Read complete books and articles on: African-American Oratory

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14 of the Best Books and Articles on: African-American Oratory

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

African-American Orators: A Bio-critical Sourcebook » Read Now
by Richard W. Leeman. 452 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Long-needed sourcebook assessing the unique styles and themes of notable African-American orators.
2.

Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation » Read Now
by Roy E. Finkenbine, Michael F. Hembree, C. Peter Ripley, Donald Yacovone. 308 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Yacovone Witness for Freedom AFRICAN AMERICAN VOICES ON RACE, SLAVERY, AND EMANCIPATION...Cataloging-in-Publication Data Witness for freedom : African American voices on...
3.

Lift Every Voice: African American Oratory, 1787-1900 » Read Now
by Philip S. Foner, Robert James Branham. 926 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...LIFT EVERY VOICE African American Oratory, 1787-1900 Edited...Data Lift every voice: African American oratory, 1787-1900 / edited by...accorded oral eloquence, African...
4.

Oratory and Rhetoric in the Nineteenth-Century South: A Rhetoric of Defense » Read Now
by W. Stuart Towns. 212 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

The only modern collection of speeches by southerners on the themes that have shaped the history and culture of the region, this anthology, which spans eighty tumultuous years of southern history, reflects the strategies of southern orators as they attempted to defend the indefensible, as well as...
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The only modern collection of speeches by southerners on the themes that have shaped the history and culture of the region, this anthology, which spans eighty tumultuous years of southern history, reflects the strategies of southern orators as they attempted to defend the indefensible, as well as those few who advocated a more compassionate South. Southern leaders were judged largely by their oratorical ability and their skills in defending the southern way of life. Accordingly, they placed much emphasis on developing consummate rhetorical skills. Thus, one can read the history of the region in the speeches of its politicians, ministers, and other public figures.
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5.

With Pen and Voice: A Critical Anthology of Nineteenth-Century African-American Women » Read Now
by Shirley Logan Wilson. 172 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
6.

Rhetoric of Black Revolution » Read Now
by Arthur L. Smith. 199 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
7.

The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word That Moved America » Read Now
by Richard Lischer. 344 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

Today it seems extraordinary that a nation the size of the United States could have been so profoundly affected by the minister of a little Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama. But at a turning point in American history, Martin Luther King, Jr., had an incalculable effect on the fabric of daily...
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Today it seems extraordinary that a nation the size of the United States could have been so profoundly affected by the minister of a little Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama. But at a turning point in American history, Martin Luther King, Jr., had an incalculable effect on the fabric of daily life and the laws of the nation. As no other preacher in living memory and no politician since Lincoln, he transposed the themes of love, suffering, deliverance, and justice from the sacred shelter of the pulpit into the arena of public policy. He was the last great religious reformer in America. How the man who always saw himself as "fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher" crafted his strategic vision and moved a nation to renewal is the subject of this remarkable new book. The Preacher King investigates Martin Luther King Jr.'s, religious development from a precocious "PK" ("preacher's kid") in segregated Atlanta to the most influential American preacher and orator of the twentieth century. To give the most accurate and intimate portrait possible, author Richard Lischer draws almost exclusively on King's unpublished sermons and speeches, as well as tape recordings, personal interviews, and even police surveillance reports. In King's published works, Lischer shows, King and his editors modified and polished his sermons in order to reach as wide an audience as possible. By returning to the raw sources, Lischer recaptures King's real, African-American, preaching voice and, consequently, something of the real King himself. He shows how as the son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of preachers, King early on absorbed the poetic cadences, the traditions, and the power of the pulpit. He traces King's coming of age from his rebellious teenage years (King once wrote that at thirteen he shocked his Sunday School class by "denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus") to his arrival in Montgomery, where he took on the role of "Brother Pastor" to his flock during the year of ministry before he burst into national prominence. Lischer shows that King was as profoundly influenced by his fellow African-American preachers as he was by Gandhi and the philosophers, and tracks King's themes of brotherhood and justice from the set pieces of his weekly sermons to his electrifying mass meeting speeches, demonstrations, and civil addresses. Lischer also reveals a later phase of King's development that few of his biographers or critics have addressed: the prophetic rage with which he condemned American religious and political hypocrisy. During the last three years of his life, Lischer shows, King accused his country of genocide, warned of long hot summers in the ghettos, and called for a radical redistribution of wealth. More than any other book, The Preacher King captures the crucial aspect of the identity of Martin Luther King, Jr. Human, complex, and passionate, here is a preacher who never gave up trying to shape a congregation of people that would be capable of redeeming the moral and political character of the nation.
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8.

Sojourner Truth as Orator: Wit, Story, and Song » Read Now
by Suzanne Pullon Fitch, Roseann M. Mandziuk. 239 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This work is an in-depth analysis of the full breadth of Sojourner Truth's public discourse that places it in its proper historical context and explores the use of humor and narratives as primary rhetorical strategies used by this illiterate ex-slave to create a powerful public persona. The book...
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This work is an in-depth analysis of the full breadth of Sojourner Truth's public discourse that places it in its proper historical context and explores the use of humor and narratives as primary rhetorical strategies used by this illiterate ex-slave to create a powerful public persona. The book provides a comprehensive survey of the life of Sojourner Truth, and includes a unique and authoritative compilation of primary rhetorical documents, such as speeches, songs, and public letters.
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9.

Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice, 1818-1845 » Read Now
by Gregory P. Lampe. 352 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...distinguished and celebrated African American leader and orator of the...himself to using the power of oratory to destroy the institution...98; Frank Towers , "African-...
10.

Amid the Fall, Dreaming of Eden: Du Bois, King, Malcolm X, and Emancipatory Composition » Read Now
by Bradford T. Stull. 148 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Whom, or what, does composition -- defined here as an intentional process of study, either oral or written -- serve? Bradford T. Stull contends that composition would do well to articulate, in theory and practice, what could be called "emancipatory composition". He argues that emancipatory...
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Whom, or what, does composition -- defined here as an intentional process of study, either oral or written -- serve? Bradford T. Stull contends that composition would do well to articulate, in theory and practice, what could be called "emancipatory composition". He argues that emancipatory composition is radically theopolitical: it roots itself in the foundational theological and political language of the American experience while it subverts this language in order to emancipate the oppressed and, thereby, the oppressors.
To articulate this vision, Stull looks to those who compose from an oppressed place, finding in the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X radical theopolitical practices that can serve as a model for emancipatory composition. While Stull acknowledges that there are many sites of oppression, he focuses on what Du Bois has called the problem of the twentieth century: the color line, positing that the unique and foundational nature of the color line provides a fertile place in which, from which, a theory and practice of emancipatory composition might be elucidated.
By focusing on four key theopolitical tropes -- The Fall, The Orient, Africa, and Eden -- that inform the work of Du Bois, King, and Malcolm X, Stull discovers the ways in which these civil rights leaders root themselves in the vocabulary of the American experience in order to subvert it so that they might promote emancipation for African Americans, and thus all Americans.
In drawing on the work of Paulo Freire, Kenneth Burke, Edward Said, Christopher Miller, Ernst Bloch, and others, Stull also locates this study within the larger cultural context. By reading Du Bois, King, andMalcolm X together in a way that they have never before been read, Stull presents a new vision of composition practice to the African American studies community and a reading of African American emancipatory composition to the
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11.

Black Identity: Rhetoric, Ideology, and Nineteenth-Century Black Nationalism » Read Now
by Dexter B. Gordon. 256 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Exploring the role of rhetoric in African American identity, political discourse.
12.

On the Rhetoric of Afrocentricity, in The Western Journal of Black Studies » Read Now
by Karen Strother-Jordan. 11 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
13.

Performing "Truth": Black Speech Acts, in African American Review » Read Now
by Antonio Brown. 13 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
14.

American Orators of the Twentieth Century: Critical Studies and Sources » Read Now
by Bernard K. Duffy, Halford R. Ryan. 474 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library