Required Texts:
 

Bebe Moore Campbell, Brothers and Sisters

David Howard-Pitney, The Afro-American Jeremiad

Readings, Viewings, and Listening Materials on the Internet and Reserve in Ladd Library
 

15%    Mid-Term Exam

20%    Final Exam

20%    Final Paper

25%    Response Papers (5)

10%    Attend W. E. B. Du Bois Symposium

10%    Class Participation

Bonus: Up to 10% for attending two lectures relevant to African American life and culture

This course is a study of the history of oratory and public addresses by African American women and men.  We examine religous, political, and ceremonial speeches.  This course pays particular attention to gender and the historical development of men and women's rhetorical traditions.

It is beyond the scope of this course to examine the totality of speeches given by African Americans from the late 18th century to the present.  So, we will examine a representative sample of speeches from issues and events affecting African Americans.
 

Theoretical Perspectives

Week 1

9/3    W   African American Oratory:  Introduction

9/5     F   Required Readings:

       Ernest J. Wrage, "Public Address: A Study in Social and Intellectual History," QJS 33 (1947): 451-457.

        Robert N. Bellah, "Civil Religion in America" in Russel E. Richey and Donald G. Jones (ed.), American Civil Religion (NY: Harper, 1974).

        Wilson J. Moses, "What Are Black Americans? More Than an Ethnic Group, Less Than a Nation," in Wilson J. Moses, The Wings of Ethiopia (Ames: Iowa                   State University Press, 1990)

       Optional Reading:

       Donald K. Enholm, David Curtis Skaggs, and W. Jeffrey Welsh, "Origins of the Southern Mind: The Parochial Sermons of Thomas Cradock of Maryland,                  1744--1770," Quarterly Journal of Speech 73 (1987): 200-218.

       Study Guide

Week 2   

9/8     M   African American Orators: Prophets, Mediators, and Saviors

       Derrick Bell, excerpt from Faces At the Bottom of the Well

       bell hooks, "Talking Back"

David Howard-Pitney (HP), Introduction, The Afro-American Jeremiad, pp. 3-16

 9/10   W    

Sidnie Ann White, "Esther: A Feminine Model for Jewish Diaspora." In Peggy L. Day (ed.), Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel.

The Old Testament Book of Esther

Optional Reading: Barry Weller, "The Royal Slave and the Prestige of Origins," Kenyon Review 14 (Summer 1992): 65-78

 

9/12   F David Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles (1829)

The Great Migration and African American Oratory

Week 8

Marcus Garvey, Speech at Newport News Adobe Acrobat Reader needed to view this document

Listen to "Horizons:  Marcus Garvey" in class

View Film for Next Class:  Say Amen, Somebody  M2198 .S39 1984  (On Reserve)

W    10/22   Mary McLeod Bethune
 

Mary McLeod Bethune, "Clarifying Our Vision With the Facts" Adobe Acrobat Reader needed to view this document. "Last Will and Testament"

Photogallery of images of Bethune

HP, Ch. 5, pp. 111-132.
 

Th    10/23   Special Screening of Film: Say Amen, Somebody

F   Rev. C. L. Franklin
 

C. L. Franklin, "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest"  Adobe Acrobat Reader needed to view this document.

In Class Listening, "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest"

M  10/27    3/6   Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Readings:

King, "I Have A Dream" and "Letter From a Birmingham Jail"

Keith D. Miller, "Epistemology of a Drum Major," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 18 (Summer-Fall, 1988):  225-236

Keith D. Miller, "Voice Merging and Self-Making: The Epistemology of 'I Have a Dream,'" Rhetoric Society Quarterly 19 (Winter 1989): 23-31. Adobe Acrobat Reader needed to view the Miller documents.

HP, Chs. 6-7, pp. 133-184..

 

W  10/29  Malcolm X and Stokeley Carmichael

Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet"

Stokeley Carmichael "Explains Black Power to a White Audience" and "Explains Black Power to a Black Audience"

 F  10/31  Fannie Lue Hamer

Fannie Lue Hamer, “Speech to the Democratic National Convention”

Bernice Johnson Reagon, "Women as Culture Carriers in the Civil Rights Movement: Fannie Lou Hamer". Adobe Acrobat Reader needed to view this document.

M    12/1     Final Examples and Issues:
 
        Louis Farrakhan and the Million Man March
       
 

Study Guide for the Final Exam

Final Exam:  Tuesday, 3:45 p.m.