Rhetoric & Public Affairs Dec 2015

Gendered Geographies of Memory: Place, Violence, and Exigency at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Kristan Poirot

Abstract

Abstract Although scholars recognize the importance of recovery projects that aim to recenter women’s roles in black freedom struggles, when it comes to these memory practices, the “woman problem” of civil rights memory is more acknowledged than understood. This essay argues that memories of civil rights movements are mapped spatially and rhetorically to depict correlations among Jim Crow contexts and acts of black resistance. The relationship among these spatial and rhetorical configurations is termed the “rhetorical geography of memory.” Through an account of the rhetorical geography of memory of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, this essay posits that place, violence, and masculinity animate a relationship between exigency and response, producing a gendered landscape of memory that limits at the outset the conditions and possibilities for women’s emergence.

Journal
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Published
2015-12-01
DOI
10.14321/rhetpublaffa.18.4.0621
Open Access
Closed
Topics
archival research place and space

Citation Context

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