African American Literacies
Introduction: don't we still have to prove our humanity? 1. Literacy, language, composition, rhetoric and (not) the African American student: sick and tired of being sick and tired 2. the literacies of African American-centered rhetoric and composition: freestylin' or lookin' for a style that's free 3. "To protect and serve": African American female literacies 4. African American-centered rhetoric, composition, and literacy: theory and research 5. Composition in a fifth key: rhetorics and discourses in an African American-centered writing classroom 6. Dukin' it out with "the powers that be": centering African American-centered studies and students in the traditional curriculum
Black Women Imagining and Realizing Liberated Futures
ABSTRACT In the summer of 1881, a group of Black women formed The Washing Society of Atlanta by deploying extraorganizational technical communication to collectively bargain for better working conditions and wages. In this article, we illuminate the ways that Black women operated in a world dominated by an established order of racial hierarchy. We argue that the Washerwomen manifested a particular form of Black technical communication rooted in agency and advocacy.
A Critique of the Literature on Ebonics
In recent years much attention has been focused upon the language behavior of Black Americans. This activity was generated mainly from a series of legislative acts beginning in 1954. Subsequent to the legislated desegregation of the public schools, it was reported that Black children were less able to perform academically than their white peers. This lesser performance was attributed in large part to the Afro-American children's possessing linguistic deficits or different linguistic schemata. If this alleged difficulty was one of deficiency, then mediation would, of course, be in order. Such thinking was seen in vast government programs-sponsored by a number of agencies such as the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and the Office of Child Development (OCD). If the alleged difficulty was one of language differences then the efforts should be made, if followed, to examine this assumed different language and present the findings so that the institutions, particularly educational institutions, could communicate more effectively with those with the alleged difficulty or difference. In the 1960s, then, many articles and books were printed which addressed the language "difficulty" of Black people.