Abstract

AbstractThis essay examines Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s campaign for President John F. Kennedy to issue a second emancipation proclamation, which involved a series of public speeches delivered across the nation from 1961 through 1963 as well as a 60-page Appeal memorandum composed for Kennedy by Southern Christian Leadership Conference lawyers. King challenged Kennedy’s conservative, accommodating understanding of prudence by harnessing the inventional resources of Civil War centennial commemoration, folding together the past and present to offer a vision of audacious presidential leadership. Examination of this historical moment provides insight into how commemoration creates kairotic opportunities for advocates of social change to renegotiate prudence and call forth new, bolder forms of political action.

Journal
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Published
2021-09-01
DOI
10.14321/rhetpublaffa.24.3.0447
Open Access
Closed
Topics

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Cites in this index (3)

  1. Rhetoric & Public Affairs
  2. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  3. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Also cites 13 works outside this index ↓
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  3. 16. Robert Hariman, "Theory without Modernity," in Prudence: Classical Virtue, Postmodern Practice, ed. Rober…
  4. 18. Robert E. Terrill, “Protest, Prophecy, and Prudence in the Rhetoric of Malcolm X,” Rhetoric & Public Affa…
  5. 19. Kirt H. Wilson, “The Contested Space of Prudence in the 1874–1875 Civil Rights Debate,” Quarterly Journal…
  6. 20. James Jasinski, “Idioms of Prudence in Three Antebellum Controversies: Revolution, Constitution, and Slav…
  7. 23. Brian Amsden, “Democratic Prudence and the Youth Suffrage Debate,” Argumentation and Advocacy 48 (Summer …
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  9. 26. Svilen Veselinov Trifonov, “Performing Prudence: Barack Obama’s Defense of NSA Surveillance Programs,” Ad…
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  12. 54. Robert Cook, “(Un)furl That Banner: The Response of White Southerners to the Civil War Centennial of 1961…
  13. 107. John M. Murphy, John F. Kennedy and the Liberal Persuasion (East Lansing: Michigan State University Pres…
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