Rhetorical vision of equality: Analysis of the rhetoric of the southern black press during reconstruction

Abstract

The present study examines the rhetorical vision of equality by southern black journalists during Reconstruction. Their vision illuminates key areas of needs, themes, heroes or villains which are shared by most blacks who believed equal rights essential for full participation in a society reluctant to share them. The black press, then, puts forth a vision significantly different from ones developed in most southern papers, and advances one more atuned with the changing views of blacks during Reconstruction.