This week's Pep Talk: "It Ought to be Possible"

In a 1999 survey of public address scholars, Martin Luther King's infamous "I have a Dream" speech was ranked the top speech of the 20th century. It was, and remains, a stirring speech. In part for its use of what's called anaphora, which is repeatedly using a phrase like "I have a dream" to introduce and connect related themes.

Less documented, two months before King's 1963 message, was President John Kennedy's call for change in America. In what has become known as Kennedy's Civil Rights Add...