Radical Advocate
Radical Advocate
Ida B. Wells and the Road to Race and Gender Justice
Pinpoints the persuasive strategies that typified Wells’s efforts to shape broader cultural conversations concerning the causes of racial, social, and gender inequity
Born into the brutal reality of slavery, Ida B. Wells rose to become an audacious journalist, teacher, and activist for racial and gender justice. In Radical Advocate, Mary E. Triece examines the rhetorical strategies employed by Wells to challenge deeply rooted systems of oppression, strategies that remain powerful and relevant today.
Triece introduces the concept of “radical embodied advocacy” to give an account of Wells’s unique position as a Black woman whose personal encounters with white violence were palpable, experienced physically and mentally. White men lynched Wells’s friends and threatened her own life, forcing her into exile after destroying the very press on which she wrote and edited. From this perspective, Wells understood lynching as linked to white economic and political control. Through a close analysis of Wells’s speeches, writings, and journalism, Triece reveals how Wells pioneered a form of “intersectional journalism” that centered the voices of those marginalized by race, gender, and class.
By examining Wells’s work through the lens of philosophy, rhetoric, and Black feminism, Triece underscores the epistemic challenges faced by marginalized advocates and the importance of their perspectives in shaping social change. Radical Advocate ultimately positions Wells as a prophetic figure whose insights into the systemic nature of racism remain profoundly relevant in today’s world.
[Radical Advocate] is carefully researched, providing thorough historical context for Wells as an activist and rhetor, and the assertions are supported with compelling textual evidence drawn from Wells’s speeches, essays, and pamphlets.' —Robert E. Terrill, author of Double-Consciousness and the Rhetoric of Barack Obama: The Price and Promise of Citizenship
This is a well-written and timely book! Radical Advocate makes an important contribution not only by diving into Wells’s rhetoric, but by carefully placing Wells in conversation with contemporary theorists of race, from scholars like Joe Feagin to bell hooks and beyond.' —Tasha N. Dubriwny, author of The Vulnerable Empowered Woman: Feminism, Postfeminism, and Women’s Health
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Ida B. Wells and Radical Embodied Advocacy
Chapter 1: Radical Roots
Chapter 2: Communicating Systemic Racism
Chapter 3: Communicating Intersectionality
Chapter 4: Ida B. Wells's Impact on Deliberative and Public Advocacy Rhetoric
Conclusion: Implications for the Future of Rhetorical Studies and Radical Advocacy
Notes
Bibliography
Feminist Connections
Rhetoric and Activism across Time, Space, and Place
Edited by Katherine Fredlund, Kerri Hauman, and Jessica Ouellette; Foreword by Tarez Samra Graban; Afterword by Kristine L. Blair
Clotilda
The History and Archaeology of the Last Slave Ship
By James P. Delgado, Deborah E. Marx, Kyle Lent, Joseph Grinnan, and Alexander DeCaro; Foreword by Lisa D. Jones and Stacye Hathorn
