The humblest may stand forth
Subtitle: rhetoric, empowerment, and abolition
By: Jacqueline Bacon.
Series: Studies in rhetoric/communication
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: [Columbia]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 291
Subjects: Speeches, addresses, etc., American -- African American authors -- History and criticism.; Speeches, addresses, etc., American -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Rhetoric -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Power (Social sciences) -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Women and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Antislavery movements -- United States -- History.; English language -- United States -- Rhetoric.; African American women -- Intellectual life.; African American women abolitionists.; Women abolitionists -- United States.; African American women in literature.; African American abolitionists.
Description: "Offering an alternative account of the abolitionist movement, The Humblest May Stand Forth analyzes the rhetoric of African Americans and white females involved in the crusade against slavery and examines the particular strategies they chose to advocate despite their positions at the periphery of the movement. Jacqueline Bacon explores how these activists, rather than surrender to a society intent on keeping them quiet, identified and employed rhetorical strategies that would advance their message.

Bacon explores the sometimes unconventional methods, organizations, and media they created to fight slavery on their own terms.".

"Drawing on such primary sources as letters, editorials, proslavery and antislavery tracts, and domestic manuals, Bacon probes antebellum notions of race and gender and the ways that these conceptions influenced the abolitionists' arguments. She suggests that abolitionists marginalized by race and gender developed a diverse, empowering, and theoretically complex array of rhetorical strategies that must be analyzed on their own terms."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [257]-275) and index.
Table of contents: title: Slavery and silence, freedom and rhetoric; title: Recovering the voices of marginalized abolitionists; title: Too long have others spoken for us : the antislavery rhetoric of African American men; title: If I was a man, how I would lecture! : White women rhetors in the abolition movement; title: What if I am a woman? : the rhetoric of African American female abolitionists; title: Rhetoric and Empowerment : The marginalized abolitionists and beyond.