Rhetoric Review Oct 2016

Reframing Rhetorical Failure: Confession and Conversion in Sarah Patton Boyle’s<i>Desegregated Heart</i>

Elizabeth Ellis Miller University of Maryland, College Park

Abstract

Civil rights activist Sarah Patton Boyle initially encountered great difficulty when communicating about race and enacting civil rights resistance as a privileged white Southerner. This essay reveals how Boyle overcame this rhetorical failure by turning to the spiritual memoir and in so doing remade her career as a writer and a speaker. Through the concepts of confession and conversion inherent in this spiritual genre, Boyle successfully identified with white and black audiences who had previously ignored or criticized her, created a viable ethos, and delivered a sophisticated faith-based argument for social change.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2016-10-01
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2016.1214998
Open Access
Closed

Citation Context

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No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (5)

  1. Miller (2013)
    On Martin Luther King Jr. and the Landscape of Civil Rights Rhetoric
    Rhetoric & Public Affairs
  2. Shaver (2012)
    “No cross, no crown”: An Ethos of Presence in Margaret Prior’s Walks of Usefulness
    College English
  3. Zimmerelli (2012)
    “The Stereoscopic View of Truth”: The Feminist Theological Rhetoric of Frances …
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  4. McComiskey (2010)
    Laws, Works, and the End of Days: Rhetorics of Identification, Distinction, and…
    Rhetoric Review
  5. Jordan (2005)
    Dell Hymes, Kenneth Burke's "Identification," and the Birth of Sociolinguistics
    Rhetoric Review
Also cites 3 works outside this index ↓
  1. Burke Kenneth. (1969)
    A Rhetoric of Motives
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  2. hooks bell (2008)
    Belonging: A Culture of Place
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  3. Rickert Thomas. (2007)
    Acts of Enjoyment: Rhetoric, Zizek, and the Return of the Subject
     ↗
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