Aspects of African American Rhetoric As A Field, by Keith Gilyard

Introduction: Aspects of African
American Rhetoric as a Field

Keith Gilyard
TO ENCAPSULATE ALL THE VARIOUS EFFORTS IN THE SCHOLARLY

study of African American rhetoric would be a task virtually as daunt-
ing as if the object were to summarize all reportage and analysis of the
Black experience overall. Voluminous attention has been devoted to
Black discourses because such discourses have been the major means by
which people of African descent in the American colonies and subsequent
republic have asserted their collective humanity in the face of an endur-
ing White supremacy and tried to persuade, cajole, and gain acceptance
for ideas relative to Black survival and Black liberation. So immediately
one recognizes the impracticality of trying to write definitively about such
a vast network of activities in such limited space. What I attempt, there-
Copyright © 2007. Southern Illinois University Press. All rights reserved.
fore, is a meaningful historical sketch of a particular body of rhetorical

scholarship, a choice that necessarily implies certain critical sacrifices.
For example, I will forgo formal discussion of linguistics and the cre-
ative arts, although I possess impressive arguments why such truncation
of rhetorical inquiry should not be carried too far. The very existence
of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) inscribes a significant
rhetorical situation, and the prevailing functional character of African
American artistic expression renders problematic any move to divorce
its production and any criticism thereof from the realm of rhetorical
inquiry. Nonetheless, I maintain that it is useful, in order to actually get
through one essay, to focus on what there is to say about Black persua-
sive or associative verbal practices beyond the specific linguistic items
of AAVE, or Standard English for that matter, or on what is left to say
of public discourse if one agrees to bracket texts that are literary or
musical. What is left to say of strategy and method? The answer com-
prises the terrain that this essay explores. The focus is on what scholars
Richardson, Elaine B., and Ronald L Jackson. African American Rhetoric(s) : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Southern Illinois 1
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2 Keith Gilyard
working taxonomically and employing rhetorical perspectives ranging

from Aristotelian principles to Afrocentric conceptions have made of
oratory by those of African descent in the United States. Of course, this
approach also ignores what normally would be regarded as interpersonal
communication. I am aware, too, how ultimately indefensible that de-
cision is in the long run given that even one-on-one verbal interaction
designed to elicit cooperation is surely rhetoric as well. However, some
of the collections I mention, such as Language, Communication, and
Rhetoric in Black America (A. Smith, 1972), do include such work that
extends beyond the scope of this project. In addition, I recommend Tho-
mas Kochman’s Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out (1972) and Michael Hecht’s
African American Communication (1993).
Serious analysis of African American oratory dates back to the nine-
teenth century. In the 1850s and 1860s, speeches by the likes of Frederick
Douglass and Charles Langston were published and commented on in
publications such as the Liberator and the Anglo American Magazine.
By 1890, anthologies such as E. M. Brawley’s The Negro Baptist Pulpit
were being produced. However, the first standard reference work on
African American rhetoric, Negro Orators and Their Orations, was
compiled by Carter G. Woodson in 1925. Woodson reveals himself to
be of a classical bent methodologically. He liberally invokes such authori-
ties as Demosthenes, Quintillian, and Cicero. He employs Aristotelian
classifications, categorizing speeches as judicial, deliberative, or epi-
deictic. Nonetheless, Woodson does move beyond the classical by pos-

iting Christian pulpit oratory as a fourth major category. Of course,
Black orators did not get much practice with speeches of the judicial type,
or the deliberative when deliberative is narrowly defined as being be-
fore legislative bodies. But by Woodson’s reckoning, Blacks excelled at
the epideictic, or the occasional speech, and in the pulpit.
By use of chapter headings, Woodson traces a movement from “The
First Protest” to “Progressive Oratory,” with stops along the way that
signal “More Forceful Attacks,” “Further Efforts for a Hearing,” “The
Oratory of the Crisis,” “The Oratory of Defiance,” “Deliberative Ora-
tory—Speeches of Negro Congressmen,” “Speeches of Negro Con-
gressman Outside of Congress,” “Oratory in the Solution of the Race
Problem,” “The Panegyric,” “Optimistic Oratory,” and “Occasional
Oratory.” He cites as first examples of public protest against enslave-
ment two speeches: one titled “Negro Slavery” by “Othello,” which was
subsequently printed in 1787, and a second titled “Slavery,” which was
signed “By a Free Negro” and printed in 1788. For more forceful ap-
Richardson, Elaine B., and Ronald L Jackson. African American Rhetoric(s) : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Southern Illinois
Introduction 3
peals, he offers such examples as Peter Williams’s 1808 “Oration on the

Abolition of the Slave Trade” and James Forten’s 1813 “A Late Bill
Before the State of Pennsylvania,” in which Forten argued against a
proposed bill to bar free people of color from entering the state. The
chapter “Further Efforts” includes James McCune Smith’s 1838 “The
Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the French and British Colo-
nies,” which was celebratory of the political event and designed to spur
hope and further the cause of abolition in the United States. As aboli-
tionist activity gathered force, Charles Lenox Remond and then
Frederick Douglass became the most famous Black orators, and a dozen
or so speeches by the two between 1841 and 1863 are Woodson’s main
examples of those who spoke to the “crisis” and to the issue of “defi-
ance.” Speeches by congressmen during the Reconstruction era include,
in session, John Willis Menard’s 1868 “The Negro’s First Speech in
Congress, Made by John Willis Menard in Defense of His Election to
Congress when His Seat Was Contested and Won by His Political Op-
ponent” and, out of session, James Mercer Langston’s 1874 “Equality
before the Law.” Douglass’s 1879 “The Negro Exodus from the Gulf
States” is noted as an example of “solution” rhetoric; Bishop Reverdy
Ransom’s 1905 centennial oration in appreciation of William Lloyd
Garrison is included among examples of the panegyric. Optimistic ora-
tory is most closely associated with Booker T. Washington. C. V. Ro-
man at various times delivered “A Knowledge of History Conducive to
Racial Solidarity,” which is presented as an excellent example of the

occasional address. Progressive oratory, to Woodson, is symbolized by
the likes of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, William Monroe Trotter, James Weldon
Johnson, Mordecai Johnson, Archibald Grimké, Francis Grimké, and
William Pickens, who delivered at several venues the notable address
“The Kind of Democracy the Negro Race Expects.”
Woodson was a historian by training; thus, he attempts little in the
way of technical or structural analysis of the speeches themselves. His
emphasis is on documenting and cataloging, a tendency that is again
evident in The Mind of the Negro (1926), which includes more than 250
letters, most of which had been published in the Journal of Negro His-
tory, of which Woodson was editor. The letters, in Woodson’s view, help
to round out a conception of the Black mindset. But he views the letters
as shapers of perspective, not merely as reflective. Authors include sev-
eral who were known for their oratory as well, such as Richard Allen,
Absalom Jones, Douglass, Remond, Henry Highland Garnet, and Wil-
liam Wells Brown.
4 Keith Gilyard
Religious oratory, as Woodson affirms, has been central to the Afri-

can American rhetorical tradition from the outset and was the primary
channel by which millions of Blacks came to comprehend and speculate
about the social world of which they were part. Richard Allen, Absalom
Jones, Henry Highland Garnet, and Francis Grimké, for example, were
all preachers. Therefore, the study of Black pulpit oratory as well as
scholarly treatment of the Black church in general are necessary com-
ponents of research in African American public discourse. As early as
1890, anthologies like E. M. Brawley’s The Negro Baptist Pulpit were
published, and W. E. B. Du Bois wrote about Black religious practices in
The Negro Church (1903) and The Souls of Black Folk (1903/1989).
James Weldon Johnson’s 1927 God’s Trombones is based on the “stereo-
typed sermon” he identified that moves formulaically from creation to
judgment day. However, the first thorough treatment of Black preaching
is William Pipes’s Say Amen, Brother! Old-Time Negro Preaching: A Study
in American Frustration (1951/1992). In this work, based on seven ser-
mons recorded in Macon County, Georgia, Pipes classifies such preach-
ing according to the following scheme derived from classical rhetoric:
Invention
A. Purposes
To persuade the sinner to “take up the new life” according to the
Bible, the real world of God.
To impress the audience, so that there will be an outburst (escape)
of emotion in shouting and frenzy.

To give religious instruction, according to the Bible.
B. Subject Matter
The Bible is the source of all ideas, information, and truths: God
is good; “the more we suffer in this world, the greater will be
our reward after death”; morality, social obligations, and reli-
gious fidelity are to be emphasized; there are evidences of fear
and superstition.
C. Modes of Persuasion
Personal Appeal: the minister is uneducated but is “called” by God;
his word is the word of God; the preacher is usually an impres-
sive person, has a dramatic bearing and a melodious voice.
Emotional Appeal: by means of rhythm, sensationalism, rhetorical
figures, imagery, suggestion, etc., the minister puts the audience
into a mood to accept his ideas; this is the greatest appeal.
Introduction 5
Logical Argument: not as important as emotional appeal; the best

argument is that “it’s true because the Bible said so.”
Disposition
There is no logical organization because there is little preparation.
The emotions determine everything.
Style
Familiar, concrete, narrative, ungrammatical language; Biblical;
humor; deals with things rather than with ideas.
Delivery
Awkward, spectacular, dramatic, bombastic; musical voice; rhyth-
mical and emotional; enthusiastic; sincere. (p. 72)
Pipes’s work remains significant for the rigor with which he treats
Black sermons and for his insights about the continuing importance of
old-time preachers to the African American struggle for equality. How-
ever, he bases much of his analysis of Black religious practices on an
acceptance of stereotypes about “primitive” Africans who, restricted to
the “jungles of Africa,” lacked opportunities to develop sophistication.
Given his perspective, Pipes sees early Black religion as primarily an
escapist adaptation to servitude. He ignores its rebellious, in some cases
multilayered, meanings. Other scholars avoid this mistake, most nota-
bly Henry H. Mitchell, whose Black Preaching (1970) now arguably
stands as the best book on Black religious oratory.
General historical treatments of Black oratory include Lowell Mose-

berry’s An Historical Study of Negro Oratory in the United States to
1915 (1955) and Marcus Boulware’s The Oratory of Negro Leaders:
1900–1968 (1969). Moseberry, trained in a department of speech, brings
a broader array of rhetorical methods to his task than does Woodson.
Like Woodson, he regards his primary objective to be “a historical re-
port on the platform activities of the Negro” (p. iv). However, differing
in method, he seeks to “discover areas in the eloquence of the Negro that
seemed to deviate from standard oratorical practice” (p. iv). After paint-
ing the familiar social, political, and economic backdrop against which
African American oratory up until the death of Booker T. Washington
took place, he turns his attention to what he perceives to be a Black
expressive and signifying difference. He argues that while Black orators
used the same degree of induction, deduction, and causal reasoning
employed by White rhetors of similar training and educational levels,
they made a distinct departure from Anglo-Saxon patterns of oratory
6 Keith Gilyard
in terms of pathetic proof and style (p. 147). Black orators relied on keen
invective, humor, and distinct—what Moseberry was willing to call
African—brands of rhythmic phrasing. These observations are similar
to those made by Pipes about Black sermons—evidence that sacred and
secular African American rhetorical practices are interpenetrating. Ac-
cording to Moseberry, the most striking display of Black form is what
we may call a jubilee rhetoric. As he explains:
A stylistic device of the Negro orators that, perhaps, was con-
trived as much for its appeal to the emotions as for its rhetorical
value was an antithetical refrain that strongly resembles the
“jubilee” tones of the Negro spirituals. This “jubilee” consists
of a series of ideas containing a major undertone of tragedy,
alternating with a contrasting jubilant response. The pathetic
appeal of the “jubilee” builds in emotional intensity until it
explodes climactically in an exultant “shout” of challenge.
(1955, p. 150)
As Moseberry further indicates, Douglass’s 1852 “Fifth of July Oration”

is a clear example, one in which the optimistic notes precede the tragic:
Jubilee
The sunlight that brought life and healing to you
Tragic Undertone
Has brought stripes and death to me.

Jubilee
The Fourth of July is yours,
Tragic Undertone
Not mine.
Jubilee
You may rejoice
Tragic Undertone
I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illu-
mined temple of liberty and call upon him to join you in joy-
ous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.
(p. 151–152)
The same technique, in reverse pattern, is demonstrated by Francis
Grimké:
Introduction 7
Tragic Undertone
The way is certainly very dark. There are many things to
discourage us.
Jubilee
But there is a brighter side to the picture, and it is of this side
that I desire especially to speak.
Tragic Undertone
Before doing so, however, it may be well for us to notice in
passing some of the things which seem to indicate the ap-
proach of a still deeper darkness . . . and first, lawlessness is
increasing in the South.
Jubilee
After thirty-three years of freedom.
Tragic Undertone
Our civil and political rights are still denied us. The Four-
teenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution are still
a dead letter. The spirit of opposition, of oppression, of in-
justice is not diminishing but increasing. (Moseberry, 1955,
p. 152)
Boulware’s study is the first major historical treatment of African

American rhetoric devoted exclusively to texts of the twentieth century.
He takes as his major tasks a chronicling of Black oratorical output and

the creation of classification schemes. For Boulware, the mission of the
Black orator invariably revolved around six goals: (1) to protest griev-
ances, (2) to state complaints, (3) to demand rights, (4) to advocate ra-
cial cooperation, (5) to mold racial consciousness, and (6) to stimulate
racial pride. He sets the pursuit of this mission in the twentieth century
against the backdrop of, in his view, the century’s six great American
presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson—
and their presidencies as popularly labeled, that is, the Rooseveltian Era,
1901–1909; the New Freedom Period, 1913–1921; the New Deal, 1933–
1945; the Fair Deal, 1945–1953; the New Frontier, 1961–1965;1 and the
Great Society, 1965–1969. Guided by his typologies, Boulware spins a
history of African American oratory that begins in 1900, when Booker
T. Washington was the dominant African American figure and orator
in the country, up until the summer of 1968. He traces or alludes to such
8 Keith Gilyard
public careers as those of Washington, Mary Church Terrell, W. E. B.

Du Bois, Mordecai Johnson, Marcus Garvey, Sadie Mossell Alexander,
James Weldon Johnson, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Langston Hughes,
Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Paul Robeson, Mary McLeod Bethune, A.
Philip Randolph, Zora Neale Hurston, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Ben-
jamin Mays, Gardner Taylor, Walter White, Roy Wilkins, Father Divine,
Daddy Grace, Roy Wilkins, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, and Martin
Luther King Jr.
By the time Boulware’s study appeared, African American political
and cultural expressions had reached a high point in terms of their im-
pact on the national consciousness. Major civil rights protests had been
featured prominently for more than a decade on television, as were, more
recently, the inner-city rebellions and Black Power pronouncements. It
was also evident that civil progress, ongoing demands, and violent civil
unrest by African Americans were driven largely by passions and rhetoric
little known or understood by the nation at large. Of course, some folks
never cared to know or understand, but public and academic gatherings
relative to African American issues, including artistic and overall com-
munication issues, attracted significant audiences. From this context
stemmed a large wave of books on the Black experience. Among that
wave were several major works of rhetorical scholarship such as Haig
Bosmajian and Hamida Bosmajian’s The Rhetoric of the Civil Rights
Movement (1969), Robert Scott and Wayne Brockriede’s The Rhetoric
of Black Power (1969), Arthur Smith’s Rhetoric of Black Revolution

(1969), and James Golden and Richard Rieke’s The Rhetoric of Black
Americans (1971).
The Bosmajians’ work is intended for use as a textbook; they refrain
from offering rhetorical analyses of the individual pieces in the collec-
tion because they planned to leave those tasks to prospective students.
However, they impressively frame their volume with rhetorical and his-
torical commentary. In particular, they describe how African Americans
and their allies mounted a massive persuasion campaign aimed at secur-
ing equality and justice on the heels of the Supreme Court desegrega-
tion decision and the Montgomery bus boycott. Actions themselves were
decidedly rhetorical in that campaign; the sit-ins, freedom rides, picket-
ing, marches, wade-ins, read-ins, and jail-ins were perhaps the more
effective forms of persuasion. Yet the speeches, songs, and pamphlets
were indispensable in terms of, as the Bosmajians term it, “a rhetorical
or suasory function” (1969, p. 5). The authors also indicate a continual
situation with which the activists were confronted:
Introduction 9
The civil-rights leaders faced a formidable rhetorical prob-

lem; several questions about their persuasion had to be an-
swered: To whom was their persuasion to be directed? Seg-
regationists? Moderate whites? Negroes? What form should
the protest take? What effect would the persuasion have on
the audience? For example, on one hand the Montgomery bus
boycott was directed against city authorities and the bus
company with their segregation policies; yet, on the other
hand, the boycott, with the accompanying mass meetings,
speeches, songs, and demonstrations, had a persuasive effect
upon the thousands of Negroes who had to become united
participants in the boycott; unless the Negroes of Montgom-
ery could be persuaded to stop riding the buses, the boycott
was doomed to failure. Further, because the nation and the
entire world had their attention focused on Montgomery and
the actions of the civil-rights leaders, this larger audience also
had to be considered, for they too were watching and being
persuaded. (p. 5)
The Bosmajians highlight the words of Martin Luther King Jr., James
Farmer, and Roy Wilkins as examples of the mainstream, integrationist
civil rights campaign. But because the editors’ view of the Civil Rights
Movement allows for a certain indeterminacy, they show how those
speakers were in dialogue with competing and challenging rhetorics, that
of conservative Alabama clergy on the one hand and Black power ad-
vocates on the other. Thus King’s April 16, 1963, “Letter from Birming-
ham Jail” is reprinted as is the April 12, 1963, “Public Statement by Eight
Alabama Clergymen.” Also included are the transcript of the debate
between Farmer and Malcolm X that took place at Cornell University
on March 7, 1962; Wilkins’s July 5, 1966, “Keynote Address to the
NAACP Annual Convention,” in which he condemned the idea of Black
power; and Floyd McKissick’s July 1967 “Speech at the National Con-
ference on Black Power,” in which he advocated the concept.
Two selections by Stokely Carmichael are presented: a pamphlet,
Power and Racism, which was distributed by the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, and his January 16, 1967, “Speech at Mor-
gan State College.” Carmichael is the person most associated perhaps
with both the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and
the slogan “Black Power.” Newsweek reported in its May 15, 1967, issue
that he was speaking at various campuses and “soaking whites $1,000
10 Keith Gilyard
for a rather tame exposition of black power, charging Negro colleges

$500 for the gloves-off treatment” (“Which Way for the Negro?” 1967,
p. 28). The pamphlet is intended to illustrate the former approach; the
speech at Morgan State College is meant to indicate the latter.
Scott and Brockriede also present civil rights and Black power dis-
courses as integrally connected. Just as the statements of Black power
advocates constitute much of the Bosmajians’s “civil rights” book, the
arguments of King, and even Hubert Humphrey, and accompanying criti-
cal perspectives by the editors constitute a sizable portion of the “Black
power” book. In particular, the editors/authors detail Humphrey’s tech-
nique as he denounced Black power at the NAACP Annual Convention
in 1966 one day after Roy Wilkins had done so. But they feel that while
Humphrey managed to establish great ethos with the 1,500 delegates,
mainly by parroting Wilkins’s address, in doing so he missed an oppor-
tunity to complicate and enrich a discussion of Black power. It is an
opportunity that King himself never missed. Although he never embraced
the slogan, he was never simplistically antagonistic toward it and always
considered carefully its rhetorical effects and the premises behind it. This
is illustrated by the selection “Martin Luther King, Jr. Writes about the
Birth of the Black Power Slogan,” which is a reprint of the second chapter
of his Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1968). The
complexity of King’s thinking and the influence of Black power propo-
nents upon him is also evident in his last speech to the Southern Chris-
tian Leadership Conference (SCLC) on August 16, 1967, “The Presi-

dent’s Address to the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference.”
Contrasting speeches by Carmichael are included in the text; in this
case they represent a talk given before an African American audience in
Detroit and one given before a White audience in Whitewater, Wiscon-
sin. Background essays on Black power are provided by James Comer
and Charles V. Hamilton.
Smith’s book, along with two subsequent works, The Voice of Black
Rhetoric (1971), edited with Stephen Robb, and Language, Communi-
cation, and Rhetoric in Black America (1972), represent some of the
most in-depth work in the area of African American rhetoric. Smith, now
known as Molefi Asante, developed a specialty in agitational rhetoric
as part of his doctoral studies at UCLA. He was well equipped and po-
sitioned, as a theorist and a witness, to assess the agitational Black rheto-
ric of the 1960s. He sees Black nationalist and Black power rhetorics to
be essentially aggressive (toward Whites) and unifying (toward African
Introduction 11
Americans). To move the Black masses, the Black rhetor must, as

Boulware suggests, posit grievances. Of course, given America’s treat-
ment of Black folks, that is the easiest part of the job. The harder task
is to fulfill the requirement that the rhetoric be consistent with or over-
come an audience’s mythology. King, for example, could always count
on a large audience, particularly in the South, to hear an appeal based
on Christian love. Malcolm X, on the other hand, had to overcome
Christian beliefs to attract disciples to the Nation of Islam.
Smith employs several classification schemes regarding strategies,
themes, and audiences to enhance his descriptions. Particularly useful
is the four-part strategic structure that appears as part of all long-term
agitation campaigns: (1) vilification, (2) objectification, (3) mythication,
and (4) legitimation. Vilification is to create an antihero by attacking the
ideas, actions, and being of a conspicuous member of the opposition,
mainly by charging that the person is a key agent of domination. Ob-
jectification is to blame a specific but ill-defined group, such as the White
power structure or, simply, Whitey for the audience’s suffering. This gives
the rhetor more flexibility to denounce, tap into his or her audience’s
mythology, and arouse them. Mythication is the suggestion that “supra-
rational” forces support the audience’s struggle; this often means using
religious symbolism to convey a sense that triumph has been ordained.
This is exemplified by King speaking of the “coming of the Lord”;
Malcolm asserting that the government, that which oppresses, is against
God; or numerous speakers’ likening the Black struggle to the story of

Exodus. Legitimation is the attempt to justify one’s own actions or those
of fellow activists, usually by reversing blame and citing the oppressor’s
“original sin.” It is generally the only defensive strategy employed by
revolutionists, who characteristically remain on the offensive.
Smith also identifies a four-part thematic structure that is basic to
Black secular, agitational rhetors: (1) all Blacks face a common enemy,
(2) there is a conspiracy to violate Black manhood, (3) there is perva-
sive American hypocrisy, and (4) Black unity is requisite for Black lib-
eration. With respect to the nature of the Black audience, Smith (1969,
p. 67) proposes the following table:
AUDIENCE COMPOSITION
Characteristics Type of Audience
Age
Adults Religious
Youth Secular
12 Keith Gilyard
Sex
Female Religious
Male Secular
Education
Less Religious
More Secular
Adult audiences, then, are seen to favor and be more apt to respond to
religious oratory than would Black youth. Females are seen as more
religious than males, and those less formally educated are seen as more
religious than those with more education. Broad tendencies, of course,
can always be complicated. There have always been old, secular, infor-
mally educated radicals around in the ’hood, some of them women.
Smith, however, feels that the table is an accurate indicator of where
audible support is likely to emanate from during a speech.
In The Voice of Black Rhetoric, Smith and Robb describe the general
characteristics of African American rhetoric considered historically.
Twenty speakers are offered as exemplary, ranging from David Walker,
who keynoted a meeting of the First General Colored Association in
Boston in 1828, to H. Rap Brown, who spoke on colonialism and revo-
lution in Detroit in 1967. An interesting methodological development
involved the editors’ discussion of Nommo, the African belief in the
pervasive, mystical, transformative, even life-giving power of the Word.
As they articulate:
It is a cardinal mistake of our society to operate on the basis

that language functions of whites are everywhere reproduc-
ible in black societies in terms of influences and ends. With
an African heritage steeped in oral traditions and the accep-
tance of transforming vocal communication, the Afro-Ameri-
can developed, consciously or subconsciously, a consummate
skill in using language to produce his own alternate commu-
nication patterns to those employed by whites in the Ameri-
can situation. Communication between different ethnic and
linguistic groups was difficult, but the almost universal Af-
rican regard for the power of the spoken word contributed
to the development of alternate communication patterns in
the work songs, Black English, sermons, and Spirituals, with
their dual meanings, one for the body and one for the soul.
It is precisely the power of the word in today’s black society
that authentically speaks of an African past. Thus, to omit
Introduction 13
black rhetoric as manifest in speeches and songs from any

investigation of black history is to ignore the essential ingre-
dient in the making of black drama. (1972, p. 2)
The concern with African influences would become a more promi-

nent component of Smith’s evolving rhetorical theory. Among the twenty-
nine essays in Language, Communication, and Rhetoric in Black Amer-
ica, which were on by that time predictable topics or subjects, Smith
includes six of his own, including “Markings of an African Concept of
Rhetoric.” As the title suggests, he begins to rely more heavily on
Afrocentric concepts of rhetoric, posing Nommo, for example, as op-
posite Western persuasive technique:
The public discourse convinces not through attention to logi-

cal substance but through the power to fascinate. Yet this
does not preclude the materials of composition or the ar-
rangement and structure of those materials; it simply ex-
presses a belief that when images are arranged according to
their power and chosen because of their power, the speaker’s
ability to convince is greater than if he attempted to employ
syllogisms. The syllogism is a Western concept; Nommo is
an African concept. . . . Perhaps that is drawing the choices
too clearly, inasmuch as few neo-Aristotelians would argue
for a dichotomy of emotion and logic. However, it is neces-
sary to state the polar positions to illustrate the emphasis of

the traditional African speaker. (1972, pp. 371–372)
Of course, the African concept of rhetoric is to be used to explicate ora-

tory in the United States as well. In fact, Smith’s essay addresses in a sense
the peculiar qualities of African American oratory noted by the likes of
Moseberry. Elaboration of Smith’s ideas can be found in subsequent
works, most notably the numerous passages on rhetoric in The Afro-
centric Idea (Asante, 1998).
Golden and Rieke’s anthology is fairly duplicative, including texts by
speakers such as Walker, Remond, Douglass, Garvey, King, and Malcolm
X. The distinguishing and lasting quality of the collection is the lengthy
introduction, which is an insightful discussion of various political goals
and rhetorical issues, and which culminates in figure 1. The figure is self-
explanatory except for the arrow pointing from separation to assimila-
tion. However, as Golden and Rieke explain, they are suggesting that
“some of the separatist rhetoric includes the possibility that once black
14 Keith Gilyard
men have gotten together and established some political, economic and
cultural identity and power, they might be able to join other ethnic groups
forming a kind of assimilated United States society” (1971, p. 44).
Fig. 1. Rhetorical Strategies of Black Americans (Golden & Rieke, 1971, p. 40)
Reprinted by permission of R. D. Rieke.
An additional issue addressed by Golden and Rieke is the very worth

of large-scale rhetorical intervention. Are the problems faced by the
nation with respect to racialized inequality open to amelioration through

what we generally regard as persuasive means? Or, given some of the
deep-rootedness of racism, are coercive means, such as the physical force
that ended enslavement or influenced legislation in the 1960s, more
appropriate? These questions point to a possible “crisis of faith,” par-
ticularly for Black rhetors and scholars, and are queries that must be
confronted seriously.
Geneva Smitherman’s widely acclaimed book, Talkin and Testifyin:
The Language of Black America (1977/1986) also was conceived in the
late 1960s. Although primarily considered a linguist, Smitherman is
perhaps most responsible for popularizing the “Black Modes of Dis-
course,” vernacular conceptions that are invaluable with respect to rhe-
torical analysis. The modes are (1) call-response, a series of spontane-
ous interactions between speaker and listener; (2) signification, the art
of humorous put downs, usually through verbal indirection; (3) tonal
semantics, the conveying of meanings in Black discourse through spe-
cifically ethnic kinds of voice rhythms and vocal inflections; and (4)
Introduction 15
narrative sequencing, the habitual use of stories to explain and/or per-

suade. Smitherman (1995) alternately conceptualizes an African Ameri-
can Verbal Tradition (AAVT) that encompasses (1) signification, (2)
personalization, (3) tonal semantics, and (4) sermonic tone. The latter
framework enables her to make sense of Black discourse that is not gen-
erally regarded as AAVE. She theorizes, for example, that the use of
AAVT made Clarence Thomas a more sympathetic figure than Anita Hill
in the African American community. While the syntax they both used
during the confirmation hearings was unquestionably standard, Thomas
made the matter personal and emotional, signifying along the way. Hill,
on the other hand, seemed without passion or anger, emotions she had
a right to feel and if displayed would have cast her inside AAVT and
probably garnered her more support, particularly among African Ameri-
can women. Smitherman, therefore, seemingly in response to Golden and
Rieke, points clearly to the value of rhetorical study as a mode of activ-
ist intervention. Because Hill did not resolve her rhetorical dilemma in
the most socially productive way, she missed, according to Smitherman,
an important moment to deliver more incisive and powerful commen-
tary on sexual harassment, which is certainly a Black as well as larger
issue. Smitherman concludes that Black women seeking to develop ef-
fective voices as part of the freedom struggle need a “head and heart
rhetoric” to provide leadership for African Americans and the nation
(2000, p. 265).
Significant post-1970s treatments of African American rhetoric in-

clude David Howard-Pitney’s The Afro-American Jeremiad: Appeals for
Justice in America (1990); Keith Miller’s Voice of Deliverance: The
Language of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Its Sources (1992); Shirley
Wilson Logan’s With Pen and Voice: A Critical Anthology of Nineteenth-
Century African-American Women (1995) and “We Are Coming”: The
Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-Century Black Women (1999);
Bradford Stull’s Amid the Fall, Dreaming of Eden: Du Bois, King,
Malcolm X, and Emancipatory Composition (1999); and Jacqueline
Jones Royster’s Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change among
African American Women (2000).
Howard-Pitney identifies the African American jeremiad to be an
appropriation of the American jeremiad, which itself consists of state-
ments of or references to the popular doctrine of America’s divine prom-
ise, chastisement because of present moral decline, and prophecy that
the nation will soon overcome its faults and emerge transcendent. The
African American version posits Blacks as a chosen people within the
16 Keith Gilyard
parameters of the nation’s archetypal civil myth. Howard-Pitney de-

scribes and discusses thoroughly the successes and failures of six lead-
ers—Douglass, Washington, Wells, Du Bois, Bethune, and King—who
utilized the form extensively. King and Du Bois, along with Malcolm X,
are the subjects of Stull’s study; Stull suggests that their composing pro-
cesses, broadly and deeply construed, could serve as a model for liberatory
composition classrooms. And King is obviously the sole subject of Miller’s
book, which locates King firmly within the tradition of Black religious
oratory while exploring his borrowings from the writings of Whites.
Logan’s first book, an important anthology that represents the fre-
quently neglected tradition of Black woman rhetors, mainly features
speeches by seven women—Maria Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Frances
Ellen Watkins Harper, Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, Ida B. Wells, Fannie
Barrier Williams, and Victoria Earle Matthews. Her second is an in-depth
study in which most of these women are seen in the context of a par-
ticular trope—Maria Stewart in connection with the idea of “Ethiopa
Rising,” for example, or Ida B. Wells in relation to the “Presence of
Lynching.” Directly connected to Logan’s project is Royster’s book,
which focuses on the essays of elite nineteenth-century African Ameri-
can women such as Stewart, Cooper, and Wells. Royster also posits an
Afrafeminist ideology and argues its relevance for rhetorical studies.
Despite the recent impressive work in the field, which includes, by the
way, Philip Foner and Robert James Branham’s compilation of older
speeches, Lift Every Voice: African American Oratory, 1787–1900

(1998), many of the earlier volumes have gone out of print. In 1995,
citing the lack of a sufficiently comprehensive text as well as a decline
in African American rhetoric course offerings, Lyndrey Niles edited
African American Rhetoric: A Reader. Approximately half the volume
consists of reprinted material (mentioned above) by Asante, Golden, and
Rieke. The most interesting additions for these purposes are Melbourne
Cummings and Jack L. Daniel’s “A Comprehensive Assessment of Schol-
arly Writings in Black Rhetoric” and Ronald Jackson’s “Toward an
Afrocentric Methodology for the Critical Assessment of Rhetoric.” These
scholars, affirming work by the likes of Asante and Smitherman, con-
sider traditional academic models and limited notions such as “persua-
sion” to be too static to account for the richness, dynamism, and cul-
tural content relative to speaker-audience interactions in African-derived
contexts. As Cummings and Daniel assert, “Black rhetoric, with its con-
centration on Nommo, rhythmical patterns, audience assertiveness, and
so on, cannot be dealt with by simply applying the conventional Euro-
Introduction 17
American tools of rhetorical criticism” (p. 100). In line with this think-
ing, Jackson proffers an Afrocentric model in which Nommo is graphi-
cally posited as the center around which eight elements—rhythm,
soundin’, stylin’, improvisation, storytelling, lyrical code, image mak-
ing, and call and response—revolve (see fig. 2; R. Jackson, 1995, p. 154).
As Jackson elaborates:
Rhythm is similar to polyrhythm in that it suggests that the
energy of the rhetor must be one with the energy of the au-
dience. . . . The rhythm must coincide with the mystical and
magical power of the word, so that the speaker, the word, and
audience are all on one accord. . . . Soundin’ is the idea of
wolfin’ or signifyin’ within the African American tradition.
. . . Stylin’ is the notion that a speaker has combined rhythm,
excitement, and enthusiasm which propel a message and the
audience. . . . Improvisation is a stylistic device which is a
verbal interplay, and strategic catharsis often resulting from
the hostility and frustration of a white-dominated society. It
is spontaneity. . . . Storytelling . . . is often used by a rhetor
to arouse epic memory. . . . Lyrical Code is the preservation
of the word through a highly codified system of lexicality. It
is the very dynamic lyrical quality which provides youth to
the community usage of standard and Black English. It is
often used by speakers to appear communalistic, common-
place, and not so convoluted in diction. . . . Image making is

the element which considers legends, myths, and heroes in a
given culture. . . . Call and response is the final element which
offers a culmination of all these elements into an interactive
discourse atypical of European communities. It is the idea
that one should affirm by clapping, saying “amen,” or re-
sponding in some way. (p. 154)
At this point, I hope to have amply demonstrated the richness of

African American rhetoric as a field of inquiry while indicating, if only
implicitly, what future work needs to be done. Numerous studies are
required that will allow us to understand the import of current and emerg-
ing Black discourses. This is not to project an insular sense but to suggest
that an understanding of continued Black articulations for a better soci-
ety form a central question to be confronted by all if we are to bring a
better society into existence. Nor do I mean to imply, by emphasizing
contemporary subject matter, that we halt historical investigations. In
18 Keith Gilyard
sound
thm in'
rhy
sty
se
lin
on
'
resp
call and
improvisation
NOMMO
g
akin
em
ag
st
m
or
i yt
ell
ing
lyrical code
Fig. 2. Representation of Nommo
fact, it is crucial that we uncover and remain aware of some of the ques-
tions our forerunners posed because some of them remain unanswered.
Will optimists, which all rhetoricians are at heart, remain prone, as both
Woodson and Boulware suggest, to losing whatever hold they have on
the public because of the inability to deliver tangible results? Will Black
leadership that emerges from the working classes become more impor-
tant, as Pipes envisions it might, than that which stems from the acad-
emy? There is yet much to witness.
Note
1. Although Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, I have used the dates of his
elected term as the period of the New Frontier.

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What are some of the major categories of African American oratory discussed?

What are some of the major categories of African American oratory discussed?

What are some of the elements of African American rhetoric according to Ronald L. Jackson?

What are some of the elements of African American rhetoric according to Ronald L. Jackson?

Introduction: Aspects of African

American Rhetoric as a Field

TO ENCAPSULATE ALL THE VARIOUS EFFORTS IN THE SCHOLARLY

fore, is a meaningful historical sketch of a particular body of rhetorical

working taxonomically and employing rhetorical perspectives ranging

deictic. Nonetheless, Woodson does move beyond the classical by pos-

peals, he offers such examples as Peter Williams’s 1808 “Oration on the

Racial Solidarity,” which is presented as an excellent example of the

Religious oratory, as Woodson affirms, has been central to the Afri-

of emotion in shouting and frenzy.

Logical Argument: not as important as emotional appeal; the best

General historical treatments of Black oratory include Lowell Mose-

As Moseberry further indicates, Douglass’s 1852 “Fifth of July Oration”

Has brought stripes and death to me.

Boulware’s study is the first major historical treatment of African

He takes as his major tasks a chronicling of Black oratorical output and

public careers as those of Washington, Mary Church Terrell, W. E. B.

of Black Power (1969), Arthur Smith’s Rhetoric of Black Revolution

The civil-rights leaders faced a formidable rhetorical prob-

for a rather tame exposition of black power, charging Negro colleges

tian Leadership Conference (SCLC) on August 16, 1967, “The Presi-

Americans). To move the Black masses, the Black rhetor must, as

God; or numerous speakers’ likening the Black struggle to the story of

It is a cardinal mistake of our society to operate on the basis

black rhetoric as manifest in speeches and songs from any

The concern with African influences would become a more promi-

The public discourse convinces not through attention to logi-

sary to state the polar positions to illustrate the emphasis of

Of course, the African concept of rhetoric is to be used to explicate ora-

An additional issue addressed by Golden and Rieke is the very worth

nation with respect to racialized inequality open to amelioration through

narrative sequencing, the habitual use of stories to explain and/or per-

Significant post-1970s treatments of African American rhetoric in-

parameters of the nation’s archetypal civil myth. Howard-Pitney de-

speeches, Lift Every Voice: African American Oratory, 1787–1900

place, and not so convoluted in diction. . . . Image making is

At this point, I hope to have amply demonstrated the richness of

Fig. 2. Representation of Nommo

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