Rhetoricians have long praised argumentation as a productive alternative to violence, and while I agree that it can be such an alternative, my dissertation aims to complicate our understanding of both violence and coercion by illumination how the strictures of civility limit the rhetoric of dissent. This study makes two main arguments, 1), that the dominant narrative of the civil rights and Black Power movements has been insufficiently challenged by rhetoricians, and 2), that this lack can be explained in part by these scholars’ preference for civility and decorum over coercion in persuasion. I argue that both the civil rights and Black Power movements share similarities both tactically and philosophically. Looking beyond assessing these movements in terms of their alleged levels of civility allows us more fully to account for the complexity of their rhetorical situations. I use black women’s autobiographies as my focus because they allow a glimpse into the quotidian nature of the civil rights and Black Power movement’s struggles, one that lies on the margin of the media spotlight on movement leadership. In addition, these autobiographies unveil the multiple audiences activist rhetors faced in ways that major speeches, penned and delivered by men, cannot. / text

This study offers a rhetorical analysis of George Jackson’s Soledad Brother, informed by class critical and critical race theory. Recent rhetorical studies scholarship has taken up the problem of prisons, mass incarceration, and resultant issues of race, yet without paying attention to the nexus of black radicalism and criticisms of capital. This study views George Lester Jackson as a rhetorician in his own right and argues that his combination of critical race and class critical perspectives is an important move forward in the analysis of mass incarceration. Jackson is able to combine these ideas in a plain-writing style where he employs intimacy, distance, and the strategy of telling it like it is. He does this in epistolary form, calling forth a long tradition of persuasive public letter writing. At this study’s end, ideas of circulation re engaged to show the lines of influence Jackson has and may continue to have. Through rhetorical analysis of Soledad Brother, this study demonstrates the utility of uniting class critical criticism and critical race theory for rhetorical studies, and suggests further avenues of research consistent with this approach.

This is a study of the manifestations and permutations of the Black Power era principles and ideologies in New Orleans from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. By highlighting little-known and often neglected groups along with popular organizations, this work illuminates how these groups shaped and rethought the their objectives and tactics in the contested terrain of post-Civil Rights New Orleans. Making extensive use of archival resources, newspaper articles, memoirs, interviews, and secondary literature, “There are Some Bad Brothers and Sisters in New Orleans” focuses on the ways in which disparate organizations, groups, and individuals, wrestling with the highly fluid idea of Black Power, attempted to refashion the political and cultural landscape of the Crescent City. This dissertation contributes a more nuanced analysis of this famous city and continues the recent surge in Black Power Studies that emphasizes local examples of Black Power. This work tells the story of New Orleans; of shootouts and showdowns; liberation theater and war helicopters; schools and southern political rules. The central objective of this study is to provide a more complete and in-depth look at the major themes (Cultural Nationalism, Revolutionary Nationalism, Black Arts, student movements, political power, and independent education) of the Black Power era by calling attention to its distinctive but informative examples nurtured in the incomparable city of New Orleans. This dissertation argues that the roots of Black Power in New Orleans were shattered, disparate, and ad-hoc in nature. As such, its thrust failed to bear the social, cultural, economic, and political fruit hoped for by its advocates. / text

Historically, black women have always played key roles in the struggle for liberation. A critical determinant of black women’s activism was the influence of both race and gender, as these factors were immutably married to their subjectivities. African American women faced the socio-cultural and structural challenge of sexism prevalent in the United States and also in the black community. My study examines the life of Fulani Sunni Ali, her role in black liberation, her role as the Minister of Information for the Provisional Government for the Republic of New Africa, and her communication strategies. In doing so, I evaluate a black female revolutionary nationalist’s discursive negotiation of her identity during the Black Power and Black Nationalist Movement. I also use womanist criticism to analyze interviews with Sunni Ali and archival data in her possession to reveal the complexity and diversity of black women’s roles and activities in a history of black resistance struggle and to locate black female presence and agency in Black Power. The following study more generally analyzes black female revolutionary nationalists’ roles, activities, and discursive identity negotiation during the Black Power Movement. By examining Sunni Ali’s life and the way she struggled against racism and patriarchy to advocate for Black Power and Black Nationalism, I demonstrate how her activism was a continuation of a tradition of black women’s resistance, and I extrapolate her forms of black women’s activism extant in the movement.

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