Richard J. Jensen

Ethnic heritage as rhetorical legacy: the plan of Delano

The Plan of Delano was a powerful persuasive document in the interrelated Chicano and farmworkers’ movements of the 1960s and 1970s. To support the thesis that this Plans persuasive qualities are illuminated best from the perspective of its own ethnic legacy, this essay attempts to demonstrate that the Plans Mexican‐originated generic form and Mexican‐American cultural context reveal sources of its rhetorical power and meaning. These findings provide several implications for the rhetorical criticism of ethnic discourse.

Working in ''Quiet Places'': The Community Organizing Rhetoric of Robert Parris Moses

This paper argues that communication scholars should broaden their areas of study by focusing on the community organizing tradition as well as the community mobilizing tradition. In the past scholars have focused on studies of individuals such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who epitomize the community mobilizing tradition. This study focuses on Robert Parris Moses and two movements which he has led. Mosess leadership epitomizes the community organizing tradition. His movements and discourse are off ered as alternatives to the community mobilizing tradition.This paper argues that communication scholars should broaden their areas of study by focusing on the community organizing tradition as well as the community mobilizing tradition. In the past scholars have focused on studies of individuals such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who epitomize the community mobilizing tradition. This study focuses on Robert Parris Moses and two movements which he has led. Mosess leadership epitomizes the community organizing tradition. His movements and discourse are off ered as alternatives to the community mobilizing tradition.

Your Tools are Really the People: The Rhetoric of Robert Parris Moses.

The highly intellectual, ethereally quiet, and always enigmatic Robert Parris Moses acquired legendary status as a civil rights leader in the first half of the 1960s. Although he successfully addressed African‐American listeners in Mississippi and college audiences at elite national universities, prominent observers viewed him as anti‐rhetorical and unskilled in oratory. By analyzing Mosess substantive message, personal persona, and second persona as synergistic and reciprocal elements of reconstitutive identification, and by understanding his rhetorical goals and. the strategies he developed to reach those goals, we attempt to illuminate the rhetorical dynamics of his discourse. Application of our critical method elevates Moses into the pantheon of African‐American civil rights orators of the 1960s and may capture the power of other speakers whose messages seek to redefine the character of their audiences.

Martyrs for a just cause: The eulogies of Cesar Chavez

During his years as president of the United Farm Workers (UFW), Cesar Chavez delivered five eulogies for individuals who were killed while engaged in union activities. This paper argues that these “Accidental Martyrs” were rhetorically created by Chavez to serve as symbols for the unions cause. The eulogies helped Chavez to build a union community and to move the UFWs members to accept particular beliefs and to undertake specific acts. He also used the martyrs as models in his later speeches.

Reies Lopez Tijerina's “the land grant question”: Creating history through metaphors

Well versed in the history of Mexican, Spanish, and United States land grants, Chicano activist Reies Lopez Tijerina conducted a rhetorical campaign centered in New Mexico in the 1960s. This study analyzes Tijerinas speech, “The Land Grant Question,” presented on November 26, 1967, at the University of Colorado, as an example of interethnic communication and for its use of metaphors in public discourse to create a cultural memory. This examination focuses on the speechs approach to historical relations between Chicano and Anglo culture, and its stylistic aspects.

From Yippie to Yuppie: Jerry Rubin as rhetorical Icon

Jerry Rubin was a public figure in the United States for three decades. This paper illustrates how Rubin was able to become a celebrity during his radical years and then maintain his image in the media by evolving through three distinct stages over a thirty‐year period. In order to maintain his image Rubin became a cultural icon in each stage of his life.

From Company Doctors to Managed Care: The United Mine Workers' Noble Experiment.

black workers the worst jobs (before the union gained the strength to reverse such policies). Yet the underlying irony, recognized by many of those interviewed, is that those very same jobs provided a modicum of security and the possibility of intergenerational mobility for the relatively few black Americans who possessed them. Even more, the racist personnel policies that funneled black workers to the onerous and dangerous jobs on the killing floor actually made black workers indispensable to production, since without them the whole process would have stalled. A second theme, evident in comparing the accounts of the different locals, is the contrast between the initial organizing campaigns of fifty or more years ago and the more somber impact of plant closings and restructurings on workers lives in recent decades. But perhaps the most important themes that emerge from these interviews concern race-its political meaning within the union and its cultural meaning for African-American workers themselves. Starting in the 1930s, the union leadership was politically committed to the aggressive pursuit of racial equality within the industry and within the union. In contrast to other progressive unions, such as the United Auto Workers (UAW), the UPWA actively challenged employers to change their prejudicial policies. Yet, it was widely known within the union that many white members at best tolerated the stance of union leaders, both black and white. The contrast between the Kansas City and Omaha experiences illuminates that dynamic. The Kansas City local, with a strong and vocal black leadership and rank and file, was able to pointedly address racial issues at work and within the union, and to draw the local into broader civil rights struggles as well. In Omaha, where blacks did not constitute a critical mass within the local, there was far less civil rights activity. In short, a strong presence of African-Americans as local leaders and members drew significant numbers of hesitant whites into a broader understanding of their role as unionists, citizens, and human beings, to the benefit of all. It is of more than passing interest to note that the UAW, which actively resisted bringing blacks into leadership positions until rather late and which viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility, black efforts to organize caucuses within the union, was rarely able to implement on the shop floor the progressive positions the national leadership formally pronounced. The interviews also reveal the cultural complexity of these black unionists lives. While a few were primarily motivated by political concerns, the majority came to their activism through a variety of traditions grounded in the African-American experience. From the church, the fraternal orders, the womens clubs, the NAACP, Malcolm X commemorative associations, and a host of other voluntary organizations-largely unknown to white Americansthat crosshatched black America, these activists drew their inspiration, honed their organizational skills, and formed their personal and public identities. These overlapping organizational commitments brought many black workers into the union movement once racial barriers to membership had been removed. Equally important, these same commitments grounded the consequent union identity in the life of the broader black community. That interplay is a tale of considerable significance that these interviews help clarify. In these and other ways, Meatpackers is an interesting and useful book. For scholars looking to follow up on some of these themes, the authors have helped in two additional ways. First, they have included a finding guide to the entire collection of their oral interviews, housed at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison. Second, each author within the past year has published a monograph on the UPWA, the industry, and the experience of race. If these books explore in greater detail the themes suggested in this sample of the interviews, then our understanding of the history of these issues will be even more fully developed.