Citizenship as Salvation: The 1963 Mississippi Freedom Vote

Advances in the History of Rhetoric Jan 2009

Citizenship as Salvation: The 1963 Mississippi Freedom Vote

William H. Lawson

Abstract

Abstract This essay is an attempt at primary resource recovery to inform an under-studied moment from the Civil Rights Movement—the 1963 Mississippi Freedom Vote. Analysis of these primary texts reveals how the campaign used religious narratives and discourse to create political efficacy and agency among disenfranchised voters in Mississippi. It is this rhetorical transformation that holds the key to understanding how and why over 80,000 blacks who had never before participated in any sustained and organized political campaign chose to do so in the fall of 1963. Exploring these texts and events with a nuanced eye for religious and political discourse reveals how a rhetorical transformation from religious believers to political agents came about, and why it was successful in an overshadowed moment from the Civil Rights Movement.

Journal: Advances in the History of Rhetoric
Published: 2009-01-01
DOI: 10.1080/15362426.2009.10597384
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Topics: archival research

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