"The Great Satan Speaks!" A Morning with Bob Ingersoll

On Wednesday, October 8th, 1884, Robert Green Ingersoll appeared at Los Angeles's newly opened grand opera house where he spoke to a capacity audience of 1,311.

The most influential intellectual in our history, Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 - 1899) was an unflagging political activist who supported equal rights for all minorities and was the first American politician of note to demand the vote and total equality for women. He denounced capital punishment, advocated for laws against animal abuse, and conceived the formation of the U.N. Through his voluminous writings, and tireless lecture tours both nationally and internationally, Ingersoll was--with the exception of Abraham Lincoln--the most famous American of the day, not only among his countrymen, but the world.

Mark Twain idolized and plagiarized him, Margaret Sanger cited his views on the potential of science to obtain bodily autonomy for women as shaping her lifelong commitment to birth control, and George Bernard Shaw would confess late in life that Ingersoll's influence upon him was "greater than that of any other man."

But first and foremost, Ingersoll was the most outspoken and formidable foe organized religion in this country has ever faced, which led him to be reviled from pulpits nationwide as "the Great Satan."

Spend a morning with Robert Green Ingersoll, the greatest American you've never heard of.

A reconstruction of his 1884 speech adapted and performed by Ernest Kearney
Directed by Richard Lucas

Admission: $10, or FREE for CFI Members. Membership is $60/year. Find out more and join here: https://cfiwest.org/donate/

Tickets are sold at the door only.