![\"MLK](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/543\/2017\/10\/MLK-statue.jpg\")
<\/a>In the Spring of 2017, I taught a graduate seminar that focused on the rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr. during the last year of his life. More specifically, we examined King within the African American prophetic tradition and placed special emphasis on his prophetic pessimism<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn this first panel, students presented versions of their final papers in the class for the Graduate Association of African American History Conference held at the University of Memphis. The title of this panel was From Riverside to the River City: The Prophetic Pessimism of Martin Luther King<\/em><\/p>\n Panelists:<\/p>\n Thomas M. Fuerst<\/strong>:<\/p>\n \u201cKing\u2019s Kitchen Calling: The Rhetorical Trajectory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s Kitchen Table Experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Abstract<\/strong>:<\/p>\n This paper traces the rhetorical trajectory between the first and final accounts of Dr. King\u2019s kitchen table experience: the first is from his 1958 book, Stride Toward Freedom, and the final from his 1967 sermon, \u201cWhy Did Jesus Call a Man a Fool?\u201d In this paper, I compare and contrast these accounts, nearly ten years apart, to demonstrate how King utilizes the kitchen table story in an etiological way: The sermonic version of the narrative tells us more about King\u2019s disposition and experiences in 1967 than it does about his disposition and experiences during the actual historical events.<\/p>\n Jonathan Smith<\/strong>:<\/p>\n \u201cSynecdoche, Ideology, and Enduring Struggle in Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s Speech, \u2018Honoring Dr. DuBois\u2019\u201d*Second Place in the Memphis State Eight Top Paper Prize Abstract<\/strong>:<\/p>\n In the course of this essay, I perform an ideological criticism of King\u2019s speech \u201cHonoring Dr. Du Bois\u201d and argue that it served a dual function: (1) it provided a laudable eulogy for Dr. Du Bois, and (2) it used Du Bois\u2019 narrative as a vehicle to illustrate King\u2019s current ideology in 1968 America. In prior years, King\u2019s rhetoric seemed to express optimism and a vision for achievable progress and change; however, \u201cHonoring Dr. Du Bois\u201d demonstrates a shifting, more pessimistic ideology regarding the prospects for change.<\/p>\n Anthony Jerome Stone Jr<\/strong>.:<\/p>\n \u201cMartin Luther King Jr., Was NOT America\u2019s Negro: The Forgotten Rhetoric of MLK: An Analysis\u201d<\/p>\n Abstract<\/strong>:<\/p>\n In this essay, I examine the ways in which King\u2019s rhetoric in the last year of his life was considered radical to most of his contemporaries. I also hold that while King is celebrated today for his seemingly or supposed color-blind, equality based rhetoric, he, in fact, would be just as radical to the philosophies of mainstream culture today. In agreement with Anthony Cook (1990), I believe that in the last year of his life King began a campaign against hegemonic forces and became committed to the reconstruction human life based on ideals such as equality and peace, based on Christian teachings. (In examining King\u2019s last year, I shall chronicle several of his last speeches in which he speaks out against (the fallacies of) white hegemony\u2014the political elitism and institutional racism of America and the Johnson administration and foreign policy; violence and war (the war in Vietnam), and the redistribution of economic resources\u2014poverty and the treatment of workers. As a key component of these speeches, King focuses much more on race than modern fans would have imagined.<\/p>\n Commentator: Dr. Andre E. Johnson, University of Memphis<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n