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Speech Communication 475 
[to send mail to entire class]
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Thomas W. Benson office hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays 2:30-4:00 p.m. |
Studies in Public Persuasion:
The Rhetoric of Abolition, Suffrage, and Civil Rights
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(2) August 26 - Thursday |
Immediate Emancipation: "I WILL BE HEARD!" William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator, January 1, 1831.
Read James Stewart, Holy Warriors, chapters 1-2, pp. 3-50; Thomas Jefferson, "Commerce between Master and Slave" (1782), on-line at Douglass Project; William Lloyd Garrison, from The Liberator, January 1, 1831; William Lloyd Garrison, "July 4th Address," 1838; from E. Bormann, Forerunners of Black Power (1971); on (electronic reserve); excerpt from David Walker's Appeal (on electronic reserve); Maria W. Miller Stewart, Lecture Delivered at Franklin Hall, 1832, in Campbell, pp. 1-10. When electronic texts are part of the day's reading, please print a copy to bring to class for discussion.
For a timeline of abolition, click here |
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(3) August 31- Tuesday |
Moral Suasion: "The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it, is to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah." Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 4, 1833.
Read: Stewart, Holy Warriors, chapter 3, pp. 51-74; Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 4, 1833 (on electronic reserve); Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833 (at the Douglass Project); "Address, Convention of Anti-Slavery Women," 1838, in Campbell, pp. 11-23. |
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(4) September 2 - Thursday |
"I am glad, sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty to strike the key note for these United States." Wendell Phillips, "On the Murder of Lovejoy," Faneuil Hall, Boston, 8 December 1837.
Read: Wendell Phillips, "On the Murder of Lovejoy" from Reid, American Rhetorical Discourse (on electronic reserve); Angelina Grimke, "Address at Pennsylvania Hall," 1838, in Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Man Cannot Speak for Her, vol. 2, pp. 25-32; Stewart, chapter 4, 75-96. |
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(5) September 7 - Tuesday |
Slavery Defended: John C. Calhoun, "Slavery a Positive Good." 6 February 1837. Text is available at the Douglass Project, Northwestern University; Stewart, chapter 5, pp. 97-126. |
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(6) September 9 - Thursday |
Agitation and Experience: Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" 5 July 1852. Text is available at the Douglass Project, Northwestern University; Stewart, chapter 6, pp. 127-150. |
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(7) September 14 - Tuesday |
Agitation and Experience: Frederick Douglass. Read Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. |
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(8) September 16 - Thursday |
Agitation and Experience: Sojourner Truth. "And ar'n't I a woman?" Sojourner Truth, 1851. Read Sojourner Truth, Narrative of Sojourner Truth; and "Speech at the Woman's Rights Convention," Akron, Ohio, 1851, in Campbell, 99-102. |
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(9) September 21 - Tuesday |
Politics and the Coming of the Civil War William Seward, "The Irrepressible Conflict," 25 October 1858; Abraham Lincoln, "Cooper Institute Address," 27 February 1860. Both of these speeches are available on-line at the Douglass Project, Northwestern University; Stewart, chapter 7, pp. 151-180. |
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(10) September 23 -Thursday |
Civil War and Emancipation: Stewart, chapter 8, pp. 181-206; Abraham Lincoln, "First Inaugural Address,"
on-line at the Douglass Project;
"Second Inaugural Address"; Gettysburg Address." The Emancipation Proclamation.
-- all available at the University of Oklahoma Law School archive |
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(11) September 28 - Tuesday |
Founding a Movement: The Seneca Falls Convention, 1848. "Resolved, That woman is man's equal--" Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, 1848. Read: "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions," the Seneca Falls convention on woman's rights, 1848, in Campbell, pp. 33-39; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Speech at the Seneca Falls Convention," 1848, in Campbell, pp. 41-70; Aileen Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, chapter 1, pp. 1-13.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1856) |
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(12) September 30 - Thursday |
"What does woman want?" "Who knows, but that if woman acted her part in governmental affairs, there might be an entire change in the turmoil of political life." Lucretia Coffin Mott, 1849. Lucretia Mott Lucretia Coffin Mott, "Discourse on Woman," 1849, in Campbell, 71-97; Kraditor, chapters 2, 3, pp. 14-74. |
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(13) October 5 - Tuesday |
National Women's Rights Convention Debate, New York City, 1860, in Campbell, pp. 187-234. |
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(14) October 7 - Thursday |
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "A Slave's Appeal," Speech to the Judiciary Committee, New York State Legislature, 1860; "On Divorce," Speech before the Judiciary Committee of the New York Senate, 1861, in Campbell, pp. 167-186, 235-250; Kraditor, chapter 4, pp. 75-95; Kraditor, chapter 5, pp. 96-122. |
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October 12 - Tuesday |
Fall Break -- no classes |
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(15) October 14 - Thursday |
Susan B. Anthony, "Is it a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?" 1872-1873, in Campbell, 279-316; Kraditor, chapters 6 and 7, pp. 123-218.
Susan B. Anthony |
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(16) October 19 - Tuesday |
Matilda Joslyn Gage, "The Dangers of the Hour," Women's National Liberal Convention, 1890; in Campbell, 339-370; Anna Howard Shaw, "The Fundamental Principle of a Republic" (1915), in Campbell, pp. 433-460.
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(17) October 21 - Thursday |
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "The Solitude of Self," 1892; in Campbell, pp. 371-384. |
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(18) October 26 - Tuesday |
Jane Addams, "Why Women Should Vote," 1915; Carrie Chapman Catt, "Do You Know?"; on-line at the Douglass Project, Northwestern University; Kraditor, chapter 8, pp. 219-248.
Carrie Chapman Catt c. 1914 |
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(19) October 28 - Thursday |
Read: Carrie Chapman Catt, "Presidential Address," 1902; "The Crisis," 1916; and "Address to the United States Congress," 1917, in Campbell, pp. 461-532; Kraditor, chapter 9, pp. 249-264 |
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(20) November 2 - Tuesday |
School Desegregation. "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." (Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, May 17, 1954).
Read Sitkoff, The Struggle for Civil Rights, 3-36; Eyes on the Prize, chapter 2, pp. 61-106. |
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(21) November 4 - Thursday |
National Communication Association meets in Chicago. No class meeting. |
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(22) November 9 - Tuesday |
Montgomery: "If we are wrong, justice is a lie." (Martin Luther King, Jr., Holt Street Baptist Church, December 5, 1955) Read Sitkoff, chapter 2, pp. 37-60; Eyes on the Prize, chapter 1, pp. 35-60.
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(23) November 11 - Thursday |
The Sit-in Movement: "We don't serve colored in here."
Read Sitkoff, chapter 3, pp. 61-87; chapter 4, 88-118; Eyes on the Prize, chapter 3, pp. 107-132. |
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(24) November 16 - Tuesday |
Birmingham and the March on Washington: "We are confronted primarily by a moral issue." (John F. Kennedy, June 11, 1963).
Read Sitkoff, chapter 5, pp. 118-154; Eyes on the Prize, chapter 4, pp. 133-165; Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream," available on-line from the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project at http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/Docs/march.html John F. Kennedy's speech of June 11, 1963 is available in an on-line audio file at http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/speeches.htm |
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(25) November 18 - Thursday |
The Right to Vote--Mississippi. " . . . we went around house-to-house, door-to-door . . ." (Robert Moses).
Robert Moses -- yearbook photo, Hamilton College, 1956
Fannie Lou Hamer at the Democratic National Convention, Atlantic City, 1964 Read Sitkoff, chapter 6, pp. 155-183; Eyes on the Prize, chapter 5, pp. 166-201. |
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(26) November 23 - Tuesday |
The Right to Vote--Selma. "We are moving to the land of freedom." (Martin Luther King, Jr., Selma, Alabama, March 25, 1965).
Read Eyes on the Prize, chapter 6, pp. 204-227; Lyndon B. Johnson, "We Shall Overcome," March 15, 1965. |
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November 25 - Thursday |
Thanksgiving. No classes. |
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(27) November 30 - Tuesday |
Malcolm.
Read Sitkoff, chapter 7, pp. 184-209; Eyes on the Prize, chapter 7, pp. 244-286.
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(28) December 2 - Thursday |
The Promised Land. "I may not get there with you. But I want you to know, tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land." (Martin Luther King, Jr., Memphis, Tennessee, April 3, 1968).
Read Eyes on the Prize, chapter 10, pp. 383-438. |
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(29) December 7 - Tuesday |
Equal Opportunity. "The position of the Negro today in America is the tragic but inevitable consequence of centuries of unequal treatment. Measured by any benchmark of comfort or achievement, meaningful equality remains a distant dream for the Negro." (Justice Thurgood Marshall, dissent in Regents of the University of California v. Allan Bakke, June 28, 1978).
Read Eyes on the Prize, chapter 13, pp. 591-655. |
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(30) December 9 - Thursday |
Back to the Movement. "Exercise the right to dream." (Jesse Jackson, Democratic National Convention, San Francisco, July 17, 1984).
Read Sitkoff, chapter 8, pp. 210-235; Eyes on the Prize, chapter 14, 656-722. |
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Monday, December 13 |
Final Exams begin. Our final exam will be given on Monday, 13 December, 6:50 - 8:40 p.m. in 309 Sparks Building.
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Required Textbooks
Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, ed. Man Cannot Speak for Her. Volume 2. New York: Praeger, 1989.
Carson, Clayborne; David J. Garrow; Gerald Gill, Vincent Harding; Darlene Clark Hine, eds. The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dover Books, 1995.
Kraditor, Aileen S. The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890-1920. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.
Lincoln, Abraham. Great Speeches. New York: Dover, 1991.
Sitkoff, Harvard. The Struggle for Black Equality: 1954-1992. Revised ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993.
Sojourner Truth, Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997.
Stewart, James. Holy Warriors:The Abolitionists and American Slavery. Revised edition. New York: Hill and Wang, 1996.
The Douglass Project
Several of the readings for this course are archived on-line at the Douglass
Project of Northwestern University. To get to those documents, click on
Douglass Project. 
Other Documentary Resources on-line
Law School, University of Oklahoma Check
here for copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and some
other important American documents.
Regent University School of Government
American Public Address, Speech Texts (Bernadette Mink, University of Arkansas)
Allyn and Bacon speech archive
Southern States Communication Association -- Rhetoric and Public Address Division
The History Channel -- speeches
Library of Congress -- American Memory project
National Archives and Records Administration -- NARA (you can also use this route to find your way to any of the presidential libraries)
Voices of the Civil Rights Era
Program in Presidential Rhetoric, Texas A&M University -- speech archive
Nineteenth Century Documents Project
Gifts of Speech at Sweet Briar College
Women and Social Movements in the United States at SUNY Binghamton -- a collection of documents in women's history, 1830-1930
George Washington University, Speech and Transcript Center
Locating Speeches -- at the Penn State Libraries
Film and Video Resources
Pattee Library is building a collection of videotapes for general circulation. The following are recommended viewing on topics related to this course (we'll add to it as we go along).
Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Amistad
Civil War. PBS documentary series by Ken Burns.
Eyes on the Prize. PBS. A fourteen-part series. Producer Henry Hampton.
Malcolm X
Young Mr. Lincoln
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Grades |
Grades will be based on class participation (both in-class and on the class listserv); papers, and a final exam.
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Papers |
20% each = 60% |
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Class Participation |
20% |
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20% |
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Attendance |
Attendance is expected. Readings are due on the date indicated in the syllabus, and students are expected to be ready to discuss them. Please bring to class the assigned readings for the day. Failure to attend will affect final grades.
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Participation |
Do your best to contribute productively to class discussion. But since not everyone will have a chance to participate in class discussion, you are asked to follow up class discussion by sending a constructive, brief discussion contribution by electronic mail to the class listserv within 24 hours after each class. You may, of course, contribute more frequently--for example, by raising questions for discussion before class, or by engaging with the comment of another student. Address these on-line discussion contributions to the class listserv at L-SPCOM475-1@LISTS.PSU.EDU
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Academic Integrity |
All work submitted for the course is assumed to be your own unless otherwise indicated. Violations of this standard will result in failure of the assignment and possibly in failure of the course or sanctions by University discipliinary authorities. You may of course discuss your work with other students, but all work that is quoted or paraphrased should be clearly identified with the citation systems described in the MLA Handbook. Please consult me if you are in doubt about how to handle these issues.
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Papers |
You are asked to submit three short essays, one each on the rhetoric of abolition, suffrage, and civil rights. For each paper, the assignment is to select a rhetorical document (speech, essay, pamphlet, or the like) and to prepare a 5-8 page paper in which you establish the context and significance of the document and provide a formal rhetorical analysis. Use the MLA Handbook as a general guide to style. If you have questions about choice of topic, style, or treatment, please consult with me during office hours or by e-mail. Essays are due on the following dates:
Abolition--23 September
Suffrage--28 October
Civil Rights--13 December
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Additional Readings |
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This syllabus may be accessed on the world wide web at http://www.personal.psu.edu/t3b
Click here to return to Tom Benson's home page
William Lloyd Garrison
