Carl Jean_Portions of English Dissertation Proposal June 42004

8/6/2019 Carl Jean_Portions of English Dissertation Proposal June 42004

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Carl Jean

Dissertation Proposal

English Department

2004

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS, CONTEXT, AND EVALUATION OF THERHETORIC OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, Jr.: A SYSTEMIC STUDY

INTRODUCTION

The Importance of Profiling the Rhetorics of Famed and Ordinary Men and Women

Profiling the rhetorics of famed and ordinary men and women has a longstanding

tradition. Reasons for profiling these rhetorics are multiple. They range from drawing

lessons they house to facilitating their recognition in their respective rhetorical traditions.

Kenneth Burke (1941), for instance, profiled the rhetoric of Adolph Hitler for the purpose

of unveiling its lessons for America and the wider world. He showed how Hitler

effectively utilized language to promote racial supremacy and persuade millions upon

millions of people to die heroically and kill pitilessly for the preservation and dominance

of their perceived superior race. Comparing Hitler to a medicine man, Burke noted: If

America and the wider world know what kind of medicine this medicine-man has

concocted, [they] knowwith great accuracy, exactly what to guard against, if [they are]

to forestall the concocting of similar medicine in [their midst] (p. 194).

For different reasons than his predecessor Kenneth Burke, Robert Scott, in 1993,

undertook the profiling of the rhetoric of Arthur Larson, who had been a Rhodes Scholar,

a dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, head of USIA, a White House

advisor in Eisenhowers administration, and a prolific rhetor, who was said to preach and

practice a rhetoric of facts. Scott wanted to evaluate Larsons rhetoric as well as explore

some implications that confidence in the prepotency of facts has for rhetoric (p. 128).


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To this end, he examined a number of selected pamphlets, speeches, and articles written

by Arthur Larson. More recently, Jacqueline Royster (1995) profiled the rhetoric of Ida

B. Wells in an effort to reclaim its place in the American rhetorical tradition and dispel

the view that Wells was a mere civil rights activist. Those who have a chance to read this

rhetorical criticism may agree with Royster that, Wells has another place that deserves

more public acknowledgement and preservation. Wells was not just a woman of

distinction who led an active public life. Wells was a rhetor, a speaker and writer whose

use of language in public arenas had a significant impact on the thinking and behavior of

the audiences of her day and on the application of law (p. 169).

If Burke, Scott, and Royster described, respectively, the rhetoric of Hitler to guard

against its resurgence or reenactment, the rhetoric of Larson to show its strengths and

weaknesses, and the rhetoric of Ida B. Wells to seal its recognition, other scholars

profiled the rhetorics of other famed and ordinary rhetors for different reasons. The

importance of the profiled rhetorics, though, goes far beyond the purview of those who

profiled them. As we eye and exploit the rhetorics which have hitherto been thoroughly

profiled, we should not be oblivious to the fact that many important rhetorics remain to

be thoroughly profiled. Martin Luther King, Juniors rhetoric is one of them.

The Need for and the advantages of the Profiling of Martin Luther Kings Rhetoric

King, one of the black sons of the Deep South of the United States, shook the

foundation of Black America, White America, and the wider world, through his mighty

pen and voice. Some would call King the most formidable social activist of all times, and

others would hail him as one of the greatest rhetors of the twentieth century (Carson,

2001). The first appellation has been firmly substantiated through volumes of scholarly


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works (Colburn, 1994; Garrow, 1989). Comprehensive studies have been conducted on

Kings social activism. The rhetoric of King, though, remains understudied. So far, no

scholarly works have attempted to thoroughly profile such a rhetoric. The few conducted

piecemeal rhetorical analyses and criticisms have fallen short of doing justice to the

breadth of the rhetoric of King. Indeed, a systemic examination of this rhetoric is long

overdue. This dissertation project attempts to accomplish such a task. It describes,

contextualizes, and evaluates the rhetoric of King.

The advantages of this dissertation project are multiple. For one thing, the project

helps rectify the myopic view of the rhetoric of King, which has transpired from a few

piecemeal rhetorical analyses or criticisms conducted mostly by scholars with limited

training in rhetoric. Limited in scope and accuracy, these analyses and criticisms, even if

they were combined, would fail to picture the breadth of Kings rhetoric. This project

attempts to provide a more accurate and comprehensive depiction of Kings rhetoric, and

such a depiction in all likelihood permits a better appreciation of this rhetoric and its

place in the American rhetorical tradition.

Not only does the project contribute to a more accurate, more comprehensive, and

deeper understanding of the rhetoric of King, but it also enhances future rhetorical

analyses or criticisms of his individual written works, providing the rhetorical landscape

or the harbor in which these individual works are anchored. So far, a couple of Kings

scholarships, chiefly I Have a Dream and the The Letter from a Birmingham Jail,

have undergone some rhetorical analyses or criticisms. These analyses or criticisms,

however, have been conducted in isolation of the overall rhetoric of King. Most scholars

would recognize the importance of knowing the overall rhetoric of the author of any text


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they would rhetorically scrutinize. Such knowledge, among other things, primarily

contributes to the detection of specificities of the scrutinized text. Overlooking them

diminishes the analysis or criticism. Since the few analyses or criticisms of some of

Kings works were conducted outside the context of the overall rhetorical schemes of

King, their depth is compromised to a great extent. This project, in all likelihood, will

trigger their revisiting. Besides I Have a Dream and The Letter from a Birmingham

Jail, King, during his short life time, wrote a great number of speeches and sermons as

well as a few books, which also deserve to be analyzed or critiqued. This project will

hopefully contribute to the depth of their prospective analyses and criticisms.

Furthermore, the dissertation project constitutes a stepping-stone or a leap toward a

grander project: profiling the African-American rhetoric. References to African-

American, Negro American, or Black American rhetoric abound in the literature (Condit,

1993; Balester, 1993; Glenn, 1976). This rhetoric, though, has yet to be profiled. So far,

its features are speculative and will remain speculative until a great number of rhetorics

of African-American writers and speakers of different eras are thoroughly profiled. The

nineteenth and the twentieth centuries witnessed the emergence of numerous African-

American rhetors of different calibers and backgrounds. They included Sojourner Truth,

Maria W. Stewart, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, Anna Julia,

Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Dubois, Richard Wright, Martin Luther

King, Jr., and Malcom X. The aggregated scholarships of these rhetors and other

African-American rhetors are both prolific and diverse. They contain books, articles,

speeches, sermons, public letters, and so on. The examination of some of these works in

isolation of the overall rhetorics of their respective authors will not sufficiently shed light


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on the features of the African-American rhetoric, but the systematic profiling of the

rhetorics of various African-American writers and speakers will. These rhetorics, which

certainly are impressed with the stamps of their historical contexts and the personal

characteristics of their authors, nonetheless, share certain features or characteristics which

constitute the features or characteristics of African-American rhetoric. As the rhetorics

of African-American writers are profiled, more light will shine on the African-American

rhetoric and its features. Therefore, this study, which attempts to profile the rhetoric of

King, who has been acclaimed as one of the towering African-American rhetors, can be

said to be a potential contributor to the grander project of characterizing the African-

American rhetoric.

Additionally, the contributions of this study may extend to academic writing

classes and beyond. The combination of its descriptive analysis and its evaluation opens

up the strategies of the persuasive writing craft of King, which the students of these

classes would eventually tap into in their drives toward improving their writing skills.

Implicitly or overtly, several composition scholars, such as Corbett (1986), claimed that

the strategies of professional writers can be appropriated or at least learned or emulated if

they are revealed. While knowing the secrets of writers mental or cognitive processes

requires their active and sincere collaborations, knowing their actual writing strategies do

not. These strategies transpire from thorough independent descriptive analyses and

evaluations of their known rhetorical works, be they books, articles, pamphlets, or other

genres. The unveiled writing strategies of King through this dissertation will be

profitable to academic writing courses in several parts of the world. Such writing courses

with a focus on rhetoric do exist in several corners of the world, and their number will


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surge as the calls of Hairston (1982) and other scholars to tap into rhetoric and its

strategies will make further and further inroads. As a great number of teachers with

experiences in the academic writing classrooms attest, rhetorical strategies are best

adapted and adopted by students if they are exemplified. If the revealed rhetorical

strategies of King are proven effective, they along with others will help serve this

purpose.

Indeed, persuasive writing is an art with principles rather than disconnected

prescriptive rules. While the works of the handfuls of its masters reflect these principles

in varying degrees, they do so differently. It is incumbent upon the students of this art to

adapt the strategies of these masters as they develop their own. Understandably, it is also

the supreme responsibility of rhetorical critics and analysts to make known to them the

strategies of these masters, which are hidden in their scholarly works. King, for scores of

decades, has been praised as one of such masters. This dissertation, among other things,

makes his rhetorical strategies known to student writers interested in becoming, like

King, Rhetorical Hall of Famers.

An Overview

The study contains six chapters. The first chapter provides biographical data

regarding King and reviews scholarships on Kings rhetoric. The second chapter outlines

the studys utilized theoretical framework, guiding questions, and methodology. Chapters

Three, Four, and Five house the core of the dissertation project. Respectively, they

present a descriptive analysis and the distinctive features of the rhetoric of King, discuss

the context of this rhetoric, and evaluate it through Campbells (1996) three-pronged

rhetorical analysis framework coupled with Close reading and Content Analysis. The


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sixth and last chapter of this dissertation, the recommendations and conclusion chapter, is

an extended summary and an appeal for further scholarly works on Kings rhetoric and

the rhetorics of other African-American rhetors. An appendix of definitions of key terms

used in the dissertation follows the recommendation and conclusion chapter.


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CHAPTER I:

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA ON MARTIN LUTHER KING AND SCHOLARSHIPS ON

MARTIN LUTHER KINGS RHETORICAL WORKS

This chapter presents an overview of both published biographical data on King

and scholarships on Kings rhetoric. As it has been for the published works of other well-

known public orators, the rhetorical works of King have captured the attention of some

scholars in rhetoric, speech communication, and other communication-related fields.

Some of their scholarly productions discuss the influences on Kings thoughts, others key

in on the controversies surrounding his uses of sources and his originality, and still others

collectively analyze his rhetorical works from diverse angles. Each of these overarching

foci of the scholarships on Kings rhetorical works are reviewed below for the purposes

of further putting this dissertation project into perspective. Preceding such a review is a

summary of published key biographical data relative to King.

Biographical Data Regarding Martin Luther King, Jr.

Several scholarly publications contain extensive biographical data regarding King.

Among these publications are L. D. Reddicks (1959) Crusader Without Violence, Lerone

Bennetts (1964) What Manner of Man, Clayborne Carsons (1998) The Autobiography

of Martin Luther King, Jr., James Melvin Washingtons (1992)I Have a Dream: Writing

and Speeches that Changed the World, John Collin Harris (1974)s The Theology of

Martin Luther King. Below is a summary of some core biographical data pertaining to

King, drawn from these sources.

King was born in 1929 in Atlanta, a historic city, which hosted Booker T.

Washington and was the launching ground of the W.E.B. Du Boiss movement which


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resulted in the creation of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored

People (Redderick, 1959). The Atlanta neighborhood that King was born into was a non-

affluent middle-class black neighborhood which championed family values (Carson,

1998), good behavior, hard work, education, and increasing success (Bennett, 1964;

Redderick, 1959). His mother, Alberta Williams King, and his father, Martin Luther

King, Sr., were both college graduates, children of distinguished ministers (Carson,

1998), and staunch opponents of segregation. At a young age, King received from his

mother and his father detailed explanations about the divided system of the South-the

segregated schools, restaurants, theaters, housing; the white and colored signs on drinking

fountains, waiting rooms, lavatories (Carson, 1998, p. 3) he observed continually. King

was taught to understand the system as socially constructed rather than natural and to

consequently fight against it, rejecting, among other things, the idea that his skin color

was synonymous with inferiority. Later, in his adolescence, King, through close or

distant contacts with blacks who were less fortunate than he, further detested segregation:

He was outraged by witnessed police brutality against blacks, justice denials to blacks,

and the overall plight of Black America. At the same time, King realized that there were

also economically oppressed whites, some of whom he observed while he was a summer

jobber in a plant which hired whites as well as blacks. Noticeably, King decided to work

for this plant for the purpose of learning about injustices, in spite of his fathers wishes:

King s father, pastor of Atlantas Sweet Auburn Ebenezer Baptist Church, feared the

unjust practices in the plant would be too difficult for young King to handle (Carson,

1998). For the purposes of primarily deepening the experiences in the abovementioned

plant and secondarily earning extra money, King decided to go to Simsbury, Connecticut,


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before going to college, to work for a whole summer on a tobacco farm. While in

Connecticut, King realized, to his surprise, that the buses, the restaurants, and other

public places were not segregated. The disparities between the segregated Atlanta and the

non-segregated Simsbury and more importantly the disparities between the segregated

Georgia and non-segregated Connecticut gave King pause, then enlightened his

understanding of segregation in America, and strengthened his resolve to fight against it

mentally and otherwise.

Shortly after the summer experiences in Connecticut, 15-year-old King, who just

graduated from high school as one of the top students, entered Morehouse College, one of

the most prestigious black colleges and his parents Alma Mater, to study sociology.

While a junior there, in the summer 1947, he was ordained assistant minister at his

fathers Atlanta church. He graduated in 1948 from Morehouse with a degree in theology

rather than the originally intended degree. Following his graduation, at the age of

nineteen, he entered the prestigious Crozer Theological Seminary to pursue a Masters

degree in theology, which he obtained in 1950 with high distinctions. He was awarded

the J. Lewis Crozer 1,200-dollar scholarship to further his graduate study (Bennett,

1964). In 1951, he embarked on the last leg of his academic trip: he entered Boston

University in pursuit of a doctorate in Systematic Theology (Washington, 1992). In June

1955, he officially became a doctor and then in December 1955 was unanimously elected

President of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to lead the Montgomery

bus boycott, which was instigated by the arrest of Mrs. Rosa Parks for her refusal to

relinquish her bus seat to a white man (Washington, 1992, xxv). In February 1957, he

was elected president of The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).


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Besides assuming his co-pastoral role at his fathers Atlanta church, King with this

new leadership position became the megaleader of the Civil Rights Movement (Saunders,

1967) until his assassination on April 4, 1968. Kings rhetoric proved to be one of his

main leadership tools (Macgregor 1965). With his pen and voice, among other things,

King led the Civil Rights Movement. He wrote public letters, published five books and

several articles, and delivered numerous political speeches and sermons. His works

included but were not limited to Facing the Challenge of a New Age (1957), The

Power of Nonviolence (1958), Stride toward Freedom (1958), Speech Before the

Youth March for Integrated Schools (1959), The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousness

(1960), The Time for Freedom Has Come (1961), Letter from a Birmingham Jail

(1963), I Have a Dream (1963), Eulogy for the Martyred Children (1963), Nobel

Prize Acceptance Speech (1964), Our God Is Marching On (1965), Where Do We Go

from Here? (1967), The Drum Major Instinct (1968), and I See the Promised Land

(1968).

Influences Upon Kings Thoughts

As stated earlier, one of the overarching scholarships on Kings rhetoric focuses on

the influences on Kings thoughts. The influences on Kings thoughts have intrigued

scholars from a variety of fields. Regarding this matter, there are two main schools of

thought. Respectively, they credit exclusively classical, modern, and contemporary

thinkers and folk pulpit as the main sources of Kings thoughts. Several scholars

coalesced to point out that King mainly borrowed his core ideas from a gamut of Western

and Oriental thinkers whose works he studied while he attended undergraduate and

graduate schools. The contributions of these thinkers to several central philosophical


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ideas imbued in Kings writings were first reported by Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp

(1974), Ervin Smith (1981), and John Ansboro (1982) in their respective books entitled

Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King, The Ethics of

Martin Luther King, andMartin Luther King, Jr.: The Making of a Mind. For instance,

King was said to have borrowed his expressed understanding of collective evil and the

human obligation to respond to it from collectively Mahatma Gandhi, Crozer Theological

Professor George Davis, Boston University School of Theology Professors L. Harold

DeWolf, Edgar Brightman, and Howard Thurman.

As is well-known, King advocated non-violent strategies rooted in love as a vector

to social transformation, a powerful response to the collective evil, in his rhetorical

works. Such a change tool, argued Smith and Zepp (1974), Ansboro (1982), and Smith

(1981), stemmed originally from Mahatma Gandhi. But prior to his full exposure to

Gandhis non-violent philosophy, King seemingly struggled with Friedrich Nietzsches

claim of the inherent weak nature of love and love-grounded strategies. Nietzsche, in The

Genealogy of Morals (1956) and The Will to Power(1968),attacked Christian endeavor

to love and defend the powerless against the powerful, on the grounds that it impeded

noble values, such as pride and revenge, and elevated negative values, such as modesty

and resignation. Moved by Nietzesches argument of the ineffectiveness of love for

solving social problems, King doubted the applicability of love-grounded strategies to

conflict resolution (Ansboro, 1982); he went as far as impugning Jesuss call for

Christians to refrain from striking back and to love their enemies. Kings belief in the

power of love for resolving social conflicts was not restored until he listened to a sermon

on the philosophy and the life of Gandhi by President Mordecai Johnson of Howard


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University and subsequently read Gandhi-related books (Ansboro, 1982; Smith, 1981;

Smith and Zepp, 1974). These occurrences led King to reject Nietzsches claim regarding

the weakness of love and its relation to the resolution of social problems and to firmly

believe that love anchored in non-violent methods constitutes a strong force for social

change. King dismissed Nietzsches misconstrued Christian doctrine of love and

understood that real Christian love is active rather than passive in that it compels to resist

and fight the collective evil rather than the individual evildoers. In other words, the road

to the victory over social evil in all its forms passes through lovingly redeeming the

evildoers and uprooting the evil system. King further discovered through Gandhi that

suffering in the context of the fight for social transformation, or any noble cause, is not a

synonym for weakness or defeat but a redemptive force.

Kings doctrine of love as it relates to the resolution of social transformation

surged from the scholarships and the teachings of George Davis (Ansboro, 1982). Davis

developed vast scholarship on the power of agape, the unconditional love, insofar as its

instrumentality in the building of community. For Davis, a scholar of personalism, the

concern for others constitutes the hallmark of Christian ethics. As an illustration of such

ethics, Davis cited the eighteenth century evangelicalism whose concerns about and

actions for the spiritual, educational, economic, and political development of humanity

led Great Britain to illegalize slave trade. Made in the image of God, noted Davis, all

persons deserve altruism: they are imbued with incommensurable worth (Ansboro, 1982).

Agapaic love, thus, from the perspective of Davis, does not stem merely from the desire

to comply with the divine commandment but also or even more importantly from the

unswerving conviction of the inalienable worth of all men and women. In The Origins


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and Principles of Evangelical Christianity, Davis (1946) stressed, the truth, the

power, and the appeal of evangelicalism and noted that that all men are of worth to

God and hence should be of worth to one another (p. 64). Such sacredness of the human

worth eventually became one of the corner stones of Kings ethics. In addition, King

apparently borrowed from Davis the communal goal of altruism. Like Davis, King

understood the intent of God for men to nurture solidarity and to create a beloved

community. The scholarship of Davis was just one of the major intellectual sources of

Kings understanding of love; other sources included but were not limited to the writings

of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas (Ansboro, 1982; Smith, 1981; Smith and

Zepp, 1974). As a result of the amalgamation of these readings, King found the

intellectual underpinning for the power of love.

According to Ansboro (1982), if Davis enriched or enlarged Kings conception of

agapaic love, Harold Dewolf, his dissertation advisor, completed or sealed it. In

Theology of the Living Church, Dewolf (1960) argued that agapaic love had not only a

primary altruistic dimension but also a resulting self-benefiting one since the persons who

love altruistically end up fulfilling themselves in the creation of the beloved community.

Yet, Dewolf contended that all persons ought to endeavor to prioritize the communal

interests over their personal interests. Like Davis, Dewolf recognized human sacredness

or worth; however, he refused to fully credit such worth to grace or to the fact that man

was created in the image of God. According to Dewolf, even apart from divine grace, the

human person has value because of his or her built-in will power: he/she does not just

have potential for evil but also potential to do good, to contribute to the building of the

beloved community. Additionally, Dewolf argued that men because of their built-in


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freedom of choice ought not to merely rely on Almighty God for their personal

betterment and the communal betterment; rather, they ought to work appropriately in

partnership with God. This is to say that, towards their personal or collective betterment,

humans should act alone or in conjunction with God or others, depending on the

situation; prior to resting on the Divine intervention, they should activate their naturally

endowed power. King, however, slightly disagreed with Dewolf: King ultimately ended

up recognizing that given the finiteness or the frailty of men, they ought to cooperate with

God at all times for the success of their endeavors. Men, reasoned he, find their

completeness in their alliance with God.

In addition to Davis and Dewolf, Kings personalistic philosophy and its

sacredness of human worth was significantly fed on Edgar Brightman, whose

scholarships focused on the nature of moral law as compared to social codes (Ansboro,

1982). To him, King owed his conceptions of the preeminence of the moral law, defined

as universal principle that the will ought to obey, (p. 77) over social codes, defined as

sets of principles that society expects or demands that the individual follow in his

choice (p 77). InMoral Laws, which was originally published in 1933, Brightman

declared, no act is moral because it conforms to a code. It is moral because it

conforms to moral law. Every code is subject to criticism by the moral law (p. 45). The

moral law, thus, constitutes the standard or the gauge to measure the moral dimension of

social codes and acts. Brightman divided moral law into logical law, law of autonomy,

axiological law, law of consequences, law of the best possible, law of specification, law

of the most inclusive end, law of ideal control, law of individualism, law of altruism, and

law of the ideal personality. Respectively, they compel all persons to: will logically and


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be consistent in their intentions; decide in accordance with their acknowledged ideals;

select congruent ideals; consider seriously the short-term and long-term consequences of

their choices; always embrace, shoot for, or stand for the best possible values; develop or

apply values situationally; and plan their lives in such a way that they embody the totality

of their cherished values or ideals. Significantly, King embraced these moral principles,

not slavishly but critically. He contended, for instance, that the political socio-economic

structure often impedes or limits ones self-actualization or self-realization.

Other intellectual creditors to Kings thoughts and ideas included such theologians

as Walter Rauschenbush and Reinhold Niebuhr and such philosophers as Plato, Aristotle,

and Rousseau. According to Smith (1981), King partly owed to Rauschenbush his

conviction of the wholeness of the Gospel. Rauschenbush argued that the Gospel with its

agapaic love is concerned with the redeeming of not only the soul but also the structural

conditions that hurt the soul. He further noted that love and its concretization in the form

of social justice may exist in capitalist or socialist governance. Niebuhr, a social

theologist, disagreed. Niebuhr contended that the egoistic nature of men as reflected in

group and class struggles for dominance or their best interests leaves little room for or

undermines the notion of agapaic or disinterested love. In simpler terms, in the social

theology of Niebur, true love has never existed nor will it exist in any human society.

Love as it relates to social order is essentially a moral ideal rather than a social adjuster.

As a moral ideal, it cannot by itself foment full social justice. Niebuhrs analysis of love,

wrote Smith, led King to realize the difficulty of the full realization of the social gospel

as advocated by Rauschenbush and to perceive the interrelatedness and the differences

between love, power, and justice (p. 68). Eventually, King distanced himself from


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Rauschenbush to recognize the possibility of social impediments to love and justice and

at the same time distanced himself from Niebuhr to believe that true love and limited

social justice are possible even in this social order.

Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Rousseau contributed to Kings tenet of freedom as the

essence of man and woman (Ansboro, 1982). Correlatively, these philosophical thinkers

viewed men and women as rational beings, who can make decisions for themselves. In

other words, without the free exercising of their freedom, men and women would be

reduced to things and as such they would be incapable of being moral agents. Freedom,

thus, constitutes the precondition of morality. The freedom of men and women enables

them to make good or bad choices. Combined with agapaic love, men and womens

psychological and social freedom has the power to lead to self-realization and the

beloved community, where might reign social justice.

Kings ideas and thoughts were influenced not only by the abovementioned

theologians and philosophers but also by other sources. For Keith Miller (1991; 1992),

King owed even more to the folk pulpit than he did to these intellectuals. In Luther

King, Jr., and the BlackFolk Pulpit and Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin

Luther King and its Sources, Miller (1991; 1992) attributed the ideas and language of

King primarily to the folk pulpit. Emphatically, Miller (1992) wrote:

Kings magnificent rhetorical triumphs do not reflect his tutelage from white

professors. Not does his persuasiveness result from his study of any Great White

thinkers whose works he examined in graduate school. Instead, King

succeeded largely because he resisted numerous ideas professed by his

professors and the Great White thinkers and instead drew on two powerful and


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popular rhetorical traditions. The first is a veritable torrent of sermons

delivered and published by Harry Emmerson Fosdick, Hamilton, Bosley, and

other prominent White preachers. The second, underlying, and more

significant influence was the Black folk pulpit of Kings grandfather, father,

Rev. Edwards, and several generations of anonymous, often illiterate folk

preachers. these decidedly humbleblack traditions served as Kings major

rhetorical and intellectual resources. (pp. 7-8)

A similar but more succinct point was marshaled by Miller in 1991 in his article Martin

Luther King, Jr., and the Black Folk Pulpit. Miller attested:

Kings intellectual evolution and language have little to do with largely

abstruse conceptions of the Great White Thinkers. Instead, Kings world view

and discourse sprang from two major sources: the sermons of Harry Emerson

Fosdick and other liberal white preachers, and the African-American folk

pulpit Though systematically scorned, ignored, patronized, or dismissed by

most King researchers, African-American folk religion shaped King more than any

other influence. (p. 121)

Controversies Surrrounding Kings Uses of Sources as well as his Originality

The various scholarly sources which influenced King had a great impact on his

teachings and on his writings. His borrowings from some of these sources ultimately led

to accusations that he plagiarized and that he lacked in originality. First reported by

Theodore Pappas (1991) and Keith Miller (1991), Kings plagiarism has been object of

continuing scholarly debates. Reportedly, King borrowed ideas and full passages from

white and black folk preachers without giving them credit.


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If admittedly King borrowed ideas and even full passages for his sermons from

white and black folk preachers, why then until the publication of Millers Martin Luther

King, Jr. and the Black Folk Pulpit andVoice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin

Luther King and its Sources no scholarly works mentioned such borrowings? Miller

(1991; 1992) attempted to provide a three-fold explanation. One of the explanations is

that King in his writings credited exclusively white philosophers and theologians and

omitted mentioning white and black folk preachers. The other explanations stem from

the difficulty in locating the recorded sermons of the former black folk preachers and the

collective oblivion of the broadcast sermons of former white folk preachers from whom

King is said to have borrowed.

Another connected question is: Why did King omit mentioning the preachers he

borrowed from? Responding to this question, Miller (1992) noted that King did not

equate complete originality with creativity: Like folk preachers who preceded him, he

expertly blended others voices with his own; in his public discourse, no matter how

much he borrowed, he invariably sounded exactly like himselfKing negotiated between

the universe of black folk culture contained within the sanctuary of Ebenezer Church and

the universe of print (p.9). From the vantage of black folk culture, King considered

knowledge or language as shared rather than owned commodity.

Clayborne Carson (1991), who investigated the student papers of King for the

purposes of assessing their plagiarism accusation documented in Theodore Pappass The

Martin Luther King, Jr., Plagiarism Story, concurred with Miller (1991; 1992). He noted

that King, due to the African-American folk culture influence, chose to bypass the print

culture sacred rule that compels writers and speakers not to use someone elses language


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without acknowledgement. Black folk preachers, and eventually King, saw language

and its products as public or collective belongings rather than a copyrighted commodity.

Because it is assumed that all writers and speakers inspire from previous writers and

speakers, source acknowledge becomes voluntary rather than compulsory. In this sense,

King did not think that he hadplagiarized unethically. Richard Johannesen, in The

Ethics of Plagiarism Reconsidered: The Oratory of King, Jr., which was published in

Southern Communication Journal, concurred; and so did many other scholars. Towards

showing the ethical nature of Kings plagiarism, Johannesen pointed out, plagiarism as a

concept is a norm deeply imbedded in the Euro-American tradition of print orientation,

individual originality, and capitalistic commodification of ideas. In contrast, the

predominant views in Greco-Roman and Medieval European cultures and in traditional

oral cultures of Africa conceive words and ideas to be communal intellectual resources to

be shared and adapted (p. 186). He added that Kings plagiarism can even be justified

given the historical and cultural tradition and context (p. 186) within which it occurred.

David J. Garrow (1991), in his article Kings Plagiarism: Imitation, Insecurity,

and Transformation, explained Kings plagiarism as it relates to his dissertation and

academic papers, from another angle. Garrow ascribed Kings periodic failures to

acknowledge his sources to his memorization power, his learning style. In his early teens

and throughout his adolescence, King seriously indulged himself in memorizing the best

and most highly regarded pulpit texts (p. 88) and thereby developed an exceptional

ability to memorize lengthy texts and passages, which gradually established themselves

in his mind as his. In other words, according to Garrows theory, Kings plagiarism as

reflected particularly in some of his academic papers and sermons was unintentional.


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In the same volume ofJournal of Education where Garrows article appeared,

David Thelen (1991) offered an article also devoted to addressing Kings alleged

plagiarism and lack of originality. Thelens article grew from a three-year round table

involving Kings former black classmates at Boston University, members of his

dissertation committee, and experts on plagiarism, originality, and voice. Thelen

confirmed that King did plagiarize during his college years and added, the practice of

not acknowledging the sources of his language continued beyond graduate school into

parts of the books, sermons, and speeches he prepared as a minister or activist (p. 14).

With respect to the intentional nature of this practice, Thelen disagreed with Crow. For

him, Kings plagiarism was intentional and strategic; it stemmed from Kings effort to

intertwine the sermonic culture with the print culture. He did not want to fully commit

himself to either the [oral] world of his fathers Ebenezer Baptist Church (p. 15) or the

academic [written] world. As Thelen noted, each of these worlds had its own forms of

discourse and language (p. 16). Thelen went on to argue that in Kings situation

originality must be viewed differently. In the mainstream culture unlike the oral culture,

words were printed, copyrighted, and became private possessions. The highest value in

scholarship was to say something original. Instead of merging voices of earlier authorities

with their own, scholars developed elaborate citation practices. Instead of looking for

familiar ways of restating eternal truths and applying them to new circumstances, as

preachers did, scholars valued original ways of saying new things (p. 17). King was

located in the borderland with respect to originality: from the border of the folk pulpit

tradition, he had originality in style and voice (p. 170) and from the border of the

academia his originality was arguably derivative.


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As David Colburn (1994), the author ofReexamining the Early Career and

Thought of Martin Luther King Jr., pointed out, the above-discussed sources provided a

partial explanation of the intellectual formation of King. Kings thought and language

emanated also from other venues and experiences of his life. In Kings case, one must

keep in mind that he belonged to a rich racial, religious, and intellectual heritage that

defined him individually yet also connected him to the larger black and white

communities of his time (p. 353), wrote Colburn (1994). The bottom line is that in spite

of the diverse attempts at explaining Kings unacknowledged borrowings, they were, are,

and will remain regrettable. However regrettable they are, they fall short of eclipsing

Kings rhetoric, which is collectively embedded in his speeches, sermons, and other

scholarly writings.

Rhetorical Analyses of Kings Writings

Distancing themselves from the controversies surrounding the sources or the

originality of Kings thoughts, ideas, and language, a few scholars focused on critically

analyzing some of Kings rhetorical works from other angles. They produced a number of

studies. These included Marjorie McGregors (1965)Martin Luther King: An Analysis of

His Washington March Speech, Judith Hoovers (1993) Reconstruction of the Rhetorical

Situation in Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martha Solomons (1993) Covenant Rights:

The Metaphoric Matrix of I Have a Dream, James Paynes (1973)A Content Analysis of

Speeches and Written Documents of Black Spokesmen: Frederick Douglass, Booker T.

Washington, Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. DU Bois, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X.,

and Elizabeth Lei and Keith Millers (1999) Martin Luther King Jr.s I Have a Dream

in Context: Ceremonial Protest and African American Jeremiad.


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Mcgregors (1965)Martin Luther King, Jr.: An Analysis of His Washington March

Speech is a six-chapter Masters Thesis. Chapters Two through Chapter Four provided

historical, authorial, and event-related background information; whereas, Chapter Five

analyzed the speech in terms of its argument, visual imagery, and delivery. Regarding

arguments in the speech, the author believed that they were far more logos-based or

substantive than pathos-based or emotional and that the logos-based arguments were of

only three kinds: cause and effect, classification, and comparison and contrast. A closer

analysis of the speech might reveal, though, it had other kinds of argument that Mcgregor

failed to notice. As for visual images in the speech, the author sufficed to pinpoint a

couple of them, whose interpretations and significances, by the way, are slightly

addressed. Lastly, in the analysis, the author gauged Kings delivery through three

dimensions: voice, phrasing, and rhythm (p. 106). He concluded that the delivery was

effective due to Kings melodious voice and appropriate uses of pause and pace.

Another rhetorical analysis of I Have a Dream was Martha Solomons (1993)

Covenant Rights: The Metaphoric Matrix of I Have a Dream. Unlike Majorie

Mcgregors (1965) piece with an embedded historical and critical approach, Solomons

(1993) work was a mere critical rhetorical analysis. The essay sought to show that the

matrix of Kings speech is a metaphor (p. 68). Matrix metaphor as defined by Solomon

(1993), is a core comparison or mother metaphor from which stems surface metaphors

in text (p. 68). Towards discovering the matrix of I Have a Dream, the author vetted

its prominent images and their interrelationships (p. 69). On the basis of such an

examination, he concluded that the implicit matrix metaphor was the covenant

metaphor of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Emancipation


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Proclamation; and that the check-bank metaphor and other metaphors in the speech were

secondary, derivative, or surface. As Salomon put it, the rhetorical function of the matrix

metaphor in the speech was three-fold: it provide [d] stylistic variety by generating

diverse images; it enhance [d] thematic unity; and it offer [d] philosophical

underpinning (p. 81). Granting the accuracy and the significance of the analysis of

Mcgregor, the question becomes whether such metaphors were pervasive in Kings

public discourse. To date, this question remains unanswered: no subsequent analyses

have attempted to locate such metaphors in other public speeches or sermons of King.

There is still another analysis of I Have a Dream: Durthy Washingtons (1993)

I Have a Dream: A Rhetorical Analysis. Washington attempted to unpack the

arrangement of this speech, showing that it adhered to the following pattern of oration:

exordium, narratio, proposito, partitio, confirmation, and confutation. The exordium of

the speech, according to Washington, was located in the first two paragraphs. There,

King tried to grab the attention of the audience by inviting them to decry the plight of

Black America. Paragraphs 3 and 4 housed the narration. In these paragraphs, King

emphatically described the abject conditions of African Americans and called for

immediate corrective actions. From Paragraph 1 through Paragraph 6, King displayed his

partition, which had four main components: he pinpointed the historical gains,

unfulfilled promises, and the need for immediate action, and placed an appeal for

non violence (p. 17). As Washington put it, with respect to confirmation, King

present[ed] two key arguments to support his pleas for non-violence. He argued that all

Americans should endeavor to make racial unity a reality, reminding them that they had a

common destiny; he also marshaled the necessity to focus on the future (p. 17). As for


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the confutatio of the speech, it spanned Paragraphs 5 through 8, and keyed in on the

arguments of the following groups of people: those who hoped that the Negros crusade

for social justice and civil rights would wear off with time and that they would be

satisfied with their hitherto victories; those who were asking the dire-hard civil rights

crusader to feel a sense of full satisfaction; and those who were discouraged or battered

by the lingering delay of the concretization of their quest for freedom. The peroration

followed the confutatio, indicated Washington. In this last segment, King laid out a

vision and hope for the future (p. 18). Some, however, might see the speech as

differently organized while others would agree with Washington and still would wonder

whether this arrangement was emblematic of the overall public discourse of King.

The most recent study on I Have Dream was done by Elizabeth Vander and

Keith Miller (1999). These scholars attempted to show that the speech was the product

of African American traditions of ceremonial protest and jeremiad speech-making (p.

84). As they put it, the speech contextualize[ed] protest with long-suffering confidence

that African Americans would be free at last. In the footsteps of speeches by Frederick

Douglass and other previous black leaders and orators and in the footsteps of African

American gatherings on Fourth of July and other freedom holidays, the speech, wrote

Vander and Miller, celebrated Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation and at the same time

decried the ongoing racism and other forms of injustice against African Americans. The

speech was a jeremiad, noted Vander and Miller, in that it embodied the three-fold

rhetorical structure of a jeremiad: a consideration of the freedom promises in Americas

founding documents, a detailed criticism of Americas failure to fulfill this promise, and

a prophecy that America [would] achieve its promised greatness and enjoy unparalleled


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happiness (p. 87). To what extent did other speeches and sermons of King embody the

abovementioned rhetorical structure of jeremiad? The response to this question is

unknown. Vanders analysis, which focused exclusively on I Have a Dream, did not

address this question, nor did other independent preceding or following rhetorical

analyses. Evidently, the positive response to this question would provide evidence of a

feature of Kings rhetoric.

Besides I Have a Dream, Kings Letter from Birmingham Jail also underwent

rhetorical examinations. One of the examining works was Judith Hoovers (1993)

Reconstruction of the Rhetorical Situation in Letter from Birmingham Jail. Through

the lenses of Bitzers (1968) and Vatzs (1973) rhetorical situation framework, Hoover

showed that the letter was at the same time a response to an immediate rhetorical

situation and creator of a new situation. In other words, the letter exemplified

Consignys (1974) integrated view that situation and rhetoric produce each other.

Notwithanding the accuracy of Hoovers analysis, it would be erroneous to infer from it

that Kings speeches were at the same time responses to immediate rhetorical situations

and creators of new rhetorical situations. Such conclusion would require the targeted

examination of several sampled Kings speeches.

An additional work on the letter was Malinda Snows (1985) Martin Luther King

Letter Jail as a Pauline Epistle. In this essay, Snow attempted to show that Pauls

epistles informed Kings letter. He presented the following three-fold arguments:

First that, following the homiletic traditions of black American Protestantism,

King assumed both a Pauline role and a Pauline literary form in [the letter];

second, that this role was only the most prominent of many scriptural allusions


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that King used; and third, that the [letter], like many of Pauls epistles was not

merely a letter but a sermon. (pp. 318-319)

Snow pinpointed that King, at the beginning of the letter and thereafter, compared

himself explicitly to Apostle Paul. Just as Paul, for legitimacy purposes, declared himself

an apostle, so did King declared himself a clergyman and civil-rights leader. Snow noted

that Kings reference to the immediate addressees of the lettter as My Dear Fellow

Clergymen was a rhetorical strategy designed to regain his legitimacy. The Clergymen,

in their letter, tried to deny King g legitimacy by omitting to mention his name or his

appellation. They simply implicitly referred to him as one of the outsiders. Furthermore,

King achieved authority and power by using the apostolic letter form along biblically

grounded imagery and syntax (p. 322). By using religious allusions pervasively, noted

Snow, King transformed the dialogue into a religious one. In that respect, he unwittingly

heeded Burke (1966), who inLanguage as Symbolic Action, stressed, If [one] want[s] to

operate, like a theologian, with a terminology that includes God as its key term, the only

way to do it is to put in the term. King wanted to act as a clergyman, so he used biblical

allusions, particularly verbatim passages or adapted statements from Pauls epistles.

Snow further pointed out, the letter, like Pauls letter, was a sermon. King, argued

he, composed it, using preaching techniques. He composed it extemporaneously, from

his vast mental storehouse he had built along the years: King [was] able to remember

short passages and to use keyphrases to summarize longer passages. The imagery and

diction that we have traced to biblical usages came into the Letter through Kings

memory, not simply a lexical memory but a capacity to remember rhythm, tone, and

context as well. (p. 38). On a final analysis, Snow arguably claimed that the rhetoric of


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the letter like that of Pauls letter was not the rhetoric of the classical oration (p. 331).

Argument was not Pauls major goal, nor is it KingsPauls and Kings rhetoric is

closer to that of liturgy than to that of argument (p. 332). Apparently, the latter claim of

Snows analysis is questionable, farfetched: it is inferred from or based on the analysis of

just one of Kings speeches.

Besides the abovementioned scholarships keying on one speech of King, either I

Have a Dream or Letter from Birmingham Jail, other analyses dealt with more than

one speech. These included: Paynes (1984) dissertation,A Content Analysis of Speeches

and Written Documents of Six Black Spokesmen: Frederick Douglass, Booker T.

Washington, Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. DU Bois, Martin Luther King, and Malcom X;

Appel Edwards (1997) The Rhetoric of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: Comedy and

Context in Tragic Collision; and Millers (1992) Voice of Deliverance: The Language of

Martin Luther King, Jr., and Its Sources.

InA Content Analysis of Speeches and Written Documents of Six Black

Spokesmen: Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. DU

Bois, Martin Luther King, and Malcom X, Payne, using some techniques of content

analysis in lieu of the traditional rhetorical canons, undertook intrinsic analyses of

selected rhetorical works of the above-mentioned black leaders. The study utilized formal

measurement scales and content categories. The former were Type-Token Ratio (TTP),

Cunning Fog Index (CFI), Fleschs Reading Ease Score (RES), Fleschs Human Interest

Score (FHIS), and Fleschs Abstraction Formula (FAF); as for the latter, it comprised

Disconfort-Relief Quotient (DRQ), Gottschalk-Gleser Content Analysis Scales: Anxiety

(Ax), Hostility Directed Outward (HO), Hostility Directed Inward (HI), and Ambivalent


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Hostility. Respectively, Type-Token Ratio, Cunning Fog Index, Fleschs Reading Ease

Score, Fleschs Human Interest Score, and Fleschs Abstraction Formula measured:

vocabulary variability or flexibility, length of sentences and the number of

polysyllables, reading ease, interest, and sixteen categories of definite words, (pp.

22-26). As for Discomfort-Relief Quotient (DRQ) and Gottschalk-Gleser Content

Analysis Scales, they measured, respectively, tension in written discourse (p. 23) and

different levels of hostility.

Letter from Birmingham Jail, I Have a Dream, Love, Law, and Civil

Disobedience, Honoring Du Bois, I Have Been on the Mountain Top were the five

selected Kings works for the quantitative study. In total, there were 30 sampled texts

involved in the study5 texts from the selected black spokesmen. Among other things,

Kings aggregated texts were found to be: vocabulary wise variable, flexible, rich; highly

readable; interesting; and less hostile directed than the other texts. These findings are

very limited. Payne failed to provide concrete supporting examples or illustrations. He

may have judged such an addition unnecessary for a quantitative study. In other words,

Payne might have judged such additional details pertinent or relevant only if the study

had been a qualitative one. The provision of these illustrations would, nevertheless,

bolster the practical usefulness of the abovementioned findings, which, given their

discussed limitation, only serve as testing ground for further studies.

Edward s (1997) The Rhetoric of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Comedy and

Context in Tragic Collision specifically focused on the changes in the content and style

of Kings public communication at the far end of his political life as compared to the

beginning of his political life. Using Kenneth Burkes pentad along with his theory of


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dramatic genres and his terms for order (p. 376), as the theoretical framework, Edward

concluded that in the last year of his life King moved from a generally comic rhetoric to a

quasi tragic one; and ascribed the noted changes to the context. Prior related rhetorical

studies, when combined, seemed to offer some ground to Edwards claim. For example,

Smiths (1968) Martin Luther King, Jr.: In the Beginning at Montgomery, Scotts

(1986) Black Power Bends Martin Luther King, and Antczak (1993) When Silence is

Betrayal: An Ethical Criticism of the Revolution of Values in the Speech at Riverside

Church upheld partially the content or style change claim in Kings public

communication. Smith, in his analysis of the first public speech given by King as a

nominated leader of Civil Rights Movement, portrayed his style as comic on the basis of

indicative rhetorical attributes, such as pervasive allusions to a pure love-based resistance

against segregated public transportation in Montgomery. Scott, who analyzed one of the

last speeches of Kings life, noted some content related changes. He noted that King

added grander economic and international issues to the civil rights issues. Last but not

least, Antczak, in his study of a speech delivered by King in 1967 at Riverside in New

York, noted that Kings discourse underwent both a change of values and a change of

language. For him, Kings language as reflected in the analyzed speech was tragic. On

the other hand, other Kings scholars, such as Keele (1972), affirmed thatKings rhetoric

was ubiquitously consistent: it was consistent contentwise and stylewise. These

conflicting views on the consistency of Kings rhetoric remain strong today and will

remain so until more in-depth studies shed more light. Kings rhetoric orfacets of it may

have been misconstrued, misread, or mischaracterized.


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Keith Miller s (1992) Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther

King, Jr., and Its Sources, while not addressing the questions of consistency of Kings

public discourse, did allude to the tragic overtone of his final speech and earlier speeches,

which Edward s (1997) The Rhetoric of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: Comedy and

Context in Tragic Collision, discussed. In this book, Miller also discussed broadly the

effectiveness of Kings forms of arguments and themes. He wrote, Kingvalidated

himself by offering forms of arguments that whites had already internalized and by

propounding themes that they already understood and respected. He routinely supplied

surefire, doctrinally sound sermons with recipe with recipe-perfect proportions of

Biblical exegesis, application, quotations, illustrations, and the like. (p. 192). In

addition, Miller allusively mentioned what he called the dominant organizational pattern

of Kings sermons: deductive-then-inductive pattern. Furthermore, Miller, succinctly

pinpointed the likeness of Kings sermons and speeches with respect to argumentation.

Such likeness, explained he, was due to the fact that King often borrowed from himself,

moving material freely from speeches to sermons and sermons to speeches (p. 156).

Although more extensive than that ofits predecessors, Millers text has some loopholes.

The evaluation of its analyses of the few selected aspects of Kings rhetoric revealed a

major weakness: incompleteness. For instance, Millers claim regarding the

organizational pattern of Kings rhetorical needed elaboration. The claim that the

deductive-then-inductive pattern dominated Kings sermons was not sufficiently

supported. In addition, Miller remained silent on the applicability of this alleged

dominant arrangement pattern to Kings speeches. No wonder the accuracy of this claim

may be questionable or suspected.


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Each of the above-reviewed rhetorical analyses represented appreciated attempts at

understanding Kings rhetoric. Indeed, they were just attempts. Not only were they

limited in scope, but also they were limited in depth and accuracy. The overwhelming

majority of these works discussed respectively a single aspect of Kings rhetoric and did

so incompletely and even inaccurately in some cases. Even bundled together, these

analyses would utterly fail to do justice to the breadth of Kings rhetoric and would only

constitute grounds for deeper analyses. In other words, collectively, they would still

present just a glimpse of Kings rhetoric. Kings rhetoric deserves to be systemically

studied. In an effort to fill this gap, follows a systemic study of Kings rhetoric. It

describes, contextualizes, and evaluates Kings rhetoric, through Campbells (1996)

three-pronged rhetorical analysis framework coupled with Close reading and Content

analysis.


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CHAPTER II:

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY

As its theoretical framework, this project primarily utilizes the three-pronged

rhetorical analysis heuristic proposed by Karlyn Campbell (1996) in her highly

publicized book, The Rhetorical Act. This multifaceted heuristic serves to describe,

contextualize, and evaluate a rhetoric. It fits the studys triple goal, that of describing,

contextualizing, and evaluating the rhetoric of King. The only alternate mega heuristic

would be Burkes Dramatism with its five interrelated crucial elements: Act, Scene,

Agent, Agency, and Purpose. Campbells heuristic was chosen over Burkes Pentad

because it was judged more streamlining and more extensive for the studys systemic

focus. Contrary to Campbells heuristic, which allows the abovementioned

interconnected components of the study to be addressed separately and in-depth, Burke

Pentad would only lead to their intertwined discussions. It should be noted that Burke

Pentad is more useful to describe a rhetoric than to contextualize and evaluate it.

As Black (1978) noted inRhetorical Criticism, no critical heuristic is complete.

Close Reading and Content Analysis were added to Campbells heuristic. Close reading

is considered as one of the most valuable textual analysis technique. Close reading has

been used for decades to unpack various discursive practices (Jasinski, 2001), unveiling

their intrinsic characteristicspiercing their veils (p. 91). The textual analysis goes

beyond artistry and strategy in order to vibrate theory against practice and text against

theory (p. 94), as Jasinsky summarized it. Close reading will optimally help get primary

data from the studys selected documents. As for Content Analysis, it is the most used

research method to organize voluminous textual data. Researchers from Humanities and


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Sciences fields have used it (Berge, 2001; Chadwick, 1984; Fraenkel & Wallen, 2000;

Krippendorft, 1980; Neuendorf, 2002; Silverman 2001; Wallen, 2001). Its utilization

spans quantitative and qualitative inquiries. In short, Campbells heuristic, Close

Reading, and Content Analysis, respectively serve as the studys core theoretical

framework, data retrieving technique, and data organizing technique.

Campbells Three-Pronged Rhetorical Analysis Heuristic

The First Prong: The Descriptive Analysis Prong

The first prong, the descriptive analysis heuristic, involves the following seven

categories: purpose, audience, persona, tone, structure, supporting materials, and

strategies. Purpose and audience in this scheme signify respectively the response argued

(thesis) and the response desired by the rhetor (p. 24) and the direct or indirect listeners

or readers whom the rhetor seeks to influence. As for persona and tone, Campbell (1996)

construed them respectively as the role the rhetor espouses in making his or her case and

the rhetors attitude towards the subjectand toward the audience (p. 24). Structure

and supporting materials refer to the way the materials are organized to gain attention,

develop a case, and provide emphasis and different kinds of evidence for the argument

(p. 24). Finally, the seventh category, strategies, encompasses language, appeals, and

arguments (p. 24) used by the rhetor to in making his or her case.

The Second Prong: The Contextualizing Prong

The second prong of the heuristic, the contextualizing prong, follows the

descriptive analysis. Once fully described in light of the foregoing seven categories, the

rhetoric should be contextualized in terms of the rhetorical problem, that is all the

obstacles the rhetor faces (p. 55). As the following figure illustrates, such obstacles


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arise primarily from the subject and purpose, the audience, and the rhetors need to be

credible (p. 55):

RHETOR SUBJECT/PURPOSE

AUDIENCE

Audience-generated obstacles take diverse forms. A rhetor generally has to

acquire and keep attention. As Campbell wrote, the individual rhetor competes for

attention with many other persuaders and meets obstacles having to do with the selection

of messages by members of the audience (p. 64). It is incumbent upon the rhetor to heed

this challenge in his or her drives towards making his or her case and persuading the

audience members to cooperate with him or her. One of the major audience-related

obstacle faced by the rhetor is selective perception (p. 64). Audience members tend to

key in on what they believe and neglect the rest and consequently risk falling prey to

misinterpretation. Audience members selective perceptions stem from their attitudes,

which are based on beliefs, on what [they] consider true or likely (p. 67). The rhetor

who wants to changes attitudes for the successfulness of his or her case, tries to alter

perception (and beliefs) (p. 67). Another audience-related obstacle that the rhetor likely

faces is lack of motivation (p. 70). As Campbell (1996) noted, people act for reasons.

They pursue goals, they are motivated, they try to satisfy their needs. The significant role

of needs and goals has already been indicated by peoples willingness to expose

themselves to messages containing information they believe will be useful to satisfy


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needs (p. 70). A rhetor who seeks to motivate her audience members must take into

considerations their needs and values. The third common audience-related obstacle is

inertia, that is, the audience members resistance to the rhetors purpose (p. 73). As

Campbell (1999) wrote, audience members will resist changing their ideas and ignore

calls to action unless proposed action is vital enough to engage their energies, is within

their capabilities, can be done here and now, and has a reasonable chance of being

effective (p. 73). The bottom line is that given the instrumentality of audience in

persuasion, audience-related obstacles, be they inattention, misperception,

misinterpretation, lack of motivation, inertia, and others, need to be overcome if the case

that the rhetor tries to make is to have any chance to be successful.

In addition to audience-related obstacles, there are subject related obstacles.

Campbell (1996) identified two major subject-related obstacles: resistance created by

complexity and resistance created by the cultural history of the issue (p. 92). Subjects

are labeled complex if they are remote from the audiences personal experiences,

require technical knowledge or some other kind of special expertise, and are bound

up with many other difficult issues (pp. 92-93). When subjects are remote from audience

members personal experiences, these audience members tend to show reluctance to

confront them on the grounds that they lack sufficient knowledge to properly judge them.

For fear of being manipulated or sidetracked, they are inclined to practice avoidance.

Similarly, if they are interconnected with other difficult issues, The result, stressed

Campbell (1996), is a sense that the problem is so large and its implications so extensive

that no one can understand it or begin to solve it (p. 94). Whether the complexity of the


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subject is real or perceived, the rhetor should address it and should do so effectively if he

wants his or her case to succeed.

Subject-related obstacles often stem additionally from the cultural history of the

issue. No subject exists in a void. Every subject has a context and meaning consisting of

past experience with the subject and the issues surrounding it. This context is the residue

of past rhetorical action. It is the subjects cultural history (p. 95), according to

Campbell (1996). The most common obstacles from the cultural history of the subject

include (1) boredom or indifference due to familiarity with existing arguments, (2)

closed minds about public discussion of some taboo topics, (3) conditioned responses to

emotionality loaded subjects, and (4) conflict with cultural values (p. 94). When a

rhetor simply uses known arguments and counterarguments surrounding the subject, the

audience members view them as hackneyed and eventually end up disengaging

themselves. Likewise, the taboo against the subject has the potential of alienating the

audience and thus hampering rhetorical action. Equally impeding are the emotional loads

of the subjects. Some subjects indeed produce intense emotional reactions in audiences;

signs of such subjects include loaded slogans associated with [them] (p. 96). When a

rhetor chooses to address these kinds of subjects, he or she should expect to face serious

obstacles.

As there are subject-related obstacles, so are there purpose-related obstacles. As

Campbell (1996) explained, a rhetor does not just deal with a subject; he or she also tries

to induce a certain kind of participation from the audience. The kind of response that he

or she seeks may create obstacles (p. 97). Campbell wenton to indicate the two kinds

of obstacles that arise from the purpose as follow: resistance to the cost of responding


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and audience perception of having no control over the issue in question (agents members

do not see themselves as agents of change) (pp. 97-98). Time, energy, inconvenience, or

ridicule are among the cost-related factors that may bungle the rhetorical purpose.

Rhetorical purpose also risks dire setbacks when audience members perceive themselves

as non-influential with regard to the issue at hand. Problem of control is a serious

problem given its tight relation to problems of audience as agents of change. The rhetor

should endeavor to overcome such obstacles.

Not only do obstacles arise from audience and subject and purpose, but they also

arise from the rhetor. Rhetor-related obstacles mainly stem from the rhetors situated and

invented ethos. The rhetors ethos may impede or facilitate the persuasion process. As a

major part of the rhetorical context, the rhetor significantly influences the perception of

the message by the audience members, whom he or she seeks to persuade. The persuasion

of the audience members depends to a great extent on their attitude towards the rhetor.

Rhetor-related obstacles may arise from the backgrounds of the rhetor and her

relationship to the message. Rhetors ethos is affected by authoritativeness and

trustworthiness (p. 130) as perceived by the audience members. A rhetor is authoritative

and trustworthy for an audience if she is perceived respectively as informed, expert,

qualified, intelligent, and reliable and honest, friendly, pleasant, and more concerned

with the good of the community than with personal goals (p. 130).

The Third Prong: The Evaluating Prong

As Campbell (1996) put it, the descriptive analysis and the depiction of the

rhetorical problem in terms of the obstacles arising from the audience, subject and


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purpose, and rhetor, are critical for the evaluation of the rhetoric that the third and last

prong of the heuristic is designed for:

Descriptive analysis is basic to the study of all rhetoricand the rhetorical problem

is a critical device to set up a fair basis for evaluation [because] it helps to place

the rhetoric in context to focus on the relationship between the rhetors strengths

and limitations and [his or her] decisions (p. 151-156)

The effects, the truth, and artitistic criteria constitute the core evaluative criteria in

Campbells (1996) framework. These criteria can be used singly or in combination to

assess a rhetoric. The effects criterion judges a rhetoric in terms of the response that it

evokes, reflects the demand that every [rhetoric] communicate, induce participation from

audience, and affect perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes. Unless some reaction occurs, [the

rhetoric] must be judged a failure (p. 156). As for the truth criteria, it measures the

similarity between the reality presented in [the rhetoric] and reality as presented in other

sources (p. 157). Finally, the artistic or aesthetic criterion focuses on means, on how

effects are producedit is a measure of how well [a rhetoric] achieves its purpose, of

how creatively a rhetor responds to the obstacles faced, of how inventively a rhetor

fulfills the requirements of form (p. 158).

Guiding Research Questions and Subquestions

The below eleven guiding questions and subquestions around which the dissertation

revolves were framed in close relation to the above-described Campbells tripartite

framework. They reflect the descriptive analysis, context, and evaluation prongs of the

framework. Questions 1 through 9, question 10, and question 11, respectively, guide the

describing, contextualizing, and evaluating of the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr.


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Descriptive Analysis Related Guiding Questions and Subquestions

1) What was King purpose?a. What was his overall thesis?b. What response or responses did he seek from his audience members?

2) What was the nature of Kings composite audience?a. What were the values and beliefsof the composite audience?b. How knowledgeable was the composite audience regarding the issue?

3) What role/s did King conceive for the composite audience?4)

What role/s did King adopt?

a. Did he adopt a priestly role?b. Did he adopt other roles? And if so, what were they?

5) What was Kings tone as reflected in his attitudes toward both the audiencemembers and the subject?

a. Was it antagonistic, inviting, objective, subjective, and so forth?6) How did King organize his discourses?

a. What kind of organization did he use to develop his ideas?i. Did he use classical arrangement patterns?

ii. Did he use modern arrangement patterns?b. How did he connect his ideas?

7) What kinds of evidence did he use?a. Did he use examples, anecdotes, cases, statistics, and so forth?b. Which kind of evidence did he use the most profusely?

8) What strategies did King apply?


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a. How was Kings style?i. Was it correct?

ii. Was it clear?iii. Was it consistent?iv. Was it appropriate?

b. What kinds of appeals did he use? Which ones did he use the mostpredominantly?

i. Did he use pathetic appeals? If yes, how so?ii.

Did he use ethical appeals? If yes, how so?

iii. Did he use logical appeals? If yes, how so?iv. Did he use pathetic, ethical, or logical appeals the most

predominantly? If yes, why so?

9) What were the distinctive features of the rhetoric of King?Context Related Guiding Question and Subquestions

10)What was the context of Kings rhetoric?a. What obstacles arose from the composite audience?

i. Were the elements of the composite audience prone to beinginattentive to the subject?

ii. Did the elements of the composite audience likely to have aselective perception problem?

iii. Were the elements of the composite audience likely to fall prey tolack of motivation?


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iv. How did King try to overcome the obstacles arising from thecomposite audience?

b. What obstacles arose from the subject?1. Was the subject practically distant from the audience

members?

2. Did the subject require that the audience have someprerequisite special knowledge?

3. Was the subject interrelated to other major issues?4.

Were the existing arguments and counterarguments relative

to the subject hackneyed?

5. Was the subject emotionally loaded?ii. How did King try to overcome the obstacles arising from the

subject?

c. What obstacles arose from the purpose?i. What would be the likely costs for the audience members to

respond to Kings purpose?

1. Would they view these costs too high?ii. Were the audience members likely to feel that they were not

powerful enough and that the response/s that King wanted from

them would be inefficient?

iii. How did King try to overcome the obstacles arising from thepurpose?

d. What obstacles arose from King as a rhetor?


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i. Was Kings situated ethos an obstacle?ii. Was Kings invented ethos an obstacle?

1. How authoritative was King likely to be perceived?2. How trustworthy was King likely to be perceived?

iii. How did King try to overcome the rhetor related obstacles?Evaluation Related Guiding Question and Subquestions

11)How valuable was Kings rhetoric?a. How truthful was it?b.

How artistic or aesthetic was it?

c. How effectual was it?Data Collection and Document Analysis

Guided by the above questions, the study examines 8 speeches and 6 sermons of

King. These are respectively: MIA Mass Meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church (5

December 1955), Give Us the Ballot (17 May 1957), Speech at the Great March on

Detroit (23 June 1963), I Have a Dream (28 August 1963), Eulogy for the Martyred

Children, (18 September 1963) Our God is Marching on! (25 March 1965), Where

Do We Go From Here? (16 August 19967) and I Have Been to the Mountaintop (3

April 1968); Pauls Letter to American Christians (1956), Love Your Enemies (17

November 1957), A Knock at Midnight (1963), The American Dream (4 July

1965), The Drum Major Instinct (4 February 1968), and Remaining Awake Though

a Great Revolution (31 March 1968). Etched in different periods of Kings public

rhetorical life and classified as landmarks in Clayborne Carsons (2001; 1998) twin

anthologies Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Martin Luther King and


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Carsons (1998)A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend

Martin Luther King, these collective works assumedly embody Kings rhetoric. These

selected works of King are individually and microscopically read within the framework

of the studys guiding questions, through Close Reading. The generated data from these

close-readings are further analyzed and organized through Content Analysis.

For data collection purposes, this study formulates three preconceived related

coding categories, termed respectively Descriptive Analysis, Context, and Evaluation,

which are, in turn, broken into smaller and smaller flexible coding units. The broken

coding units are said to be flexible because new coding units may emerge and earlier

coding units be modified or combined as the content analysis proceeds. For instance, the

Descriptive Analysis Category is provisionally divided into purpose, audience, persona,

tone, structure, supporting materials, and strategies, which are in turn broken into smaller

units accordingly. Similarly, the Context and Evaluation Categories are respectively

broken into: audience-related obstacles, purpose and subject-related obstacles, and rhetor-

related obstacles; and truthfulness, artistics, and effectiveness. Under the guidance of the

so constituted coding categories, data are retrieved from each of the foregoing close-

readings. Then the collected data are compared for the identification of patterns.

Following this process, the data are interpreted and formally reported in light of the

objective of the study.


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CHAPTER III

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS AND DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF THE

RHETORIC OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Descriptive Analysis of the Rhetoric of Martin Luther King

Purpose and Targeted Audiences

Assumed Role/s

Tone

Arrangement

Supporting Materials

Strategies

Distinctive Features of the Rhetoric of Martin Luther King


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CHAPTER IV: THE CONTEXT OF THE RHETORIC OF MARTIN LUTHER KING

Audience-Related Obstacles

Subject and purpose-related obstacles

Rhetor-Related Obstacles


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CHAPTER V: EVALUATION OF THE RHETORIC OF MARTIN LUTHER KING

Effects

Truthfulness

Aesthetic/Artistic Value


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CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS


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APPENDIX

Definitions of Terms and Concepts

For the purpose of clarification, several key terms of the dissertation

project need defining. These include rhetoric, rhetor, rhetorical criticism, rhetorical

analysis, rhetorical critic, rhetorical analyst, and rhetorical situation/context.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is one of the most elusive terms (Bizell & Hertberg, 1990;

Covino & Jollife, 1995). Aristotle and Burke (1950), respectively, described it as the

faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion andthe use of

language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to

symbols (p. 43). Other definitions include the process of using language to organize

experience and communicate it to others (Knoblauch, p. 29, 1985),the energy inherent

in emotion and thought, transmitted through a system of signs, including language, to

others to influence their decisions or actions (Kennedy, p. 7, 1991). In the context of this

dissertation project, rhetoric refers to the purposeful use of language and eventually other

communicative means. Thus, the rhetoric of King refers to the way King purposefully

and persuasively uses language.

Rhetor

As rhetoric, rhetor has many definitions. Its meaning depends on the

related rhetoric. It may indicate an individual involved in the production of a text,

usually a speaker or writer (Covino & Jollife, p. 6), a person who can observe in any

given situation the available means of persuasion, a will mover, symbols user,

cooperation broker, and more. In line with the projects adapted definition of rhetoric,


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rhetor simply signifies a person who purposefully and