Overview

This study examines the relation between political action and political oratory, with special attention to how these were experienced in the African American community. It focuses on three special cases; Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. This work explores how presidential inaugural speeches reflect the overarching mindset of the government, and how, in the postmodern era, this mindset manifests the same sort of African American erasure that has existed since Middle Passage. In addition, I explore the rhetorical engagement black leaders use to respond to Passage. I also explore the rhetorical engagement black leaders use to respond to, prevent, or to circumvent erasure. This book examines presidential inaugural speeches, during the Civil Rights and Black Power era, from the Kennedy administration to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, to prove that, most times, this type of speech is little more than epideictic formality in regard to black interests, and, perhaps, the initial step in an administration's disregard for the concerns of African Americans - or the first indication that an administration is ensnared in a dilemma of catering solely to white American interests. Correspondingly, I explore the theory that African American leaders' speeches attempt to respond to Presidential inaugural addresses.

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... a moving, insightful, and incisive analysis of the rhetoric in presidential inaugural speeches and prominent African American leaders. (Prof. William Cowell Stanford University) [The author] shows how Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech influenced President Kennedy and how Malcom X's Message to the Grass Roots anticipates Johnson's inaugural address. (Prof. Lisa Brevard Walden University)

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