Houck, Davis W. and Dixon, David E. (Eds.). Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement: 1954- 1965. Waco, TX, Baylor University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi; 1002. ISBN 978-1-932792-54-6 (pb.). $44.95.
You may not know many of the names among the speakers whose works appear in Davis Houck and David Dixon's Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965. That's because Houck and Dixon have sought out the less celebrated participants in the civil rights movement by searching archives for the catalysts of movement: the "local southerners--both black and white--who made the movement move" (p. 3). In the same vein as Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's Man Cannot Speak for Her (1989), the authors let the rhetoric do the talking. They compile texts to provide evidence for how religion was fundamental to the movement, but they also recover "lost voices and texts" (p. 7) that transcend popular notions of civil rights rhetoric attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks.
The rhetoric of the civil rights movement was at its core a religious message. Houck and Dixon's collection of speeches traces the evolution of that message from 1954 to 1965. The objective of the text is clearly not to provide deep and provocative rhetorical analysis (indeed the authors clearly state that they "make no claim to measuring [the] effects" of the speeches, p. 9), but only that they wish to reveal how the themes were used. The editors selected foundational texts from speakers praised less frequently and publicly but who were significant to the movement. The texts themselves allow the reader to experience the rich rhetorical fabric created when speakers infused their arguments with religious themes.
The editors listened to the sound recordings of Chicagoan Moses Moon who recorded civil rights meetings near the height of the movement in 1963 and 1964. Transcripts of the recordings not only provided details of key speeches at the most rhetorically immediate levels, they also opened the researchers' eyes to the extent to which religious themes permeated civil rights discourse. The editors, inspired by the Moon collection, dug deeper to look for support for their hunch that rhetoric of the civil rights movement was, at its essence, a call for the disenfranchised to meet its destiny set forth by God.
Houck and Dixon concede that decisions regarding the organization of the volume were a challenge. The result, a chronologically organized anthology of complete texts (there are no excerpts), seems to reveal the responses to key civic events that occurred during the time period studied. For example, the volume opens with a speech from Dr. Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, (former Baptist Minister and president of Howard University form 1926-1960) that occurred before the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision. The next speeches in the 1954 section follow the Brown decision. The Murder of Emmett Till, the Civil Rights Act, and the March on Washington are examples of major events that provide a backdrop for the speeches but, true to the objective of the book, the speeches themselves carry their own weight; while certainly stemming from critical incidents, the speeches exhibit a larger rhetorical trajectory that transcends any one event.
The natural flow of events through time present the reader with view of the world as the speakers saw it. Short of hearing the speeches ourselves, experiencing them as they occurred in time is most appropriate. Imposing artificial categorical limitations such as rhetorical genres or historical themes would only retroactively place constraints on speakers which would have had no influence on them at the time. The collection includes speeches from a range of speakers (both black and white) and professions including, among many others, journalists (P. D. East), physicians (T. R. M. Howard), businessmen (Branch Rickey), educators (Horace Mann Bond), and white clergy (Theodore Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame University). The collection presents speeches from Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant religious leaders; naturally, leaders of southern churches figure prominently in the texts. As the reader can surmise, the volume includes some texts by speakers who do indeed go beyond the "local southerners" instrumental in the movement, but whose words have been marginalized from our collective memory of civil rights rhetoric. Houck and Dixon include more than one speech from some figures.
I wonder about the future of anthologies given the enormous power of the Internet to locate and compile texts of a variety of sorts. Yet, this volume is reminder of the type of scholarship that can be so useful to scholars across academic disciplines. The authors have worked diligently to canvass archives for complete texts of key speeches and to unearth texts that are close to disappearing completely. They also resorted to direct contact with family members or speakers to enrich the contextual details that precede each speech. Scholars in religious studies, communication, history, American Studies, African American Studies, and other disciplines will find this volume an excellent resource, whether as a required text through which one has access to primary texts, a companion piece, or a reference book. But not only have the authors presented various disciplines with previously unknown speeches, they also will inspire scholars who should consider other areas where this type of research could be beneficial. The volume has a combined author and subject index and an extensive bibliography organized by civil rights orator with both primary and secondary sources listed.
Reference
Campbell, K. K. (1989). Man cannot speak for her, volume II: Key texts of the early feminists. Westport, CT: Praeger.
--Pete Bicak
Rockhurst University