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4. Organs of Propaganda
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Organs of Propaganda Rhetorical Education and the Black Press Until this past year I was one among those who believed the condition of the masses gave large excuse for the humiliations and proscriptions under which we labored; that when wealth, education and character became more general among us, the cause being removed the effect would cease, and justice be accorded to all alike. I shared the general belief that good newspapers entering regularly the homes of our people in every state could do more to bring about this result than any agency. Preaching the doctrine of self-help, thrift and economy every week, they would be the teachers to those who had been deprived of school advantages, yet were making history every day—and train to think for themselves our mental children of a larger growth. —Ida B. Wells, 1893 The first half of the nineteenth century in America has been characterized as “oratorical,” in that the ideals of responsible citizenship were conveyed largely through the public speaker. The medium of print was employed in part to reproduce and comment on the oral performance. Gregory Clark and S. Michael Halloran observe that “the orator had a central cultural role: to articulate a public moral consensus and bring it to bear on particular issues through forms of discourse—spoken or written—that were more or less classical.” They were classical in that they were based on the assumption that this discourse established a public, consensual moral authority. The authors explain that over the course of the century, this kind of oratorical culture was transformed into one based on the authority of the individual and then on the authority of the expert; they argue that oratory moved away from a deliberative to an epideictic Organs of Propaganda or entertainment purpose. Clark and Halloran recognize, nonetheless, that this early-century participatory democracy was limited primarily to white males. As I reiterate throughout this volume, African American rhetoric owes much—but not all—of its development to this exclusion, since as Clark and Halloran also point out, “rhetorics are always a response to ‘cultural forces.’”1 The challenges African Americans faced sustained deliberative rhetoric for much of the century, although we have in the pages of the black press references to performative rhetoric in the activities of the early literary societies, for example, the elocutionary recitations. But even these performances were often understood to serve a deliberative purpose, as, for example, in the case of Mary Webb’s performance of The Christian Slave—Harriet Beecher Stowe’s dramatization of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—discussed later in this chapter. An advertisement for New York Central College placed special emphasis on the fact that in that “day of Public Speaking,” the curriculum included a “rhetorical class with daily exercises in Extemporaneous Speaking.”2 People were accustomed to hearing lengthy speeches in religious, deliberative, and judicial spaces; they had, as a result, developed a critical ear for rhetoric that was effective and for rhetoric that failed. It is not surprising, then, that the pages of black periodicals are filled with references to lectures, rhetorical exercises, speeches, and eloquence in general. The black press offered multiple opportunities for rhetorical education. For the editorial staff, agents, and correspondents, it provided on-the-job training in rhetoric, but the press also directly and indirectly educated readers in sound rhetorical principles. I use the term “black press” in this chapter to refer to periodical literature edited or published by African Americans, although the readership, backing, and distribution mechanisms varied. As journalist Ida B. Wells observed, along with disseminating information, journalists believed their role was to instruct readers and hearers in how to receive, interpret, and respond to that information.3 Further, these periodicals carried much more than current events; they carried self-improvement advice and critiques of various kinds of rhetorical performances. After considering some views on the function of newspapers from the perspectives of journalists Frederick Douglass and Wells, who represent over sixty years of newspaper work, I explore the extent to which the black press functioned as a site of rhetorical education. Principles from rhetorical theorist Hugh Blair’s Lecture 34, “Means of Improving in Eloquence,” provide a frame for identifying sites. As the five means, he lists (1) development of character or moral improvement; (2) accumulation of a storehouse of knowledge (“a Liberal education ”); (3) continuous, habitual, diligent effort; (4) emulation of good models, not for “Slavish Imitation” but for enlightenment; and (5) consistent practice in Organs of...