[Introduction] "Hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. [...] Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency." - Rebecca Solnit In 2018, Cheryl Glenn wrote, "The work of feminist rhetorical historiography is far from done; in fact, it has just begun-and it is anchored in hope." Following Glenn, we explore hope in this cluster as a methodological imperative in the archives. Informed by theorists Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Rebecca Solnit, and Cornel West, the writers in this Cluster Conversation envision hope as a radical orientation toward building new worlds and a willingness to do the work to make those worlds possible. Following the models of Jacqueline Jones Royster, Charles Morris, Terese Guinsatao Monberg, and others, we see archives and archival methods as a particularly valuable part of doing such work. As Linda Tuhiwai Smith argues in Decolonizing Methodologies, "To hold alternative histories is to hold alternative knowledges. The pedagogical implication of this access to alternative knowledges is that they can form the basis of alternative ways of doing things" (36). Archives and archival methods are vital to creating such alternative histories and knowledges.

This article situates the practice of composing CCCC Accessibility Guides in critical access studies (Hamraie) and introduces the concept of critical access literacies. I argue that CCCC access guides cultivate critical access literacies amongst the guide writers and disabled and nondisabled conference participants, empowering them to better observe access barriers and advocate for expansive access. To make this argument, I triangulate interviews I conducted with the authors of the first six years of the guides (2011-2016) with textual analysis of the guides themselves. The interviews illustrate how the guide’s early authors re-imagined access to include expansive and intersectional access needs.

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Sylvia Rivera is a critical figure in queer and activist rhetorical history. At the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally in 1973, Rivera engaged in parrhesia to push the movement to include and amplify the voices and needs of the most vulnerable members of the gay community: drag queens, homeless youth, gay inmates in prison and jail, and transgender people. Her delivery, including voice, gesture, and interaction with the audience, emphasizes the truthfulness, frankness, and criticism of her truth. By analyzing Rivera’s delivery of parrhesia, this article draws attention to the body’s role in speaking the truth as an activist rhetorical act.