This is an extraordinarily well-balanced collection of essays focused on varied expressions of African American Rhetoric; it also is a critical antidote to a preoccupation with Western Rhetoric as the arbiter of what counts for effective rhetoric. Rather than impose Western terminology on African and African American rhetoric, the essays in this volume seek to illumine rhetoric from within its own cultural expression, thereby creating an understanding grounded in the culture's values. The consequence is a richly detailed and well-researched set of essays. The contribution of African American rhetoric can no longer be rendered invisible through neglect of its tradition. The essays in this volume neither seek to displace Western Rhetoric, nor function as an uncritical paen to Afrocentricity and Africology. This volume is both timely and essential; timely in advancing a better understanding of the richly textured history that is expressed through African American discourse, and essential as a counterpoint to the hegemonic influence of Greek and Roman rhetoric as the origin of rhetorical theory and practice. Written in the spirit of a critical rhetoric, this collection eschews traditional focus on public address and instead offers a rich array of texts, in musical and other forms, that address publics.

The Routledge Reader of African American Rhetoric is a comprehensive compendium of primary texts that is designed for use by students, teachers, and scholars of rhetoric and for the general public interested in the history of African American communication. The volume and its companion website include dialogues, creative works, essays, folklore, music, interviews, news stories, raps, videos, and speeches that are performed or written by African Americans. Both the book as a whole and the various selections in it speak directly to the artistic, cultural, economic, gendered, social, and political condition of African Americans from the enslavement period in America to the present, as well as to the Black Diaspora.

African American Rhetoric(s): Interdisciplinary Perspectives is an introduction to fundamental concepts and a systematic integration of historical and contemporary lines of inquiry in the study of African American rhetorics. Edited by Elaine B. Richardson and Ronald L. Jackson II, the volume explores culturally and discursively developed forms of knowledge, communicative practices, and persuasive strategies rooted in freedom struggles by people of African ancestry in America. Outlining African American rhetorics found in literature, historical documents, and popular culture, the collection provides scholars, students, and teachers with innovative approaches for discussing the epistemologies and realities that foster the inclusion of rhetorical discourse in African American studies. In addition to analyzing African American rhetoric, the fourteen contributors project visions for pedagogy in the field and address new areas and renewed avenues of research. The result is an exploration of what parameters can be used to begin a more thorough and useful consideration of African Americans in rhetorical space.

On African-American Rhetoric traces the arc of strategic language use by African Americans from rhetorical forms such as slave narratives and the spirituals to Black digital expression and contemporary activism. The governing idea is to illustrate the basic call-response process of African-American culture and to demonstrate how this dynamic has been and continues to be central to the language used by African Americans to make collective cultural and political statements. Ranging across genres and disciplines, including rhetorical theory, poetry, fiction, folklore, speeches, music, film, pedagogy, and memes, Gilyard and Banks consider language developments that have occurred both inside and outside of organizations and institutions. Along with paying attention to recent events, this book incorporates discussion of important forerunners who have carried the rhetorical baton. These include Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Toni Cade Bambara, Molefi Asante, Alice Walker, and Geneva Smitherman. Written for students and professionals alike, this book is powerful and instructive regarding the long African-American quest for freedom and dignity.

Through the lenses of comparative and critical rhetoric, this book theorizes how alternative approaches to communication can transform legal meanings and legal outcomes, infusing them with more inclusive participation, equity and justice. Viewing legal language through a radical lens, the book sets aside longstanding norms that derive from White and Euro-centric approaches in order to re-situate legal methods as products of new rhetorical models that come from diasporic and non-Western cultures. The book urges readers to re-consider how they think about logic and rhetoric and to consider other ways of building knowledge that can heal the law’s current structures that often perpetuate and reinforce systems of privilege and power.

Introduces new scholars to interdisciplinary research by utilizing bibliographical surveys of both primary and secondary works that address the history of rhetoric, from the Classical period to the 21st century.

"The most complete compendium of American oratory now available! This expansive anthology covers a broad range of discourses dealing with civic affairs. The collection reflects the diversity of speakers throughout American history. Not only do history's "winners" appear among the selections, but its important "losers" appear as well. Each of the 100 discourses is preceded by a commentary section. These editor commentaries, most useful for students who lack sufficient historical background to appreciate the context of individual discourses, are organized by first sketching the general context and then outlining the immediate situation. Enough material has been provided for students to enlarge their understanding of history, broaden their perspective of rhetorical theory and improve their own rhetorical skills, including their skills as practitioners of various kinds of Aristotelian criticism." -- Publisher.

Known at various times as Black English, Ebonics, and currently as African American English (AAE), the spoken word of many African Americans is influenced by dialectical and linguistic features. How AAE interacts with standard written English is explored, including the effect on students' ability to write in standard English and how a teacher can help students become effective writers.