Building a “Dwelling Place” for Justice: Ethos Reinvention in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Where Do We Go from Here?”

Rhetoric & Public Affairs Mar 2017

Building a “Dwelling Place” for Justice: Ethos Reinvention in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Where Do We Go from Here?”

Jansen B. Werner

Abstract

Abstract This essay examines Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 speech “Where Do We Go from Here?” Delivered at the 11th annual convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the speech addressed the contentious racial politics that permeated the post–Voting Rights landscape. I argue that the speech constituted King’s call for the SCLC to reinvent its ethos—both its “character” and its “dwelling place.” In issuing this call, King cultivated new possibilities for the conceptualization and practice of social justice activism.

Journal: Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Published: 2017-03-01
DOI: 10.14321/rhetpublaffa.20.1.0109
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multilingual writers place and space argument

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