The Handbook of Research on Black Males : Quantitative, Qualitative, and Multidisciplinary, edited by Theodore S. Ransaw, et al., Michigan State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uts/detail.action?docID=5490892.
W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Carter G. Woodson, Molefi Asante, Jawanza Kunjufu, William Cross, and Richard Majors, Theodore S. Ransaw
Agency and Grit: Fostering the Growth of Black Male Students to Achieve Greatness, Anindya Kundu
Black Learners’ Perseverance with Mathematics: A Qualitative Metasynthesis, Robert Q. Berry III and Kateri Thunder
We Real Cool: Toward a Theory of Black Masculine Literacies, David E. Kirkland and Austin Jackson
Culturally Sustained Debaters: Understanding the Legacy Learning Literacies of Young Black Men, Raven Jones Stanbrough
Perseverance Will Prevail: Three Young Black Males Whose Lives Matter, Stuart Rhoden
Examining Campus Climate for African American Males at Predominantly White Institutions, James Bridgeforth
No Positive Role Models: Growing Up in Prison, Louis Napoleon
Victimized Victim: The Consciousness of Black Femininity in the Image of Masculinity, LaWanda M. Simpkins
Black Male Suicide: Inward-Expressed Frustration and Aggression, Kimya N. Dennis
The Media Assault on the Black Male: Echoes of Public Lynching and Killing the Modern Terror of Jack Johnson, Armondo R. Collins
A Preliminary Examination of Hegemonic Masculinity: Definitional Transference of Black Masculinity Affecting Lethal Tactics against Black Males, Jack S. Monell
Hoovers and Night Crawlers: When Outside In Becomes Inside Out, Steven Randolph Cureton
Part 6. Hip-Hop
introduction, Toby S. Jenkins
Words, Beats, and My Life, Mazi A. E. Mutafa
Dopeboys and Mic Fiends: Spoken Word Poetry as a Performance of Black Masculinity, Crystal Leigh Endsley
Discussing Suicide without being Crucified: The New Renaissance of Mental Health in Hip-Hop, Edward J. Smith
Mama, Am I Hip-Hop? Unpacking the Intersections of Race, Culture, and Gender with a Young Black Boy, Chelda Smith Kondo
Part 7. Programs and Initiatives
introduction, Spencer Platt and Theodore S. Ransaw
All Eyes on Me: Culturally Responsive Approaches to Engaging Revenue-Playing Black Male Student-Athletes Who Attend PWIs, Ronald W. Whitaker II and Adriel A. Hilton
African American Male Students’ Perceptions of Factors That Contribute to Their Academic Success, Devin L. Randolph
Holla If You Hear Me? Supporting African American Males at a Predominantly White Institution in the Midwest—a Tale from Southeast Missouri State University, C. P. Gause
The Effects of Racial Exclusionary Disciplinary Practices on African American Male Students: Alternatives to Suspensions and Expulsions, Tyree Robinson
Black Males in Higher Education: A Multiple Case Study Approach to Success and Retention at the University of Texas at Austin, Gregory J. Vincent, Ryan M. Sutton, Jessica M. Khalaf, and Kevin Almasy
623
625
·665
Foreword and Preface
FOREWORD
Jerlando F. L. Jackson
One’s “Blackness” and “Maleness” are inescapable; at least they were for me, being from the Deep South. I was born in Ashburn, Georgia. I would be surprised to learn that anyone reading this foreword has been there, or even knows where it is on a map. Allow me to spare you the trip. Ashburn, also known as the Peanut Capital of the World, has an estimated population of 4,435 people. This small city is comprised of 65.2 percent African Americans, and the average income for residents in Ashburn is $18,702. Approximately 38 percent of the residents have a high school diploma or equivalent, 15.8 percent with some college or an associate’s degree, 5.4 percent with a bachelor’s degree, and 5.3 percent with a graduate degree. Now, let me visualize it for you, to understand what life has been, and still is, like in a place like this. Many of the houses in the Black community are so small and primitive that they could be considered shacks. Multiple generations of families live in these homes collectively. oftentimes with no father figure present.
A turning point for my family was when my father joined the army. This led to a life that presented access, opportunity, and education as viable options for my family, and especially for me. After his basic training, we relocated temporarily to Germany, then finally to the Fort Benning—Columbus area in Georgia, where I lived until I went to college. That said, I had access to quality-of-life experiences not available to me before, such as sound housing, medical and dental care, youth centers, and education. The schools on the military base had vested teachers and schools for a diverse student population that varied by race, ethnicity, cultural background, and nationality.
However, when I reached middle school (eighth grade, to be specific), it was time to choose a high school diploma track. I selected the highest track in Georgia, which was designated as
college preparatory. The teacher immediately scheduled a parent-teacher conference with my mother. The teacher informed her that, not only would I not be able to receive this elite high school diploma, I would not graduate high school at all. She attested to this in spite of the fact that I had never had any academic problems throughout my educational experience, did not demonstrate behavioral problems, and actually performed quite well in school.
When my mother came home to explain it to me, I officially entered the “quandary of the Black male.” I was in a state of perplexity, uncertain what to do with the difficult situation presented to me. The teacher did not say, “Oh, no, your son should not pursue this college preparatory track, he should just be on the regular track.” She said, “Not only will he not be able to achieve the diploma track he selected, he will be lucky to graduate high school.” I searched for answers; I wondered whether it was true. What did I do to make her believe that? Why had all the grades I earned not mattered? How could we arrive at two completely different interpretations of my abilities? She is a teacher; she should know, right?
I was at a crossroads with this information. I could acquiesce to what the teacher believed, or I could prove her wrong. Imagine what hearing this lack of confidence and support from a teacher does to the psyche of young Black boys. It can be damaging. And indeed, it does discourage the dreams of young Black boys every day. Fortunately, for me, I saw it as an opportunity and motivation to be a premier student. I used this opportunity to reshape my thoughts and views about education and its importance. I immediately became my most critical evaluator and my biggest advocate at the same time. It became clear that merit was not enough. I realized that I needed to take my educational process very seriously, because the only person in the classroom who cared about my success was me—and that included the teacher who was supposed to be a supporting mentor. I did get the elite college prep diploma, and the rest is now history. It was not until many years and several degrees later that I had a framework to understand this turning point in my life. The experience was largely shaped by teacher expectations and views, and less so by in-classroom experiences. While I was fortunate to find a productive way to manage a misaligned assessment of my abilities based on views held by the teacher, far too many stories of Black male experiences in education do not end the same way. The Handbook of Research on Black Males is designed to fill the void in seminal resource for researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and concerned citizens in need of an empirically driven road map for those who seek clarity about the “quandary of the Black male.” I was able to rise above the odds working against me as a Black male in the education system, and my story should be viewed not as the exception, but as the norm. Erasing those odds should be a national goal and future reality. The editors and authors of The Handbook of Research on Black Males have taken a very important step in the direction of making that the case.
PREFACE
Theodore S. Ransaw
How did this Handbook come to be? My students asked for it. And not just my Black male students, but my female students as well. I n cidentally, I’ve always had more female students in my masculinity classes than male students.
While working on my doctorate, I created and then taught an African American Music and Culture Hip-Hop class. That class covered all four elements of hip-hop: graffiti, b-boying/break dancing, d-jaying as well as rap. An interdisciplinary class, graffiti was taught from a historical and political lens, b-boying was taught from a non-verbal communication and business commercialization perspective, d-jaying was interpreted through musicology and rap was discussed using classic rhetorical analysis. Every semester, when the topic of girls and music videos came up, the women in the class had much to say. The men did not. Many of the young men were interested in particular women in the class and did not want to take any chances to offend them. Other men in the class were reluctant to talk because they did not feel their comments would be accepted. Because of their silence, I realized that the Black men in my hip-hop class needed a “safe place” to talk. So, I created a Black masculinity class.
Although every class had more women than men, one of the commonalities between the men and the women was that they all kept asking for more and more information. What is compelling is that much of the knowledge they accumulated was channeled into their scholarship and personal lives. As I observed through reading assignments, reflection papers, and a culminating term paper, the men and the women in the class became able to express themselves in ways they were unable to do before. They even had a course activity where they created a personal shield or family crest. The Black masculinity class taught both my students and myself
how important such a marker of ancestry can be to identity. The class had an additional benefit. The more the students learned, the more they were eager to share with others.
The students of the first masculinity class created an hour-and-thirty-minute multimedia presentation for their final project. The next class started a mentorship program for Black males at an at-risk elementary school. That mentorship requirement continued as the class’s final project until I finished my PhD program, when there were four programs operating in three elementary schools. What is more inspiring is that all of the students in the class were undergraduates. In addition to watching my students’ academic growth, I was also personally rewarded when I saw my Black male students’ inner growth as they worked with young Black men. Having Black boys that looked up to the them made these young men stand a little taller, move a bit more purposively, and talk with even greater alacrity. Most of the Black males in class graduated; some even went on to graduate school. One of the Black male students from the masculinity class is now a professor as well as a contributor to this Handbook.
Six months after I completed my PhD, I was hired at Michigan State University as a Black male research specialist. My job was to work with the Michigan Department of Education to help close achievement gaps for males of color. The masculinity class prepared me with both the research component and the civic engagement experience necessary for the job. In a way, my entire career thus far has focused on giving students of color, especially Black male students, information about Black masculinity.
What about the young women in my classes who asked for information? This Handbook was created with them in mind too. The women in the Black masculinity class contributed, helped, pushed, supported, and inspired all of the Black male students, and myself as well.
The Nature of the Handbook
The main purpose of this Handbook is to encourage researchers in various fields to explore the nuanced and multifaceted phenomenon known as the Black male. Simultaneously hypervisible and invisible, Black males around the globe are being investigated now more than ever before. However, much of the well-meaning media attention to Black males is not well informed by research. Additionally, Black males are not uniform in nature and have varying strengths and challenges as well as differing opportunities and struggles, making one-size-fits-all perspectives inaccurate. A comprehensive tool that can serve as a resource to articulate and argue for policy change, suggest educational improvements, and provide resources for judicial reform fills a void long overdue to be filled.
The overarching goal of the Handbook is to share multiple methods and perspectives that can help improve the lives of a population who are often the most vulnerable, Black males. To that end, the chapters in this Handbook are written by scholars and researchers from various fields, including, psychology, communication, education, sociology, and criminal justice.
Organization of the Handbook
The Handbook is divided into seven parts. Part 1, introduced by Bernard K. Duffy, describes the history of and contributions by Black males using oral traditions who advocated for critical thinking about race and exploring what it means to be an American. The major purpose of the chapters in this part is to provide an overview of the intricate complexity, influence, and impact that Black males have had on national identity throughout American history. Several significant issues that pertain to trends in research on Black males are highlighted in Part 2, introduced by Darryl Holloman and Corey Givens, including the often-ignored issues of Black males with disabilities and contemporary issues related to gender identity.
Part 3, introduced by Brent Johnson, focuses on underdiscussed topics that influence Black male health, including graduation rates and macroaggressions. Part 4, introduced by Theodore Ransaw, concentrates on education and how the lack thereof or the successful implementation thereof influences the lives of Black males. The reader will find research related to Black male learning styles, grit, persistence, and cultural competency in this part. In addition to math pedagogy and literacy teaching strategies, part 4 also includes firsthand perspectives as well as programing suggestions to help improve the education of juveniles who are sentenced like adults in the school-to-prison pipeline. Consequently, Part 5, introduced by Steven Cureton, examines how the criminal justice system is influenced by fear, the media, and lack of empathy for ethnic groups, especially Black males.
Part 6, introduced by Toby S. Jenkins details how hip-hop can be a form of artistic expression, an avenue that supports mental health and a way to unpack the complexities of Black masculinity. Part 7, introduced by Spencer Platt, summarizes program initiatives that support Black males, including approaches to culturally responsive pedagogy, college athletic program reform, and suspension and expulsion alternatives.
The cover art, My Brother’s Keeper was drawn by Julian Van Dyke using pen and ink. The different tones reflect the premise that Black males are multifaceted and unique, while still unified by a common experience. The title My Brother’s Keeper is a metaphor for the Handbook, that reminds us to watch out for one another despite the obstacles we face.
In keeping with the theme of working collectively, you will find an adinkra symbol (Owusu 2000) at the beginning of each part that represents the part’s specific theme, drawn by Elijah K. Hamilton-Wray using charcoal on paper. Dwennimmen, or ram’s horn, represents the overarching theme of the book, the strength of working together with humility. Sankofa is the symbol that implores us to remember to learn from the past and represents the history part. Hwe Mu Dua is a symbol for quality control and represents the research and research issues part. Akoma, the heart, is a symbol of patience and tolerance and represents the health part. Nea Onnim No Sua A, Ohu is a symbol for lifelong learners and represents the education part. Epa is a symbol of law and justice for criminal justice and represents the criminal justice part. Ananse Ntontan, also known as the spider’s web, is a symbol of wisdom and creativity and represents the hip-hop part. Woforo Dua Paa A is a symbol of support, cooperation, and encouragement and represents the programs and initiatives part.
At the end of each part, you will find vignettes of one Black man’s journey from primary school to graduate school penned by Ryan J. Henson. A vignette is a short composite, impressionistic scene, that focuses on one character to give a personalized perspective. Ryan was one of the first students in the aforementioned masculinity class. The portraits serve to ground the complexities of the Handbook by providing snapshots of the life experiences of a Black male named Ronnie. These vignettes can be used by readers to conceptualize academic research as a heuristic way to understand the individual lives of Black males.
Acknowledgments
It is imperative that others know the significant amount of time and energy that contributors other than the authors, reviewers, and part leaders have made to this Handbook. To that end, it is with pride that we publicly acknowledge the sacrifice, dedication, and hard work of the staff at Michigan State University’s Press. MSU Press has been supportive, encouraging, and helpful throughout this entire process. We would also like to thank the members of the advisory editorial board for their advice and wisdom.
We are grateful to the leadership, sacrifice, and expertise of the section leaders and the authors of the Handbook. We are deeply thankful for the helpful comments and revision suggestions of the reviewers.
The editors of the Handbook are especially thankful to Michigan State University’s Associate Provost and Associate Vice President for Academic Human Resources Theodore “Terry” Curry and his staff for their tireless efforts supporting the achievement and academic advancement of Black males.
n Reference
Owusu, H. (2000). Symbols of Africa. New York: Sterling Publishing.
History
INTRODUCTION
Bernard K. Duffy
Of the social problems in America that have engendered passionate oratory, none has been more long-standing or pervasive than racial injustice. In every era, from slavery, to Jim Crow laws, lynching, segregation, the civil rights movement of the twentieth century, to racial profiling, police brutality, and consequent cries that “black lives matter,” black men and women have engaged in a struggle, most often peaceful, to achieve the American dream of equal treatment and access to the constitutional protections and economic opportunities of a nation whose riches are both philosophical and material. It has been a long and arduous struggle that can be cataloged by the speeches delivered by blacks who became famous for their ability to rally others in their communities by speaking truth to power. Each of the speakers represented here made demands that were met with recalcitrance and, at times, force and violence by those in positions of authority. Some of the speakers in this part, such as Henry McNeal Turner, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael, believed that the United States was inherently racist and in desperate need of systemic change. Others, such as Frederick Douglass, Vernon Johns, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King, wanted substantive reform. However, the passion of their oratory and the strength of their convictions were not diminished by the size of their demands. The speeches of these historic voices are testaments to the courage of black orators in the face of uncertain, and at times impossible, odds. Each of the speakers in this part took the country a step further toward racial equality, although its complete attainment has not occurred. Even after Barack Obama’s idealistic twoterm presidency, racial reconciliation remains a too distant hope.
This part begins with Richard Besel’s and my study of two of Frederick Douglass’s Fourth of July orations. My interest in African American orators began when I coedited the first
volumes of an encyclopedia of American orators, which featured a number of black speakers. Professor Leeman and I edited The Will of a People: A Critical Anthology of Great African American Speeches. Professor Besel, my chapter coauthor, is a scholar of political, scientific, and environmental rhetoric including environmental justice, that is, how the degradation of the environment disproportionately affects racial minorities and the poor.
Although Fourth of July orations delivered by white men most often extolled the virtues of democracy and the success of the young nation, Douglass, like other abolitionists, such as his mentor, William Lloyd Garrison, used the occasion to underscore the hypocrisy of white Americans. We argue that in his Independence Day addresses of 1852 and 1857, Douglass made use of the rhetorical device of anamnesis, or recollection. In “What to the American Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” delivered in 1852, Douglass effusively, but ironically, praised the “fathers” of his white audience for risking all in the revolution against the British Crown, while condemning the present generation for not adequately supporting the abolition of slavery and greater equality for free blacks in the North. “This Fourth of July,” he declares poignantly, “is yours, not mine. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony” (Douglass, 2012, p. 65).
Using paralipsis, the rhetorical figure in which the speaker says what he first denies he will say, Douglass denounces slavery and argues that blacks are in every respect human and deserve equal rights. While Garrison saw the Constitution as an irreparably proslavery document and called for disunion and secession, Douglass parted company with Garrison when he concluded that the Constitution could be reinterpreted radically to include blacks as well as whites. In 1875, Douglass reminded his audience that both blacks and whites had shed their blood in the Civil War and that they were also together in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Compared to his better-known 1852 speech, the 1875 speech was subdued and written in a much plainer style. In 1875 Douglass feared that white paternalism would prevent blacks from taking their rightful place in society, criticizing “benevolent societies” that were ostensibly aimed at helping blacks but undercut the perception that they could manage their newly gained freedom independently.
After the Civil War, blacks were elected to the state legislatures of southern states, but many, such as Georgia legislator Henry McNeal Turner, were expelled. In the second chapter in Part 1, Andre E. Johnson examines Turner’s eloquence on behalf of the equality of blacks during Reconstruction. Like Frederick Douglass, Turner demanded the extension of liberty embodied in the Declaration of Independence to blacks. As Turner saw it, during the slavery era, whites had sinned by failing to educate blacks and thereby had broken “a sacred trust.” Turner, who proudly served as the first black chaplain in the armed forces and established the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Georgia, also believed that the “divine” mission of America was to promote freedom and equality internationally. He agreed with Lincoln, who in his Second Inaugural had interpreted the Civil War as the “woe” that befell America because of the sin of slavery. Yet, in his Emancipation Day speech Turner expressed optimism that the “Southern gentleman” would help unify blacks and whites. In carefully measured speech, Turner argued that the Constitution declared him a man because it fell short of sanctioning slavery,
the Framers having made a conscious effort to avoid even so much as the word “servitude.” Turner’s optimism was deflated, however, when Georgia state legislators refused to seat black representatives. In “On the Eligibility of Colored Members to the Seats in the Georgia Legislature,” delivered from the floor of the statehouse, Turner ferociously defended the right of blacks to serve in the legislature, characterizing the refusal of white politicians to allow blacks to hold office as “political slavery.” He realized that to accomplish this end he must “fight the devil with fire,” and his rhetoric thereafter reflected this new perspective. As a preacher, Turner took solace in the ultimate judgment of God on those who attempted to enslave blacks politically. While the US Congress reseated Turner and other blacks in state legislatures to which they were elected, intimidation and violence at the polls prevented many from winning reelection.
Richard Leeman next examines the rhetoric of four black leaders in the first half of the twentieth century. Leeman’s discussion bridges the Reconstruction period with the modern civil rights movement. The first figure he considers is Marcus Garvey, who attracted hundreds of thousands of followers in a Black Nationalist movement to edify and inspire blacks. Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and called for a return to Africa and the establishment of a pan-African nation. Like Turner he emphasized the need for education and encouraged racial and personal pride. Among his accomplishments was the establishment of various businesses including a steamship company, the Black Star Line, which would be used to transport blacks to the new African nation hoped to create. Ultimately convicted of mail fraud, related to selling stock in the Black Star Line, Garvey was imprisoned and later deported, but the effect of his uplifting Black Nationalist rhetoric continued to be felt and emulated by other black leaders.
The Reverend Vernon Johns infused the civil rights movement with the idea of “the Social Gospel,” the application of Protestant Christianity to social problems. Educated at Oberlin College and the University of Chicago Divinity School, Johns was well positioned to serve as president of Virginia Theological Seminary and later to become pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. His pastorate at the venerable church immediately preceded that of Martin Luther King’s. In Johns’s most famous sermon, “Transfigured Moments,” he finds the rise from the ordinary to the extraordinary exemplified in the figure of Lincoln, a common man who removed slaves from bondage, while Moses, a noble man, had pursued the ordinary by leading the Jews into bondage. In the rich and powerful sermon, Johns also inveighed against pseudoscientific representations of blacks as inferior based upon skull size. Speaking at a time when segregation, discrimination, and lynching were the order of the day in the South, Johns expressed certainty that God would see an end to these un-Christian practices as houses that were built upon sand rather than the rock of Jesus and would be washed away.
Garvey and Johns focused on the self-efficacy and spiritual well-being of blacks, while A. Philip Randolph took the cause of racial equality to the economic world, fighting for the cause of the black workingman and soldier. Randolph was in the advance guard of black labor unions in America. He organized elevator operators and black dockworkers and later served as president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. In that role he helped organize opposition to the Pullman Company, on whose sleeping cars many black porters toiled for low wages. Randolph
also called for the integration of the US armed forces and lobbied Franklin Roosevelt to provide jobs for blacks in the defense industry. Randolph threatened to persuade black youth to disobey orders from their draft boards. He also compared the fight for racial equality with Gandhi’s nonviolent protests for an end to British colonial rule of India, comparing American blacks to Indian colonial subjects. Randolph’s influence was keenly felt as the person who envisioned the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He was the first of nine speakers who took the lectern before Martin Luther King spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Finally, Leeman discusses the contribution of Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, who worked for racial justice within the legal system. As a lawyer, Marshall successfully brought a case against the University of Maryland for a prejudicial admissions policy that had prevented him from being admitted. Most famous, however, was his success in arguing a series of school desegregation cases, culminating in the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, which brought a legal end to segregation in the public schools with a nine-to-zero decision. As an attorney for the NAACP, Marshall encouraged the bringing of as many cases of discrimination before the courts as possible. “Many people,” he said, “believe the time is always ‘ripe’ to discriminate against Negroes. All right then—the time is always ‘ripe’ to bring justice.” He himself brought thirty-two cases, winning twenty-nine of them. Marshall’s singular success as a civil rights lawyer led Lyndon Johnson to name him to the Supreme Court, the first African American to hold that post.
Although the contributions of Garvey, Johns, Randolph, and Marshall were substantial, no figure in twentieth-century African American rhetoric looms larger in the national memory than Martin Luther King. His “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered in Washington as part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was only one of ten speeches by civil rights leaders the physical and television audience heard that day, including that of A. Philip Randolph. In the fifth chapter in this part, Richard Besel and I consider how King’s speech became recognized as perhaps the most memorable address delivered in the twentieth century. Retrospectively, it is difficult to understand why the Washington Post failed to recognize the significance of the speech—failed in fact, even to mention it—while featuring A. Philip Randolph’s instead. New York Daily News television critic Kay Gardella believed that the cutaways to the brooding statue of Abraham Lincoln were the most affecting part of the performance. In short, the speech was not immediately acknowledged by all as a masterpiece of oratory—few speeches are—although King presciently copyrighted it, requesting that the proceeds of sales benefit the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Over time, however, the speech, particularly the “I Have a Dream” refrain, has come to signify King’s contribution to the movement and has indeed become an emblem of the movement itself. In 1963, King was acknowledged as the religious leader of the civil rights movement, but his reputation as an organizer and a speaker were amplified when, after his assassination, the speech was replayed to memorialize his contribution to the civil rights movement.
The establishment of the Martin Luther King holiday in 1983 provided still more opportunities for Americans to watch the most moving passages of the speech. Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post recently noted that in 2013, Taylor Branch, King’s biographer, opined
that Americans might know more about the speech had the King Foundation put it in public domain, which otherwise will occur automatically in 2038 (Strauss, 2017). However, apart from the Gettysburg Address, it is difficult to imagine a more recognizable speech. While permission to reprint or to include the speech in film can be prohibitively expensive, there is little question that the speech has achieved the status of what Frederick Douglass, addressing a predominantly white audience, called “your national poetry and eloquence” (Douglass, 2012, p. 63).
Great speeches such as Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, which Lincoln modestly thought would “wear well” and Frederick Douglass considered “a sacred effort,” are often not immediately recognized for their singular eloquence, let alone their potential impact. Exactly what King thought of the speech on the day it was delivered is difficult to know. Surely he realized the impact of its scintillating dream section and dramatic conclusion. He had told his wife, Coretta Scott King, that he would redeploy the rhetorically potent, extemporaneously delivered “I Have a Dream” material he used recently in a speech in Detroit if it seemed the moment was right. Ms. King presented the words as inspired by a higher power, while John F. Kennedy, a student of oratory, welcomed King into the Oval Office after the speech, admiringly intoning its most famous phrase. King himself recognized the prophetic power of the dream passage and incorporated references to the dream in later speeches.
For the American public the “dream” came to represent the unexpressed context of the celebrated speaker and his cause. The Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington draws inspiration from the speech, including in its design physical representations of phrases taken from the text, such as “a mountain of despair,” “a stone of hope,” and “justice” rolling “down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” While King was a brilliant organizer and a charismatic leader whose efforts on behalf of civil rights spanned his adult life, shortened by an assassin’s bullet, his public memory is fixed by the words he spoke in the heat of Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963.
Dr. King’s message of nonviolence might not have been as effective in drawing public support had it not been for the militancy of Malcolm X. In his contribution to Part 1, Robert Terrill weaves together the biographical and rhetorical narratives of Malcolm Little, later Malcolm X, suggesting that he underwent a number of transformations both in his life and in his rhetoric. These transformations also would affect his audiences, as Malcolm X invited them to see the world through a more refractive lens.
Little was born into relative poverty in Omaha, Nebraska, and lost his father to a streetcar accident that some thought was actually a murder committed by the white-supremacist Black Legion. His mother was consigned to a state mental hospital. A good student, Malcolm became rebellious, fell into a life of criminality, including petty larceny and burglary, which led to his incarceration. While in jail he was introduced to the tracts of Elijah Muhammad, who led the Nation of Islam (NOI).
In the NOI Malcolm found his vocation and his voice. He became the minister of the Harlem NOI Temple No. 7 and increased its congregation exponentially. When Malcolm became disenchanted with Elijah Muhammad and the NOI, he was transformed, as Terrill says, “from being the best public speaker in a little-known religious sect to being a recognized leader and
thinker on the national and global stage.” After the difficult and bitter split with Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm formed his own religious organization and a political outlet, the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Political comments had been forbidden by Muhammad, which was one of the reasons for Malcolm’s decision to leave the NOI.
A trip to Mecca softened Malcolm’s perspective on white people, who had been roundly condemned by Elijah Muhammad. Now unfettered by the NOI, Malcolm X was able to express his political sentiments. Terrill focuses on three speeches he delivered: “Black Man’s History,” while Malcolm was still in the NOI, “The Ballot or the Bullet,” and his speech in Rochester, New York. Terrill argues that “for Malcolm X, public address is social change, his words are his deeds,” in the sense that his rhetoric created a different worldview for blacks and made them conscious of actions they could take to effect change. “Black Man’s History” was the complex mythical account of human genesis according to the NOI, which is Manichaean in perspective, representing blacks as entirely good and whites as entirely evil.
Among his political speeches, “The Ballot or the Bullet” is the most widely anthologized and is representative of Malcolm’s politics after he broke with the NOI. In contrast to the nonviolent activism of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X sees the potential need for the synecdochical “bullet,” should blacks not be allowed to exercise their rights to the ballot. “It’ll be ballots, or it’ll be bullets. It’ll be liberty, or it will be death” (Malcolm X, 2012, p. 284). He opposes Martin Luther King’s plea for nonviolence and the “turning of the other cheek.” “Die for what you believe in. But don’t die alone. Let your dying be reciprocal” (p. 286). In the speech, the fiery orator explains the concept of Black Nationalism from an international point of view. He also points to the successes of “dark people” in fighting guerrilla wars against white foes. He rails against the Johnson administration for allowing the Dixiecrats, the southern Democrats, to block the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but also denies that blacks can be given rights that they already have as human beings. The speech, which was delivered extemporaneously in various versions, is highly provocative, and Malcolm X’s rhetoric produced a sense of anxiety among many Americans concerned about further igniting racial tensions.
FBI director Herbert Hoover feared that Malcolm X would galvanize the black community with his militant rhetoric. After Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965, Hoover speculated that either Martin Luther King or Stokely Carmichael would assume his role (Leeman & Duffy, 2012, p. 297). Carmichael, briefly a Black Panther, and head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was a prolific and versatile speaker, but none of his speeches received the same attention as “Black Power,” delivered at UC Berkeley in 1966, a speech that Richard Besel and I consider. Governor Pat Brown and his challenger in the gubernatorial race, Ronald Reagan, both expressed concern about the speech. Brown flew to Oakland to meet with police so that provisions could be made in case the speech incited violence. Carmichael, educated at Howard University and author of articles in outlets such as the New York Review of Books , was only twenty-five when he delivered the speech (Leeman & Duffy, 2012, pp. 298, 295). Followed by the press, Carmichael had made a reputation as a provocative speaker, often addressing his messages to black audiences at historically black colleges. In the “Black Power” speech, Carmichael mentioned many of the same ideas as Malcolm X, including the idea that violence should be
reciprocated with violence in defense (“If you play like Nazis, we playing back with you this time around”) and that the civil rights bill was for whites who did not recognize the innate freedom of blacks (Carmichael, 2012, pp. 309, 306). Among the themes Carmichael addressed was his insistence that blacks be able to define themselves and articulate their own identities; his plea for separate action by whites to involve other whites as allies, rather than participants, in the black power movement; his demand for access to education and economic power for blacks; and his criticism of the draft and the Vietnam War.
The concept of black power was intended for black audiences as a symbol of racial pride and self-worth. So much was this the case that the Afro-American Student Union at Berkeley asked Carmichael not to use the term with white audiences. Although Carmichael agreed nominally, a large portion of the speech explains black power and criticizes those who were antagonistic toward blacks for using the term. Martin Luther King, for example, saw it as the parallel to white supremacy and thought it equally evil (Leeman & Duffy, 2012, p. 296). Carmichael viewed the Vietnam War as an expression of American imperialism justified by the idea that the Vietnamese needed democracy at any price: “We’ll just wipe them the hell out, ’cause they don’t deserve to live if they won’t have our way of life’” (2012, p. 312). His stance on the Vietnam War was embodied in the phrase “Hell no, we ain’t going,” a sentiment commonly heard as “Hell no, we won’t go” in antiwar demonstrations.
When Barack Obama ran for the presidency the advent of the Great Recession eclipsed the issue of the lingering and frustrating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the first black to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, Obama was also forced to confront the issue of race. David Frank’s chapter on Obama’s speech on race, “A More Perfect Union,” during his first campaign for the presidency suggests alternate arguments that might have set the stage for greater national unity and suppressed the political rise of Donald Trump. Obama’s so-called race speech was a reaction to the criticism of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of a Chicago church that Obama had attended. Quotations from Wright’s sermons, including “God damn America,” all taken out of the context of sermons criticizing racism in America, had been broadcast both by the news media and by Republican opponents to Obama’s presidential candidacy. Obama’s speech was an attempt to blunt the criticism, but also to reflect on American racism. In some ways it was an apologia not unlike John F. Kennedy’s “Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association,” which answered accusations about his fitness to run for office as a Roman Catholic. Although Frank regards the speech as President Obama’s most brilliant, worthy of the “pantheon of great orations,” he also wonders if the project of unifying America might have been enhanced with a rhetoric that considered race differently. He imagines arguments and appeals that Obama might have expressed that would have broadened his message. After all, as Frank notes, “The word ‘race’ does not describe something essential to human biology or identity.” Therefore, many in the scientific community prefer “ancestry” or “population” to “race.” Had Obama taken a broader view, he might have emphasized other factors that might describe himself or his audience members, for example, the fact that he descended from an immigrant father, or that his maternal grandfather and great uncle served in the military during World War II. Many things bind Americans together other than race, class, religion, or
national origin. Although Obama speaks of slavery as America’s “original sin,” sins were also committed against indigenous people and ultimately against impoverished European settlers such as the Scots-Irish who like blacks were classified as an underclass. White working-class Americans who believed they had been ignored and disenfranchised were successfully courted by Donald Trump. Had Obama made an effort to take them into account in his unifying rhetoric, they might have been less receptive to candidate Trump’s nationalistic message. As Frank and Cornell West note, people disadvantaged by race and by class have in the past collaborated successfully, as when President Johnson’s Great Society and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal improved conditions for both poor whites and poor blacks.
The presidential elections of 2008 and 2012 both emphasized economic disabilities experienced by a large swath of Americans during the Great Recession. Frank speculates that white voters, including those in the crevices of rural and industrial America who had voted for Obama in those two elections, were “primed” to think in racial terms during the 2016 Clinton-Trump campaign. Counties that had been Democratic victories in 2008 and 2012 shifted Republican.
Racial reconciliation is, therefore, still unfinished work that will require sincere acknowledgments of responsibility and blame. If scapegoating racial minorities continues to be part of increasingly divisive political campaigns, the racial divide will expand and there will be little chance of reconciliation in the near future.
In this environment, one can only hope for a sustained and resounding clarion call of civil rights rhetoric not only from blacks but from all groups who consider themselves at risk, including blacks, Muslims, Middle Easterners, Asians, Hispanics, women, the LGBTQ community, the elderly, the disabled, immigrants, and refugees from tyranny and poverty. In the matter of civil rights, black orators historically led the way, providing the arguments and passionate appeals that over time struck at the core of Jim Crow legislation and stripped away the false front of paternalism. While the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was the first and last such event fully covered by television, the recent women’s march of more than one million in Washington and throughout the United States and around the world was impressive in numbers and organization (Stein, Hendrix, & Hauslohner, 2017).
The history of black oratory is remarkable for its eloquent truths and courage, while the stimulus for that oratory is frightening for its inhumanity and its suppression of freedom and the voices of the oppressed. As John Lewis, congressman and civil rights activist, has urged: “You cannot be afraid to speak up and speak out for what you believe, you have to have courage, real courage” (Brinlee, 2017).
n References
Brinlee, M. (2017). These John Lewis quotes about justice & civil rights are the perfect example of how words become action. January 14. Https://www.bustle.com/p/these-john-lewis-quotes-aboutjustice-civil-rights-are-the-perfect-example-of-how-words-become-action-30445. Carmichael, S. (2012). Black power. In R. W. Leeman & B. K. Duffy (eds.) The will of a people: A critical
anthology of great African American speeches. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 295–303.
Douglass, F. (2012). What to the American slave is the Fourth of July? In R. W. Leeman & B. K. Duffy (eds.) The will of a people: A critical anthology of great African American speeches. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 57–82.
Duffy, B. K., & R. W. Leeman (eds.). (2005). American voices: An encyclopedia of contemporary orators Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Johnson, A. (2012). The forgotten prophet: Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and the African American prophetic tradition. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
. (2010–17). An African American pastor before and during the American Civil War. The Literary Archive of Henry McNeal Turner. 6 vols. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
Leeman, R. (ed.). (1996). African-American oratory: A biocritical sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
. (2012). The teleological discourse of Barack Obama . Lanham, MD: Lexington Press.
Leeman, R. W., & B. K. Duffy (eds.). (2012). The will of a people: Great speeches by African Americans Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Malcolm X. (2012). The ballot or the bullet. In R. W. Leeman & B. K. Duffy (eds.) The will of a people: A critical anthology of great African American speeches. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 268–76.
Strauss, V. (2017). The price of using King’s “Dream” speech. San Luis Obispo Tribune , January 16, pp. 1, 7.
Stein, P., S. Hendrix, S., & A. Hauslohner. (2017). Women’s marches: More than one million protesters vow to resist Donald Trump. Washington Post, January 22.
Terrill, R. (2004). Malcolm X: Inventing radical judgment . East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. (ed.). (2010). Cambridge companion to Malcolm X . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. (2015). Double-consciousness and the rhetoric of Barack Obama: The price and promise of citizenship. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Recollection, Regret, and Foreboding in Frederick Douglass’s Fourth of July
Orations of 1852 and 1875
Bernard K. Duffy and Richard D. Besel
Nineteenth-century American Independence Day orations were as much a part of the celebration as festoons, flags, fireworks, cannonades, parades, and pealing bells (Travers, 1997, p. 54; Engels 2009, pp. 311–12). Every city sought an orator to perform a skillfully crafted reaffirmation of the principles for which Americans had risked their lives. Most prized undoubtedly were those who simultaneously were civic leaders, public philosophers, and wordsmiths—important people who possessed both moral authority and the literary and oral ability needed to impress and inspire their audiences. Silver-tongued senators Daniel Webster and Edward Everett were obvious choices. Lincoln as president delivered an Independence Day oration, as did national anthem author Francis Scott Key, humorist Mark Twain, and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (Heintze, 2010). In all, twenty-five hundred printed Independence Day orations survive from those delivered in nineteenth-century America, the bulk by orators less celebrated than these, but never by ordinary citizens (Martin, 1958, p. 397; Travers, 1997, p. 6). Without exception invited speakers treated their compositions seriously, laboring over them for weeks, if not months, in advance (Banninga, 1967, pp. 45–46; Martin, 1958, p. 393). Significant speeches were printed and circulated, often in pamphlet form, sometimes stimulating the publication of pamphlets written in response (Martin, 1958, p. 397; Goetsch and Hurm, 1992). The fact that most important speeches were destined for print helps to explain the atavistic grandiloquent style of nineteenth-century oral discourse, particularly of ceremonial speeches.
Abolition orators used the July Fourth oration to plead their cause. Frederick Douglass, unquestionably the greatest abolition orator, delivered several such orations, the most famous of which is “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” delivered in Rochester, New York, on July
5, 1852. The speech ranks as one of the most important abolition speeches of the nineteenth century and Douglass’s most celebrated oratorical achievement. Douglass’s use of irony in this speech has captured the attention of many rhetorical scholars (Lucaites, 1997; Fulkerson, 1996; Terrill, 2003). Less well known, yet still important, is Douglass’s 1875 speech “The Color Question.” Delivered in Hillsdale, just outside of Washington, DC, also on July 5, this address provides an important comparison point for understanding the development of Douglass’s rhetoric. Unlike in previous analyses, Douglass’s penchant for irony is not the singular focus of this essay. Instead, we argue that the use of anamnesis, often understood to mean “recollection,” or an attempt to remind people of what they have forgotten, saturates both of his speeches (Allen, 1959; Scott, 1987). Following his break with the Garrisonians, Douglass used a specific recollection of the Declaration of Independence to create a mythic vision of what America could and should become.
Rhetorical and Historical Context
William Garrison’s Fourth of July oration, “Address to the Colonization Society,” delivered at Park Street Church in Boston in 1829, was the first major speech of the man who would become Douglass’s mentor and helped establish a subgenre of Fourth of July orations delivered by abolitionists (Rohler, 1987, pp. 184–85). Garrison exploited, although to a much lesser extent than Douglass would, the great paradox of celebrating liberty within the context of slavery in the United States. Slavery was to Garrison “a gangrene preying upon our vitals [that] . . . should make this a day of fasting and prayer, not of boisterous merriment and idle pageantry—a day of great lamentations, not of congratulatory joy.” Although his speech violates the expectation that speakers praise the Constitution and the government it established, Garrison’s speech embodied the revolutionary spirit also valued in speeches within this genre (Martin, 1984, p. 395). Fourth of July speeches such as Garrison’s and Douglass’s boldly took issue with the fulfillment of the ideals of the Founding Fathers, if not with the ideals themselves.
There was not a more famous or more eloquent African American abolitionist than Frederick Douglass. Born a slave, the unacknowledged son of an unknown white father and an African American mother in Maryland, Douglass found his voice as an abolitionist and advocate of the equal rights of African Americans in Baltimore. He listened to and participated in debates among free Blacks in the city, becoming a member of the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society. At the age of twelve he had read Caleb Bingham’s The Columbian Orator , a collection of patriotic works including essays and dialogues, used in schoolrooms early in the nineteenth century to develop literacy and an appreciation of eloquence and the importance of public discourse in a free republic. Bingham, whose book had a profound impact on Douglass, preached the importance of combining eloquence with content that merited such eloquence, for example, the ideas of liberty and equality (Lampe, 1998, pp. 9–13; Martin, 1984, pp. 139–40). As an abolitionist orator, Douglass initially aligned himself with the radical views of Garrison, who claimed that the US Constitution immorally supported slavery and that slaves should be
immediately emancipated (McClure, 2000, pp. 428–29). Garrison ultimately came to believe that the only solution was disunion and secession (Lucaites, 1997, p. 55). The Garrisonians made significant inroads in persuading the American public of the immorality of slavery, but Douglass broke with the Garrisonians in 1847, only briefly continuing to support their view of the Constitution. By 1850 Douglass thought differently, preferring to see the Constitution as embodying tenets of equality that, if properly interpreted, would lead Americans to abandon slavery (McClure, 2000, pp. 428–29).
As an orator, Douglass quickly became a celebrity. The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society hired him as a paid lecturer, a position he held from 1841 to 1845. Among the African American speakers who satisfied the public interest in the life of the slave, the uncommonly literate and eloquent Douglass rose to stardom. So literate was Douglass that rumors circulated he was an imposter; such an educated speaker could not be a fugitive slave. To establish his bona fides, he published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845. As his fame increased, so did the danger that bounty hunters would seize him and return him to slavery, however, and so Douglass sailed to Britain and, until 1847, lectured across the British Isles. He returned to the United States after reluctantly allowing British supporters to purchase his freedom so that he could continue his abolition work in America itself. A career as an editor and journalist followed in publications such as North Star, Frederick Douglass’s Paper , Douglass Monthly, and New National Era (Martin, 1984, pp. 140–42; Fulkerson, 1996, pp. 82–83). Douglass availed himself of every opportunity to remind audiences of problems many of his contemporaries wanted to sublimate.
Fourth of July orations provided a great opportunity for shaping historical memory, for active “recollection,” and even the creation of myth, as Douglass later realized in witnessing how white civic leaders chose to remember the Civil War. Many layers of speeches delivered at commemorative ceremonies—whether praising the Founding Fathers, the Army of the Potomac, or the Union Army—created a collective national consciousness through a process of steady inculcation. Conservative rhetorical critic Richard Weaver claims that grandiloquent speeches of the nineteenth century reminded their audiences of received truth, of a textus receptus , in a day when there was greater homogeneity of cultural belief (Weaver, 1953, p. 171). Therefore, audiences judged ceremonial speeches not by the originality of their claims, but by how artfully accepted truths were represented. Fourth of July orations deepened preexisting belief and provided instruction in public virtue for the young (Duffy, 1983). In such speeches, history was to be experienced with sentiment rather than remembered objectively in its factual details, as “felt” rather than “passive” history (Blight, 1998, p. 212). Weaver argues that the modern decline in the importance of rhetoric is commensurate with the decline in the importance of socially cohesive memories (1964, pp. 55–56).
From one point of view, then, nineteenth-century American orators, recalling the virtuous words and deeds of past generations, created “a meditative relationship with history” wherein audiences with shared beliefs about religion, morality, and government remembered the past in light of those beliefs (Weaver, 1953, p. 178). Recollection, “an act of gathering things together again,” inspired by ceremonial discourse, is typically regarded as a force for conservatism,
