Call for Papers: Race, Religion, and Black Lives Matter

June 15, 2017 By blog admin

Race, Religion, and Black Lives Matter: Essays on a Moment and a Movement Edited by Christopher Cameron and Phillip Luke Sinitiere The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement began in 2013 the moment a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman of Trayvon Martin’s murder. Yet, the movement symbolizes far more than the moment of Martin’s death. It inaugurated a new moment of opposition and insurgency against white supremacy’s expansive obscenities, most notably against the backdrop of the Obama era, the tenure... Read more

I’m Not Racist; I’m Nostalgic for Racial Terror

June 6, 2017 By Guest Contributor

by George F. (Guy) McHendry Jr. First published at Citizen Critics. We thank the editors for allowing us to cross post this piece. For over a century a 16.5-foot-tall statue of Robert E. Lee towered over the city of New Orleans, standing as a symbol of the Confederate insurrection and various campaigns of racial terror throughout American history (slavery, Reconstruction, segregation, redlining, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration to name a few). This month the statue of Lee, and other Confederate markers,... Read more

Call for Papers: American Society for the History of Rhetoric

June 5, 2017 By blog admin

The American Society for the History of Rhetoric (ASHR) Interest Group of the Southern States Communication Association (SSCA) invites submissions for the 2018 convention in Nashville, Tennessee. While we always welcome submissions concerning the history of rhetoric broadly, for the 2018 convention we especially encourage work relating to 1) the robust history of the city of Nashville and the state of Tennessee, 2) the role of rhetoric, race, and religion 3) the rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement—especially work commemorating... Read more

The Evil of Being Silent

May 25, 2017 By Guest Contributor

by Michael Bowe Dietrich Bonheoffer is often (mis) attributed for saying, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Whether or not he said this, it still never ceases to amaze me the things we put up with now, as if they are common every day occurrences. There seems to be a complete ignorance of prejudice. Instead, of addressing these issues,... Read more

Poverty Stinks!

May 24, 2017 By Guest Contributor

by Peter Gathje Poverty stinks, literally and metaphorically. Being in poverty and on the streets doubly stinks. A shower and a change of clothes helps with the literal stench. For a day or so, the stench of homelessness and poverty are kept at bay. A shower, followed by putting on freshly laundered clothing, and some deodorant, is a small but significant act of resistance. Still, sleeping in one’s clothes, not having a change of clothes, and not having access to... Read more

God, Lynching and the Role of Faith

May 22, 2017 By Andre E. Johnson

On May 21, 2017, the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, in commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of the Lynching of Ell Persons conducted a dedication of a marker along with an Interfaith Prayer Ceremony. Leading up to the commemoration, R3 published several posts that spoke about the horrific lynching of Ell Persons in particular but also posts about lynching and racialized violence more broadly. We link these posts below. 1. The Lynching of Ell Persons On March 23, 2017,... Read more

Trump and Moral Authority

May 22, 2017 By Guest Contributor

by Matthew Boedy This first appeared on the Citizen Critic’s blog. We thank the editors for allowing us to cross post this piece. Recently “moral authority” has become part of the debate over the effectiveness of the Trump presidency. It is important to understand how this concept works beyond presidential politics. It can impact more broadly how we interact with each other. First, the political. Former Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration Robert Reich wrote in April that “the moral authority... Read more

The Lynching of Ell Persons

May 21, 2017 By Andre E. Johnson

On March 23, 2017, I gave a speech at Central High School in Memphis, Tennessee. In the speech below, I talked about the lynching of Ell Persons in Memphis, Tennessee on May 22, 1917. The speech was in conjunction with the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis; “a growing network of organizations and congregations of faith in order to acknowledge our shared history of racial violence and our ongoing resolve for racial justice and racial healing.” On May 21, 2017, the... Read more

“Is this Hell”: The Mass Murder of Blacks During (Post) Reconstruction

May 15, 2017 By Andre E. Johnson

Below is a presentation I gave on February 16, 2017 at the Violence and Memory: Memorializing Historical Traumas from the Holocaust to the Jim Crow South symposium at the University of Memphis. In the presentation, I offered a rhetorical history and trajectory of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner’s rhetoric in chronicling, describing and detailing racialized violence against African Americans. Starting in the early days of Reconstruction and lasting throughout his life, through his many editorials, letters, speeches, interviews and essays, Turner... Read more

10 Rules for Addressing Panhandlers

May 10, 2017 By Guest Contributor

Rule No. 1: Always treat the person with respect. Read more