "a quintessential African woman" | AP wire report of February 7, 2006; order of service from New Birth Missionary Baptist Church |
| Bill Clinton on Ronald Reagan | June 11, 2004, Washington National Cathedral | "He believed in America and in the American people." | Pool transcript of the June 11, 2004 state funeral; C-SPAN broadcast archive |
| Bruce Springsteen on Danny Federici | April 2008, New Jersey | "Danny was a great friend and a great musician." | E Street Band statement of April 2008; Asbury Park Press report on the service |
One more belongs on any reading list. The eulogy for Lou Gehrig delivered at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939 is short enough to check word by word. American Rhetoric carries the delivered text, and the Wikipedia article on Lou Gehrig is useful only for the career dates around the speech.
A checking order that catches the usual errors
For the general form, including how a eulogy differs from a sermon or a tribute, the Wikipedia article on eulogies is a reasonable starting frame.
- Fix the venue and the date from a news archive, not from a quote site.
- Find the longest transcript you can, ideally a page scan or a broadcast recording.
- Mark every sentence you cannot match to that transcript.
- Search the unmatched sentence alone and see how many variants exist.
- Keep the variant that matches the transcript, and note the others in your file.
That order matters because the date check is cheap and the wording check is slow. If the date is wrong, stop and start again with a better copy.
Checking Order for Eulogy Texts
- Fix venue and date from a news archive
- Find the longest transcript available
- Mark sentences that do not match
- Search each unmatched sentence alone
- Keep the transcript variant, note others
Eulogy Source Verification Checklist
- Venue confirmed from a dated news report
- Speaker and deceased's full name confirmed
- Longest available transcript located
- Every quoted sentence matched line by line
- Variant readings recorded, not deleted
Example: one line, three versions
Take the closing of the King eulogy. Online collections often print a short, clean sentence about what the country needed. The delivered version, as transcribed by reporters that night, is longer and less tidy.
One Line, Three Versions
Online collection
- Length
- Short, clean sentence
- Specific request
- Absent
- Why taught
- Quote survives alone
Delivered transcript
- Length
- Longer, less tidy
- Specific request
- Names the audience request
- Why taught
- Request is the reason
Version 1, as delivered in Indianapolis:
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Version 2, the common short reprint:
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Version 3, the quote-card fragment:
To tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
The difference is not decoration. The longer version names the specific request the speaker made of the audience, and that request is the reason the speech is taught.
A quote that survives only in a quotation dictionary has no page number behind it, and no editor can defend it.
Where a sourced collection earns its place
Commencement texts are reprinted constantly, and the misquote checklist for commencement speeches walks through the six errors that show up most often.
If you want the broader category first, the best commencement speeches still worth reading sets out which texts have held up after reprinting. For the mechanics of confirming a single line, the order for checking a speech source is the same procedure used above, applied to a different genre.
The filters behind a civil rights list explain why two reasonable editors can rank the same speech differently.
