SPEECH!

Hello! So, tomorrow I have to make a SPEECH. In my SPEECH CLASS! Who would have thought that a speech class would mean making speeches??!?! Not me, apparently. I'm freaking out. But I told Possum (my Canadian twin) that I would post my outline for the speech as a blog, so that's what I'm doing.

Also, I would like to thank Possum for the SPIFFY PACKAGE that I received in the mail today! It seriously made my day not suck, DESPITE the speechage that will be happening tomorrow.

Now here's the outline:

OUTLINE FOR INFORMATIVE SPEECH
(Leah Moore, COM 110)
Cairo, Illinois

Purpose: To inform the audience about Cairo, Illinois.

Thesis: Cairo’s beginning and problems with racism contributed to the town’s present and future.

Organizational Pattern: Topical

I. Introduction

A. Attention Getter: Two years ago, my family and I drove through Cairo, Illinois on our way
to visit my older sister at college. Upon entering Cairo, we saw a bizarre mixture of impressive buildings interspersed with several buildings that were collapsing [VISUAL AID-7].
B. Relevance: Overconfidence, apathy, and discrimination can destroy a town, even one with enormous amounts of potential.
C. Credibility: Upon seeing Cairo, I researched the town’s past to see how it became the city it is today.
D. Thesis: Cairo’s beginning and problems with racism contributed to the town’s present and future.
E. Preview: Today I’ll cover the beginning of Cairo, its racial issues, and the city’s present and future.

Transition: We’ll start with the beginning of the city’s formation.

II. Body

A. Beginning
1. Cairo is pronounced by some as Carrow and by others as Cayrow. It was ambitiously named after Cairo in Egypt.
2. Cario is located at the southern tip of Illinois, where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet. [VISUAL AID] Due to its location of the banks of the rivers, many thought that Cairo could be the United States’ most successful. This created a feeling of overconfidence in the people who settled there.
3. According to Lanz, the attempt to create the city of Cairo failed twice. Because of Cairo’s nearness to the rivers, the city was at major risk of floods. Levees needed to be built and low spots needed to be built up in order to allow the city itself to be built safely.
a. The investors were not prudent with their money and spent it all on impressive buildings rather than levees.
b. As a result of the failure of these men to build the city, the community suffered a severe decline.
1. The failures accentuated an atmosphere of lawlessness and apathy and contributed to the negative image of the city.
2. There was a feeling within the community that the city was doomed to failure.
4. Finally, a third company took over the town. The owners of that company cut corners in flood precautions which would later haunt the city when corporations refused to build there because of the dangers of floods and water seepage.

Transition: Now that we’ve discussed the problems at the beginning of Cairo’s formation, let’s move onto the problem that really destroyed the town: racism.
B. Cairo’s Problems with Racism
1. According to Ewing, in 1920, Cairo hit its peak population of over 15,000 people. By 1990, the population had dropped to 4700. In the intervening 70 years, the community was plagued by extreme racial problems [VISUAL AID].
2. Cairo had always been a Southern town in a Northern state. During the Civil War, community leaders actually considered seceding from Illinois and the Union.
3. However, after the war, many recently-freed slaves flocked to the North. Many got stuck in Cairo because they did not have the means to go farther. This did not sit well with the white members of the community. They’d left apathy behind, but they had replaced it with hatred. Blacks were heavily discriminated against in the years that followed, but they didn’t protest the unfair treatment much.
4. Until the summer of 1963, when a black soldier named Robert L. Hunt, Jr. died in a jail cell [VISUAL AID].
a. According to Perry, Hunt was pulled over for a broken taillight and arrested for disorderly conduct.
b. Police reported that Hunt committed suicide by hanging himself with his undershirt, but
1. Hunt’s companions on the night that he was arrested said that he was not wearing a shirt when he was taken into custody because it was a hot night.
2. Relatives who viewed the body claimed that Hunt was severely beaten
3. The coroner reported that there was no need for an autopsy, but he
resigned soon after the incident.
4. The police report disappeared.
5. A witness in a cell near Hunt’s was released and never seen again.
c. Hunt’s death sparked massive riots in Cairo [VISUAL AID].
5. In the years that followed, African Americans of Cairo were no longer passive. They protested segregation and unfair employment of whites over blacks. In Cairo during this time period, the economy was such that there were a limited number of jobs, so whites clung to their supposed superiority as the only way to remain employed.
6. In April of 1969, the African American community began a boycott of white businesses that they said would end when white business owners hired black workers. The boycott lasted over 2 years and ended because white owners went out of business and moved out of town. Not because they agreed to hire black workers.
7. In 1972, the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights held a hearing in Cairo. In the report of the hearing, several instances of segregation and discrimination. The testimony of high school students was particularly interesting to me. They all said that they had friends of different races, but those friendships ended at 3:30 when their parents picked them up from school. When asked what they planned to do after graduation, they all said that they would move out of Cairo, and they did not plan to return.

Transition: Now that we have an understanding of how Cairo was essentially destroyed, I’ll cover the town’s present and its future.

B. Cairo’s Present and Future
1. After the racism problems were resolved, the community slipped back into its former apathy.
2. [VISUAL AID] At present, Cairo is virtually a ghost town.
a. The first time we drove through Cairo, we did not see a single person.
b. The second time we drove through, we saw only one man, crossing the street
diagonally like something out of a zombie movie.
3. However, efforts to make a future for Cairo are being made.
a. In a TIME Magazine article from earlier this February, Smith writes about projects being taken on to bring new industry and interest to Cairo.
b. Also, the last time my family and I drove through Cairo, which was in January, some of the old, collapsing buildings downtown and been demolished to make way for new buildings to be built.

Transition: In this speech I have explored…..

III. Conclusion

A. Thesis/Summary: In this speech I have explored the beginning of Cairo, its problems with racism, and its present and future. We’ve seen that overconfidence, apathy, and discrimination can destroy a city.

B. Memorable Close: Hopefully Cairo’s future is brighter than its past. Hopefully Cairo can finally live up to its potential


I think the copy/paste activities messed up my spacing. But...just ignore that. If you can.

Ok, now I have to get to work on my bibliography! Bye!