Loyola Bird 02/10/09
English 540
With Pen and Voice exercise
The text, With Pen and Voice brings an array of African American women rhetors, speakers, and writers to light, all of whom share their ideas through their own stylistic and rhetorical voice regarding anti-slavery efforts. It is this voice which adds a sense of liberation, dignity, and passion for various issues which confronted all African American people during the 19th century. The first person I chose to examine was Ida B. Wells, a rhetor/writer concerning the horrendous lynchings which took place in the late 1800's and early 1900's. I also have examined the works by Fannie Barrier Williams, a woman who shares similar ideals about this same group of people, but focuses more on the qualities and/or virtues needed by African American women in order to belong and participate equally.
Abolition rhetoric can be considered a major topoi for Ida B. Wells. She was concerned about African American women’s issues, inparticular their rights as women, but her strong and unabashed rhetorical style, was most evident in her speeches on the tragedies associated with the lynchings of many African Americans. Most of the time, these lynchings were never justified by the legal system in place, and Wells was not afraid to tell of these incidents to an open audience. Through her chosen media of speeches and newspaper writings, Wells incorporated an array of rhetorical devices to not only persuade her audiences, but perhaps in effort to motivate realistic and lawful action to help stop the lynchings. Inparticular, she can be viewed as using her public authority, that is her position as a newspaper editor, to relate the horrid details associated with many of these lynchings in her writings and speeches. Well’s audiences are presented with experiences that not only affect their sense of identity, community, and values, but are asked to take action.
The descriptions of Fannie Barrier Williams, by Editor Shirley Wilson Logan, provide an intricate view into the personal nature of Williams. She obviously was well-liked in her social circles and other places, and in addition, her education and upbringing reflect a woman who was respected for her thoughts and efforts to publicize the positive and innate qualities of African American women, which she felt deserved recognition through various social and organizational means. Other rhetorical topoi which factor in Williams’ views include African American womens’ rights, equality, agency through educational means, and even more interestingly, the search for a sense of altruism amongst these women.
Although Williams’ women’s interests are inter-related, it is interesting to see how she uses the rhetorical device of self-help in helping women acquire agency through educational means. Throughout her speech, she stresses what education has done and can do for these women. In Bacon’s text, this self-help device is described as “if African Americans aspire to the same accomplishments as whites, they will free themselves from positions of service to whites in society” (Bacon, 172). Williams promotes this same view - “It is thus seen that our women have the same spirit and mettle that characterize the best of American women. Everywhere they are following in the tracks of those women who are swiftest in the race for higher knowledge” (Logan, 109). By not only becoming aware of each inner quality such as compassion, loyalty, trust, and many more, through the means of education, these women were just as capable as the other women in society.
As with the other women mentioned in Logan’s text, Wells and Williams both present a unique rhetorical style and presentation with respect to their individual interests. Both held strong values such as the importance of education and the ability to motivate through voice in an effort to induce action on the part of their audiences. Through educational, social/public, and civic spheres, these women were afforded valuable opportunities to positively alter the marginalized voice.