Robert Orben (born March 4, 1927) – U.S. comedy writer, political speech writer – The Working Comedian’s Gag File (1953)
Miriam Makeba (born March 4, 1932) – South African singer/songwriter, human rights activist – Pata Pata (1957)
Read the BBC obituary for Miriam Makeba here
Read more about Miriam Makeba here
Watch Miriam Makeba sing in the 1959 film Come Back Africa
here
Miriam Makeba sings "Khawuleza" in 1966
here
Khaled Hosseini (born March 4,. 1965) – Iranian-American novelist – The Kite Runner (2003)
Khaled Hosseini talks about leaving Afghanistan in 1976, when he was a child,
here
Robert Emmet (born March 4, 1778) – Irish militant, orator – Speech from the Dock (1803)
Read about Robert Emmet here
Excerpts from Robert Emmet's "Speech from the Dock" (1803)
What have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me according to law? I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and I must abide by.
A man in my situation, my lords, has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune. and the force of power over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated. but the difficulties of established prejudice: the man dies, but his memory lives.
That mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and of virtue.
This is my hope: I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High-which displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest -- which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand in the name of God against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or a little less than the government standard -- a government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows which it has made.
Again I say, that what I have spoken was not intended for your lordship, whose situation I commiserate rather than envy-my expressions were for my countrymen; if there is a true Irishman present, let my last words cheer him in the hour of his affliction.
Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence, or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen.
I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world--it is the charity of its silence! Let no man write my epitaph: for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them. let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character; when my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.
Read the entire speech here
Dublin City Ramblers sing
the ballad of Robert Emmet