Abstract

This essay addresses the rhetorical constitution of identity. Analyzing the rhetoric of Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple of America, I suggest these discourses rhetorically transformed black Americans’ identity to a people resignified as a unique racial and religious community—Moorish Americans. My analysis extends the concept of “minor rhetoric” by illustrating how resistant identities can be constituted. The analysis posits Ali’s discourse as a minor rhetoric of black nationalism capable of stuttering the language of the larger white culture as well as other protest rhetorics.

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