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PURDUE UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL
Thesis/Dissertation Acceptance

This is to certify that the thesis/dissertation prepared

By Theon Edward Hill

Entitled
In Search of the Promised Land: Tracing the Evolution of the Exodus Narrative in African
American Rhetoric

Doctor of Philosophy
For the degree of

Is approved by the final examining committee:

Joshua E. Boyd Cornel West
Chair
Sam McCormick

Beverly Davenport Sypher

Stacey Connaughton

To the best of my knowledge and as understood by the student in the Research Integrity and
Copyright Disclaimer (Graduate School Form 20), this thesis/dissertation adheres to the provisions of
Purdue University’s “Policy on Integrity in Research” and the use of copyrighted material.

Joshua E. Boyd
Approved by Major Professor(s): ____________________________________
____________________________________

Approved by: Stacey Connaughton 04/17/2013

Head of the Graduate Program Date
IN SEARCH OF THE PROMISED LAND: TRACING THE EVOLUTION OF THE
EXODUS
NARRATIVE IN AFRICAN AMERICAN RHETORIC

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Faculty

of

Purdue University

by

Theon Edward Hill

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

May 2013

Purdue University

West Lafayette, Indiana

 UMI Number: 3591246

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 ii

For my Mother and Father, Charlotte & Kendall Hill,

Your Christ-like example, unconditional love, and constant sacrifice made this possible.

To my siblings, Donna and Kyle, your support carried me all the way.

To Jeanette, Sherman, and Sherwin Howard: I love you and am thankful for you.

To Amy, you have been the most wonderful and supportive girlfriend I could’ve asked
for.

To Josh, my friend, mentor, advisor, and brother in Christ, I will miss working with you.

To Sam, thank you for making me feel welcome at Purdue.

To Beverly, thank you for sacrificing in order to make me successful.

To Stacey, thank you for your constant encouragement.

To Cornel, thank you for teaching me what it means to be prophetic.

To all my family, friends, teachers, coaches, and mentors who have been a part of this
journey:

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you”

Philippians 1:3
 iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vii

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1
1.1 Dissertation Preview .......................................................................................... 10
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW & METHODOLOGY ................................ 14
2.1 Metaphor Criticism ............................................................................................ 15
2.1.1 Root Metaphors........................................................................................... 17
2.1.2 Archetypal Metaphors ................................................................................. 18
2.1.3 The Evolution of Metaphors ....................................................................... 19
2.2 Constitutive Rhetoric.......................................................................................... 20
2.2.1 Constitutive Rhetoric: Ideological effects. ................................................. 21
2.2.2 Constitutive Rhetoric: Tensions and Conflicts. .......................................... 24
2.3 The Prophetic Tradition ..................................................................................... 25
2.3.1 The Foundations of the Prophetic Tradition ............................................... 25
2.3.2 Defining the prophetic tradition .................................................................. 25
2.3.3 The Current Status of the Prophetic Tradition ............................................ 28
2.3.4 The Prophetic Tradition and Rhetorical Studies ......................................... 29
2.4 Methods .............................................................................................................. 34
2.4.1 Artifacts for Analysis .................................................................................. 35
2.4.2 Metaphor criticism ...................................................................................... 37
2.4.3 Deconstructing the Exodus Narrative ......................................................... 39
2.4.4 Interpreting Exodus Language and Imagery ............................................... 43

 iv

CHAPTER 3. THE EXODUS IN ANTELBELLUM AFRICAN AMERICAN

RHETORICAL HISTORY ............................................................................................... 45
3.1 The Exodus in the Bible ..................................................................................... 49
3.2 America as the Promised Land........................................................................... 51
3.3 America as Egypt ............................................................................................... 55
3.4 The Legacy of Blacks and the Exodus ............................................................... 62
CHAPTER 4. UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
PROPHETIC AND POLITICAL TRADITIONS ............................................................ 64
4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 64
4.2 The Roots of the Prophetic Tradition ................................................................. 67
4.3 The Influence of the Prophetic Tradition ........................................................... 70
4.4 The Values of the Prophetic Tradition ............................................................... 75
4.5 Authenticity and the Prophetic Tradition ........................................................... 81
4.6 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 85
CHAPTER 5. KING’S DIALECTICAL PERSPECTIVE OF HISTORY ................. 87
5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 87
5.2 The Dialectical Perspective of History............................................................... 90
5.3 Background: Voting Rights & Selma................................................................. 96
5.4 Disrupting the Hegemony of History: King at Selma ........................................ 98
5.4.1 Socratic Questioning & Segregation ......................................................... 100
5.4.2 America’s Democratic Project .................................................................. 102
5.4.3 Hope for the Promised Land ..................................................................... 105
5.5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 107
CHAPTER 6. THE PROPHETIC SCOPE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT:
KING’S “BIRTH OF A NEW NATION” ADDRESS ................................................... 109
6.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 109
6.2 King: The (Afro)-American Prophet? .............................................................. 112
6.3 Background: Independence in Ghana & Difficulty in Montgomery................ 114
6.4 Framing the Ongoing Struggle as a Universal Exodus .................................... 116
6.5 Interpreting the Exodus on the Global Stage ................................................... 120
6.5.1 Who Are The Israelites? ........................................................................... 120
 v

6.5.2 How Do We Break Free From Egypt? ...................................................... 123

6.5.3 How Do We Get From Egypt to the Promised Land? .............................. 127
6.6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 131
CHAPTER 7. OBAMA: THE BUREAUCRATIC PROPHET................................ 133
7.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 133
7.2 Competing Perspectives on Obama’s Candidacy............................................. 137
7.3 Early Criticism of Obama’s Political Aspirations ............................................ 139
7.4 Overcoming the Criticism: Creating Links to the African American Community
142
7.5 The Battle for Selma ........................................................................................ 145
7.6 The Selma Speech ............................................................................................ 146
7.6.1 Reinforcing African American Identity .................................................... 148
7.6.2 Legitimating Claims to Leadership ........................................................... 151
7.6.3 Justifying Differences from King ............................................................. 154
7.7 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 158
CHAPTER 8. “A MOMENT OF RECOGNITION”: OBAMA’S POSTMODERN
INTERPRETATION OF THE EXODUS ...................................................................... 160
8.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 160
8.2 The Exodus and Postmodernism ...................................................................... 163
8.3 Background: Celebrating Dr. King’s Birthday ................................................ 167
8.4 Tearing Down the Walls of Jericho: Obama at Ebenezer ................................ 171
8.4.1 Identifying America’s Jericho................................................................... 172
8.4.2 Division: The Cornerstone of Jericho’s Walls .......................................... 174
8.4.3 Rearticulating Unity: A Collective Shout ................................................. 177
8.5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 183
CHAPTER 9. OBAMA: MOSES OR PHARAOH? ................................................ 185
9.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 185
9.2 Background: Discontent with Obama .............................................................. 189
9.3 We Count Too!: Demands for a Black Agenda ............................................... 194
9.3.1 Obama as Moses ....................................................................................... 196
9.3.2 Obama as Pharaoh..................................................................................... 199
 vi

9.3.3 African Americans as Israel ...................................................................... 203

9.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 205
CHAPTER 10.  CONCLUSION ................................................................................. 207
10.1 Unit One: Interrogating the Metaphoric Uses of the Exodus ....................... 207
10.2 Unit Two: The Exodus, Prophetic Tradition, & African American Rhetorical
History 208
10.3 Unit Three: The Exodus, Prophetic Tradition, and Martin Luther King, Jr. 210
10.4 Unit Four: Obama as an Extension of King’s Prophetic Legacy ................. 213
AFTERWORD: THE RHETORICAL (IN)ADEQUACIES OF THE PROMISED LAND
......................................................................................................................................... 221
11.1 Israel’s Failure to Capture the Promised Land Completely ......................... 223
11.2 The Promised Land Required Constant Obedience to Sacred Values.......... 224
11.3 The Failures of the Past Necessitated a New Deliverer................................ 224
11.4 Articulating the Inadequacies of the Exodus ................................................ 224
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 227
VITA ............................................................................................................................... 244
 vii

ABSTRACT

Hill, Theon E. Ph.D., Purdue University, May 2013. In Search of the Promised Land:
Tracing the Evolution of the Exodus in African American Rhetoric. Major Professor:
Josh Boyd.

Throughout American history, the Exodus has served as a discursive site for crucial

issues of identity, ideology, and purpose to be articulated, negotiated, and disrupted. The

narrative has been utilized by a wide variety of groups including English settlers, the

Founding Fathers, Hollywood movie producers, comic book writers, and African slaves.

Within the African American community, the Exodus functioned as shorthand for the

prophetic tradition, a form of political engagement rooted in stories of Old Testament

prophets speaking truth to power. During his 2008 campaign for president, Obama

deployed the Exodus metaphorically to situate himself discursively as an extension of the

prophetic legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. During the Civil Rights Movement, King

drew on the Exodus and prophetic tradition to inspire radical stances against injustice,

inequality, and oppression in society. In this project, I engage in a comparative analysis

of King’s and Obama’s metaphoric uses of Exodus. Specifically, I argue that Obama’s

uses of the Exodus suggest an ideological solidarity with King that is not reflected in his

policies.

In this project, I trace the history of American, and specifically, African American

uses of the Exodus as a means of understanding the relationship between the Exodus and
 viii

the prophetic tradition. During slavery, Blacks deployed the Exodus as crucial source of

identity, ideology, and purpose in the midst of a nation that denied them humanity,

freedom, and a future. Discursive uses of the Exodus developed into the prophetic

tradition. This tradition is a Theo-political ideology that operates from the premise that

God is on the side of the oppressed. Therefore, it is the responsibility of prophetic voices

to speak truth to power, to call society to repent of pervasive forms of oppression, and to

endure persecution in defense of the values. The prophetic tradition functions as the

counterpart of political strategy in that it seeks to hold political powers accountable to

sacred values of freedom, justice, and equality.

King drew on the Exodus to articulate a dialectical perspective of history. That is,

he argued that the past placed responsibility on the present to transform the future. In

addition, King’s uses of the Exodus reveal his prophetic concern for all people, not just

African Americans, and his commitment to forms of political activism that evolved with

an ever-changing sociopolitical sphere.

Obama’s uses of the Exodus drastically differed from King’s. While King

utilized the Exodus to speak out against forms of oppression, Obama utilized the Exodus

to defend his African American identity and to present himself as a deliverer when he

spoke at a Selma March memorial. He positioned himself as a contemporary Joshua or

bureaucratic prophetic to King’s established identity as the Moses of the Civil Rights

Movement. This identification served to legitimize differences between King and Obama

that threatened the candidate’s support in the African American community. At King’s

former church, Obama offered a postmodern interpretation of the Exodus free of the more

controversial elements of the narrative so as not to disrupt the broad-based coalition that
 ix

he had established throughout his campaign. That is, he rearticulated the Exodus as a

non-threatening narrative that did not call people to repent of social sin. Unlike King,

who called people to unite on the basis of shared sacred values, Obama’s version of the

Exodus positioned unity as the sacred value of singular importance.

While Obama’s identity as deliverer was affirmed by many African Americans

who believed that he would lead them into the Promised Land, completing the work left

undone during the Civil Rights Movement. Not everyone in the Black community hailed

the new president as a contemporary deliverer. During his first term in office, several

African American leaders challenged the notion that Obama was a deliverer in the

prophetic sense. His identity as a prophetic deliverer, in their opinion, silenced other

prophetic voices responsible to hold him accountable to the values of the prophetic

tradition.

Having examined the differences between King’s and Obama’s uses of the

Exodus, I conclude this project by examining the rhetorical (in)adequacy of the Exodus

narrative as an interpretive framework in various sociopolitical contexts. While scholars

acknowledge its pervasive influence on American social life, I question the utility of the

narrative in providing people with a pathway to closure within its interpretive framework.
 1

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

In early 2010, talk show host, author, and political commentator Tavis Smiley

organized a gathering of respected African American intellectuals, activists, educators,

politicians, and religious leaders at Chicago State University to discuss and evaluate

President Obama’s job in addressing the needs of the African American community. At

the event, titled “We Count Too!”, some panelists expressed support for the President’s

job, but several used the forum to vent frustration that he had not done more to confront

social and economic disparities in the African American community.

This criticism for racial inaction might seem premature, considering that the

president had barely completed a year in office. Furthermore, he was facing an economic

recession, an intense battle for health care reform, and increased opposition from the Tea

Party. Perhaps, as some argued, patience should be the cry of the hour. However,

African Americans had come out in record numbers to support Obama at the ballot boxes

(Roberts, 2009). For the panelists, this support demanded immediate action to combat

inequalities. But their opinion was far from the norm. For others, Obama’s historic

election secured him a position next to Martin Luther King, Jr. as a contemporary

deliverer in the tradition of Moses (Drash, 2009). As deliverer, his mission was to lead

Blacks into the Promised Land of freedom and equality. At times, Obama’s discursive

ties to King were forged by others. But the comparisons were not limited to the opinions
 2

of others. Obama’s rhetoric suggested an ideological solidarity between King’s legacy

and his own. Rhetorically, he positioned himself as the leader of what he called the

“Joshua Generation” that functioned as successor to the prophetic legacy of King’s

“Moses Generation” (Murphy, 2011).

For these panelists, however, the King-Obama comparison was premature and

inaccurate. For example, early Obama-supporter and Georgetown professor Michael Eric

Dyson reacted strongly to the view that Obama was a deliverer in the prophetic tradition

of the Old Testament: “You think Obama is Moses. He is not Moses; he’s Pharaoh!

...One man is a prophet. Another man is a politician” (qtd. in Smiley, 2010). Dyson

tagged Obama with the Pharaoh label to say that he saw incongruities between the

rhetoric and policies of King and Obama. Obama, from Dyson’s perspective, occupied

the seat of power as president. King, as a prophet, challenged power. The harsh rhetoric

emerging from this event found a cold reception in the African American community.

Many attacked Tavis Smiley and the panelists for being out-of-line, impatient, and driven

by personal bitterness (Coley, 2010).

Regardless of motive, these critiques highlight two important issues within the

African American community. First, the debate over Obama’s identity as a deliverer

demonstrates rising tension over African American history and its relevance to the

present. Historical interpretation was central to this debate. Opinions of Obama were

inextricably linked to perceptions of the past. Second, the language driving the debate

highlights the centrality of the Hebrew Exodus in rhetorical appeals in the African

American community. This Old Testament narrative served as the discursive site for

these arguments to be articulated, challenged, disrupted, and resolved. By this, I mean

 3

that the comparisons of King and Obama were rooted in the language of the Hebrew

Exodus. In the past, the Exodus had been commonly associated with the prophetic

tradition (Darsey, 1999; West, 1993a, 2002). However, Obama’s rhetoric was not readily

accepted by all as prophetic. His strategic use of the Exodus raises several important

questions for scholars and practitioners of communication: Are Obama’s uses of the

Exodus consistent with King’s? Is Obama faithful to the prophetic legacy of notable

African American leaders such as King, Frederick Douglass, and W. E. B. Du Bois? If

his use of the Exodus is different, what is the significance of these differences to the

African American community? In this project, I will engage these questions.

Given its history in the African American community, the Exodus was a fitting

narrative for supporters and critics of the President to invoke as they stated their opinions

of the President. It has faithfully served the rhetorical needs of African Americans since

the dawn of American slavery (Glaude, Jr., 2000). From the arrival of the first English

settlers to the election of Barack Obama, the Exodus has functioned as what Michael

Osborn (1967a, 1977) has called an archetypal metaphor. That is, the Exodus has

functioned metaphorically within American discourse to address the exigencies of a wide

range of rhetorical situations for an extended period of time, arguably since the inception

of the nation. It has functioned as the basic building block for the construction of various

arguments at crucial points in American history. Having said this, it is impossible to

fully appreciate the dominance of the Exodus in African American rhetoric without first

recognizing the narrative’s broader appeal.

Bruce Feiler (2009) has argued that the Exodus is an essential component of the

American story. Stephen Prothero (2012), building on this idea, has argued that “the
 4

Exodus story may be the American story – the narrative Americans tell themselves to

make sense of their history, identity, and destiny” (p. 18). As a result of American

preoccupation with the Exodus, the narrative frequently surfaced in a wide variety of

sociopolitical contexts a key source of sense making at crucial points in the nation’s

history. In recounting the history of English settlers in the New World, nineteenth

century historian Frederick Butler (1820) described the nation as the “modern Canaan”

from which the settlers escaped “the persecutions of modern Egypt” (p. 10). When

seeking to bolster the nation’s confidence in the Revolutionary War effort,

Congregationalist minister Nicholas Street (1777) related the conflict to the Exodus:

“We in this land are, as it were, led out of Egypt by the hand of Moses. And now we are

in the wilderness, i.e. a state of trouble and difficulty, Egyptians pursuing us, to overtake

and reduce us” (p. 69). When the Founding Fathers considered various designs for U.S.

currency, Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin all advocated for the Moses’s image as the

focal point of American coinage because they felt that the Exodus represented the heart

of America’s democratic experiment (Feiler, 2009).

However, the Exodus was not only deployed to build up the American ethos.

Critics used it to challenge the nation’s legitimacy with regards to American Indians and

the institution of slavery. The narrative was utilized to justify and to highlight acts of

genocide and other atrocities committed against millions of American Indians during the

westward expansion (Cave, 1988; Said, 1986). Throughout the abolition movement and

the Civil War, the Exodus served the rhetorical needs of all sides of the slavery debate

(Feiler, 2009; Garnet, 1843; Palmer, 1861).

 5

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Mormon settlers journeyed

westward in search of religious freedom, motivated by the ideological framework of the

Exodus (Bennett, 2009; Kerstetter, 2012). As America moved into the twentieth century,

the Exodus became increasingly embedded into the fabric of the nation’s culture. From

the architecture of the Statue of Liberty to the development of the Superman comics to

Cecil B. DeMille’s production of The Ten Commandments, the Exodus was (re)used in a

wide variety of ways to cast different visions of the nation as a Promised Land (Feiler,

2009).

These examples offer several lessons. First, they demonstrate how a single story

used metaphorically can be framed to support many different and even contradictory

causes. The Exodus was used to support slavery and to abolish it. It has been used to

extend and restrict the rights of citizenship to marginalized Americans. Settlers used it to

justify acts of genocide against American Indians. American Indians used it to expose

the settlers’ hypocrisy. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have argued that metaphor functions

to create, disrupt, and establish social, cultural, political, and religious realities from

which people operate. From this standpoint, I argue that the Exodus has functioned and

continues to function as a basic metaphoric framework for numerous movements,

agendas, and standpoints within American life.

Second, the various ways in which the Exodus was used to justify different

agendas and actions highlight how metaphors can function to disengage various publics

from critically engaging root assumptions in rhetorical appeals that are being made to

them. In this sense, I argue that the Exodus can function as a discursive mask hiding

ideology through language. Roderick Hart (1971) argued that rhetoric has the potential to
 6

situate people as true believers: people who submit to the language and form of an

argument without critically engaging the content and key assumptions from which the

argument arises. Part of my argument is that contemporary uses of the Exodus by Obama

position African Americans as true believers. A potential consequence of this positioning

is that it may generate responses to language of the Exodus from publics without them

critically engaging the ideological commitments on which uses of it are based.

Third, these examples demonstrate not only flexibility in meaning, but also the

potential for the narrative to evolve in meaning over time. In his discussion of the

Exodus’ role in American history, Raboteau (1994) noted fundamental differences in the

Exodus of the early settlers compared to that of the Founding Fathers. To the early

settlers, the Exodus was the source of divine warning. If they were unfaithful to God, he

would punish them just like he punished Israel in the wilderness with plague, discomfort,

and death. However, the Founding Fathers drew on the same wilderness period in

Exodus history to claim God’s blessing and sanction on all of their actions in building a

new nation. To them, divine warning was not the most important point of discussion to

draw out of the Exodus. In spite of the vastly different ideological commitments, the

language was the same. During the time period in between settling the land and founding

the nation, the Exodus evolved in terms of meaning (Raboteau, 1994). This change in

meaning resulted in a change in the nature of the rhetorical appeals that people grounded

in Exodus language. To the settlers, the Exodus was used for rhetorical appeals to

obedience. However, the Founding Fathers used it to build confidence in the success of

the revolution.
 7

In this dissertation, I examine and contrast the ways that the Exodus was used in

rhetoric during the Civil Rights Movement and during the “Age of Obama” to explore

similarities and differences in its meaning and usage in African American rhetoric. Due

to the numerous ways that people seek to juxtapose them, I concentrate my attention on

differentiating the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama. I am

particularly interested in exploring how Obama attempts to position himself rhetorically

in King’s historic shadow. The preceding discussion suggests that much work has

already been done on the role that the Exodus has played in American and, more

specifically, African American rhetoric. However, two key points justify an additional

project on Exodus rhetoric.

First, the Exodus functions metaphorically within society to legitimize and

delegitimize, to justify and deny, to liberate and enslave, to empower and marginalize.

Beyond simply serving these numerous purposes, the Exodus constitutively structures

individual and collective perspectives of self, others, the nation, and the world (Carlson &

Ebel, 2012; Feiler, 2009; Johnson, 1994; Prothero, 2012). Its centrality to the American

story demands that scholars continue to expand the canon of scholarship on how the

narrative operates across time, space, and place. Meanings connected to the Exodus

evolve in a dynamic process in which they are constantly challenged, negotiated,

rearticulated, and disrupted. Therefore, when scholars engage Exodus rhetoric, they are

really engaging the question, “how does this story continue to structure our world.” I

argue that Obama’s Exodus rhetoric represents an evolution or departure in meaning

compared to previous generations.

 8

Rhetorical scholarship with its emphasis on engaging and uncovering frameworks

and systems of meaning from which people make rhetorical appeals has failed to

critically engage contemporary uses of the Exodus by Barack Obama. Instead of raising

critical questions concerning his ideological affinity to the prophetic legacy of King,

recent rhetorical scholarship has anointed President Obama as the rhetorical heir to

King’s legacy in part because of his utilization of the Exodus narrative (Darsey, 2009;

Frank, 2009; Keeley, 2008; Murphy, 2011). While it is possible to find rhetorical

similarities between Obama and King, it is impossible to link them on the basis of

common metaphors or similar language without accounting for the different ideological

commitments in their rhetorics.

In this dissertation, my central argument is that President Obama’s usage of the

Exodus suggests an ideological solidarity with the prophetic legacy of Dr. King and other

Civil Rights Movement leaders that is based not in reality, but in language only.

Furthermore, I argue that his use of the Exodus seeks to bolster the very sociopolitical

powers that Civil Rights Movement leaders perceived as a threat to the cause of social

equality. Finally, I seek to demonstrate how his usage of the Exodus demonstrates the

potential for the story not only to evolve, but also to be co-opted within the public sphere.

Obama’s use of the Exodus is not so much a natural evolution of the narrative as it is a

co-option of the prophetic roots of the narrative in African American culture. Through

this project, I will demonstrate how President Obama’s self-identification as a

contemporary Joshua-like deliverer decreased the need for him to prove his prophetic

focus in speaking out against power structures that served to marginalize and oppress.

My purpose in this dissertation is not to attack President Obama; rather, I argue that his
 9

use of the Exodus does not qualify him as representative of the prophetic tradition. In

another sense, I view this project as an attempt to hold him accountable to the prophetic

tradition that he seeks to discursively situate himself within.

His rhetorical strategies are most similar to what I will call the political tradition,

others have labeled it “political style”, or a rhetorical approach focused on maintaining,

not challenging power structures (Darsey, 1999; Hariman, 1995). While it operates from

different ideological commitment than the political tradition, the prophetic tradition is not

apolitical. At the core, the prophet and political are distinguished by how they relate to

power, a difference that will be explored in a later chapter. The Exodus provides an entry

point to engage this debate and identify ideological commitments lying beneath the

surface of Obama’s rhetoric. Beyond this, the project provides an opportunity to

demonstrate how metaphoric uses of the Exodus continue to operate in contemporary

African American civic life.

Several key questions will drive this project including: Are contemporary uses of

the narrative by Obama consistent with historical uses by King? What does it mean to be

a part of the prophetic tradition as exemplified by King? Do contemporary uses of the

narrative maintain the prophetic fervor of the past? How do contemporary uses of the

narrative position African Americans in relationship to the past and also as actors in the

future? Do contemporary uses of the Exodus enable African Americans to preserve the

prophetic tradition of the past? If the Age of Obama features new uses for the narrative,

how are these new uses reflected in the debate over Obama’s relationship to the prophetic

tradition of the Civil Rights Movement?

 10

Central to this project is the task of exploring, uncovering, and highlighting the

ways in which the Exodus has been used metaphorically throughout history in African

American rhetoric. In this project, I will seek to accomplish several sub-tasks. From the

standpoint of African American culture, I will highlight the ways in which the rhetorical

evolution of the Exodus allows for new possibilities in individual and collective ideology,

identity, and purpose within the African American community. The differences in how

the metaphoric elements are utilized have important implications to people being

discursively constituted within metaphoric frameworks.

1.1 Dissertation Preview

This dissertation will consist of four separate units. Following this introduction, I

proceed to lay the conceptual foundation for this study by situating it within relevant

literature and previewing the methodology that will be utilized. In this dissertation, I will

draw on literature on the prophetic tradition, metaphor, and constitutive rhetoric.

Additionally, I will utilize metaphor criticism as my primary tool of rhetorical analysis.

These two chapters comprise the first unit. In the second unit, I study the historical

relationship of the Exodus, prophetic tradition, and African American culture.

Specifically, I explore the roots of African American solidarity with a Judeo-Christian

narrative like the Exodus. Given the numerous ways that Christianity was used to justify

oppression against Blacks, African American uses of the narrative are somewhat of an

anomaly. To engage this anomaly, I trace African American uses of the Exodus back to

their inception following the Great Awakening to understand how the tie between

Ancient Israel and African slaves was formed and preserved. Next, I probe the nature of

the prophetic tradition to understand its relationship to the political tradition in chapter
 11

four. Specifically, I consider the role of prophets in the Old Testament to understand

how they related to dominant power structures. My goal in this chapter is to explore the

nature of the prophetic engagement with sociopolitical power.

In unit three, I study uses of the Exodus and the prophetic tradition in the rhetoric

of Martin Luther King, Jr. One of my goals is to highlight how these two components

were pervasive throughout King’s rhetoric. This foundational unit is important because it

provides the referent for met to challenge Obama’s claims to prophetic solidarity. As

such, I stress the prophetic commitments implicit in King’s uses of the Exodus. My

analysis in this unit focuses on two of King’s lesser known speeches, namely his “Birth

of a New Nation” speech and the address he delivered at the conclusion of the march

from Selma to Montgomery. I study how King’s rhetoric revealed his understanding of

the relationship between history and the present and how this relationship played out

within the discursive context of the Exodus. I argue that King utilized a dialectical

perspective of history to position African Americans into dialectical relationships with

the prophetic roots of the struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. As I move into

chapter six, I build on my analysis of King’s rhetoric by responding to the perspective

that King’s prophetic vision was limited to African Americans. In particular, I study his

metaphoric uses of the “children of Israel” phrase to reveal that his prophetic concern

extended beyond racial, ethnic, class, and geographical boarders into the Third World

(Cone, 1987).

Having laid the foundation for the study of Exodus rhetoric by demonstrating its

historical efficacy and role during the Civil Rights Movement, I engage contemporary

uses of the Exodus in the rhetoric of Barack Obama in unit four. This unit is composed
 12

of three chapters. Two of the chapters focus on Obama’s uses of the narrative and the

third examines responses to Obama by contemporary African American leaders. While

the canon of Obama speeches expands daily, I focus my analysis in this unit on two

speeches that he delivered during the 2008 campaign cycle. These two speeches were

selected because they are rich with references to the Exodus and the Civil Rights

Movement. They offer insight into the rhetorical means by which Obama seeks to situate

himself as an extension of King’s legacy and as an authorized voice of the prophetic

tradition. Additionally, I examine the ways in which African American leaders drew on

the Exodus at Smiley’s “We Count Too” forum to articulate their thoughts on Obama’s

significance and disconnect with the prophetic tradition.

Throughout this unit, I focus on how Obama uses the Exodus to co-opt the power

of the prophetic tradition, how initial responses to Obama’s rise to political prominence

necessitated his deployment of the Exodus in his rhetoric to the African American

community, how the sacred truths of the prophetic tradition are affected by postmodern

times, and how political offices constrain the potential for prophetic voices to emerge. I

will also discuss critical responses to Obama’s use of the Exodus to more adequately

highlight the ways in which he appropriated the Exodus without buying into its prophetic

power.

Last, I conclude the project with an essay highlighting possible rhetorical

inadequacies of the Exodus narrative such as the ambiguity of the Promised Land and

unrealized expectations in the original narrative. This will provide an entry point to

identifying how the narrative positions the African American community toward the

future and highlight future directions for research on the Exodus narrative in rhetorical
 13

studies to take. Through this project, I hope to provide a valuable addition to existing

research on the Exodus, the prophetic tradition, and metaphor. Furthermore, I provide an

entry point for scholars to understand how the prophetic tradition operates as a rhetorical

genre in postmodern times.

 14

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW & METHODOLOGY

There are three main bodies of literature that I will draw on in this dissertation

project: metaphor criticism, constitutive rhetoric, and the prophetic tradition. Metaphor

criticism provides an entry point to interrogate how the Exodus operates to frame, shape,

and develop people’s perspectives. This function overlaps with constitutive rhetoric in

that constitutive rhetoric focuses on how communication positions people as subjects

with identity, ideology, and purpose. By this, I mean that constitutive rhetoric tells

people who they are, what they believe, and what they should do. I argue that the Exodus

functions rhetorically to constitute people into certain subject positions. Third, I draw on

the prophetic tradition to explore how the narrative functions to critique dominant power

structures within society and to call society back to sacred truths or values of freedom,

liberty, and equality.

In this project, I will analyze uses of the Exodus through the lens of metaphor

criticism. I view the Exodus as a narrative, but within rhetoric it functions

metaphorically to constitute discursive realities. When people utilize the Exodus in

rhetoric, they typically do not rehearse the entire story; rather, they draw out metaphoric

elements that serve to shape perspectives. Because of the fragmented nature of Exodus

rhetoric, metaphor criticism is a more suitable method than narrative criticism. From the

standpoint of metaphor criticism, this project provides an opportunity to expand

 15

rhetorical understandings of the evolution of metaphors over time and space. In

particular, studying uses of the Exodus narrative over time provides an entry point to

build on the work of scholars like Michael Osborn (1967, 1977), who argue that

archetypal metaphors may change in meaning and utilization over time. The task of

highlighting changes in metaphoric meaning over time is important because, in a sense,

changing the meaning implied by a narrative or metaphor does not at all change the

language or imagery associated with that narrative or metaphor. In the case of President

Obama, I argue that part of the reason for his success among African American

constituents is his ability to situate himself within the long tradition of African American

leadership, who assumed prophetic roles to achieve material ends within society.

Analysis into how metaphors evolve in meaning will reveal the possibility for their

discursive power to be co-opted.

2.1 Metaphor Criticism

Metaphor is a basic building block of individual and collective life. Conceptual

systems emerge from the dynamic interaction of thoughts occurring within the human

psyche. By this, I mean that metaphoric thought is the result of ties, linkages, and

intersections of various concepts in the mind. From this standpoint, I argue that the

dominance of the Exodus in American rhetoric is a sign of the numerous linkages that

people have created between the Exodus and their circumstances. If these linkages were

going to be represented as a formula, it might look like this: “my/our life is the Exodus.”

Within this configuration, life is interpreted through the rhetorical framework of the

Exodus. This relationship is precisely the understanding that Lakoff and Johnson (1980)

call for in their seminal work Metaphors We Live By: “the essence of metaphor is
 16

understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (p. 5).

Furthermore, the interaction creates a system of meaning that “plays a central role in

defining our everyday realities” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 5). Their definition of

metaphoric interaction is closely related to Burke’s (1969a, 1974, 1984a, 1984b) notion

of perspective by incongruity. An important aspect of his argument was that the

juxtaposition of dissimilar concepts operates in metaphor to identity “the thisness of a

that or thatness of a this” (Burke, 1969a, p. 503). Thus, metaphoric interaction does not

involve one concept simply becoming the other, but a new, co-constructed meaning

emerging from the two concepts. The meaning emerging from metaphor is laced with

tension due to the affirmation and negation of the relationship of the concepts. That is,

the concepts are affirmed in that there is a shared essence. However, there is also the

implied denial that the concepts are consubstantial, creating tension between terms in the

production of meaning.

Interaction and meaning occur at the level of thought. However, interaction and

meaning are articulated, challenged, disrupted, identified, and negotiated at the level of

language. This reality positions Exodus language as an entry point into the conceptual

systems that drive individual and collective African American life. I will use this entry

point to understand the dynamic process by which the Exodus (re)creates realities from

which people operate. Since language functions as the articulation of the psychological

process of meaning making through metaphor, I argue that language can function as a

mask to cover up changes in the ideological commitments driving a metaphor’s use. The

purpose behind this inquiry is to better account for the process by which African

Americans and the broader American public utilize biblical narratives to make sense of
 17

and explain individual and collective life, to understand how discursive frameworks of

meaning evolve over time, and to explore the possibility of rhetors co-opting the

discursive power of metaphor through discourse. Having established the basic

assumptions that I make concerning metaphor, I will proceed to highlight two types of

metaphor and a perspective on the relationship between metaphor and time that will be

important to this project: root metaphors, archetypal metaphors, and the evolution of

metaphors.

2.1.1 Root Metaphors

The concept of root metaphors is premised on the view that “metaphors play a

crucial role in the production, understanding, and communication of human thought and

action” (Smith & Eisenberg, 1987, p. 368). Root metaphors, according to Smith and

Eisenberg, “capture a fundamental, underlying world view, but are often unobtrusive with

regard to their frequency of usage in ordinary discourse” (p. 369). Therefore, root

metaphors may shape how individuals and organizations interpret various experiences,

situations, and crises, but they operate below the radar of conscious thought. Scholarship

on metaphors has demonstrated that they are important to excavate from discourse

because of the ways in which they reveal current ideologies and illuminate possibilities

and entry points for change through discourse (Boyd, 2003; Deetz & Mumby, 1985;

Koch & Deetz, 1981). As I journey through African American discourse, part of my

argument will be that the Exodus has functioned often as an unrecognized root metaphor

for African American identity and ideology. Therefore, studying how the metaphor is

being used by individuals becomes imperative to uncovering ideologies that dominate the

discursive landscape of African American thought and identifying entry points to

 18

promote change. However, the Exodus does not simply function as a root metaphor

below the radar of conscious thought. I will also seek to demonstrate how it functions

archetypally.

2.1.2 Archetypal Metaphors

The archetypal function of the metaphor is different from the root metaphor in

that the two approaches highlight different ways in which metaphors operate. Whereas

the root metaphor focuses on the unobtrusive function of the metaphor outside of

conscious thought, the archetypal function highlights the ability of metaphors to

transcend the limitations of time and context and operate across generational and cultural

boundaries.

Archetypal metaphors, as defined by Osborn and Ehninger (1962), “extend

beyond the limits of a given time or culture and depend upon experiences common to

men (sic) of many races and ages--experiences relived by each generation anew” (p.

229). For example, in his pioneering work on archetypal metaphors, Osborn (1967)

noted how light and darkness function within culture as metaphors for good and bad.

While initially viewed as “immune to changes” (Osborn, 1967, p. 116), Osborn (1977)

has since acknowledged that archetypal metaphors change and fluctuate in meaning over

time and in different contexts. The Exodus can be analyzed as an archetypal metaphor

because of its ability to be (re)articulated within numerous cultures and contexts. These

types of metaphors are characterized by an “embodiment of basic human

motivations….and their especial significance within the most significant speeches of a

society” (Osborn, 1967, p. 116). These characteristics coincide with uses of the Exodus

within the African American community. Similarly to root metaphors, these shed light
 19

on prevalent ideologies within a culture, nation, or organization. Viewing the Exodus

from the root and archetypal functions permits observation of how the narrative functions

unconsciously within the African American community and also across generational

lines. However, if I am to compare uses of the Exodus between different historical

periods, this study must be grounded in literature on how metaphors change or evolve in

meaning.

2.1.3 The Evolution of Metaphors

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have argued that metaphors are culturally grounded.

As a result, meaning produced by metaphors is dynamic, fluid, and prone to change.

Previously, scholars have explored the evolution of metaphors by examining growth or

shifts in metaphoric meaning (Smith & Eisenberg, 1987), (re)appropriation (Murphy,

2011), and cultural fluidity (Osborn, 1977). Smith and Eisenberg (1987), for example,

have noted that the “change in root-metaphors over time – their ascendency, adherence,

and eventual demise – reflects the evolution in attitudes, beliefs, and values” (p. 368). In

addition, Osborn (1977) has explained that archetypal metaphors, while “timeless” in

their ability to bridge cultural and contextual gaps, are prone to evolution over time in the

meaning that they communicate (p. 347).

The potential for metaphors to evolve provides a conceptual stepping stone to my

argument that the Exodus, as used in African American discourse, has changed

significantly in meaning. Granted, I acknowledge that it still operates archetypally as a

culturally embedded narrative. It is the role of the rhetorician to excavate and highlight

this evolution as a means of identifying how it positions individuals and collective groups

ideologically and in terms of identity. Understanding the different ideological

 20

commitments in the usage of different metaphors provides entry into current debates in

the African American community over the prophetic legacy of President Obama in

relation to prophetic figures like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Having outlined how I will draw on metaphor criticism in this section, I will

proceed to introduce the concept of constitutive rhetoric as a means of demonstrating

how metaphor positions people individually and collectively through discourse.

2.2 Constitutive Rhetoric

Previous rhetorical scholarship on the Exodus has assigned it two general

functions: constitutive and prophetic. Constitutive rhetoric strives to reposition a subject

into a narrative space that allows for new potentialities and opportunities to be

discursively imagined and enacted in the material world (Charland, 1987). The Exodus,

for example, provides an interpretive framework through which people make sense of

their experiences and determine future action. During the 19th century, the Exodus

enjoyed immense popularity among African slaves because it told them that even though

they lived in a land where they were constantly being cast as less than human, in God’s

eyes they were loved and significant. The narrative gave meaning to their oppression

(Glaude, Jr., 2000). From this standpoint, the constitutive function of the Exodus is

grounded in Burkean identification whereby the narrative supplies an individual or group

with the language, perspective, and identity to make sense of the social world (Burke,

1969a, 1969b).

Since its inception, the Exodus has been a story of deliverance: Israel’s God

coming to save them from the shackles of slavery in Egypt and bring them into the

Promised Land (Keeley, 2008). Through transhistorical linkages, individuals constituted

 21

within the discursive narrative not only share a common history with the past, but they

also anticipate a common destiny (Ryken, Wilhoit, & Longman, 1998). The anticipation

of reaching the metaphoric Promised Land provides strength to rhetorical appeals to

collective action and creative resistance. The narrative constitutes individuals with

agency as the work of deliverance becomes a divinely inspired partnership between

people across temporal, cultural, national, political, and geographical boundaries.

2.2.1 Constitutive Rhetoric: Ideological effects.

The constitutive process interpellates individuals into new identities, ideologies,

and motives to action. In addition, the process functions to disrupt previous articulations

of identity and ideology. For example, Tate (2005) has noted how discursive attempts to

recast members of second wave feminism into a more unified space challenged dominant

notions of female identity. The Exodus functions constitutively by positioning

individuals into a discursive narrative that challenges fundamental concepts of self.

When I say that the Exodus challenges the ideology, identity, and purpose of individual

and collective life, I mean that constitutive rhetoric challenges three fundamental

questions of the social construction of self: who am I (ontological), what do I know

(epistemological), and what do I value (axiological)? Within the answers to these

questions lay issues of identity, ideology, and purpose. Challenging them affords the

rhetor the opportunity to reshape people’s telos, or direction in life. This constitutive

process should not be viewed as deterministic, static, or one-dimensional. Rather, it is

dynamic, operating on multiple layers of social identity, and open to disruptions,

contestations or (re)negotiation (Hall, 1985).

 22

Within this theory of constitutive rhetoric, Charland (1987) recognized three

ideological effects: the positioning of a collective subject, a transhistorical subject, and a

subject who experiences the illusion of freedom in the discursive narrative. These three

effects are especially important to the study of the constitutive function of the Exodus

because they highlight how the narrative works on individuals discursively. It operates

by positioning individuals as a collective entity. Part of Israel’s divine call was to adopt a

common identity as God’s chosen people. They were called out from among the people

of the earth to adopt a new identity and ideology. As a discursive resource, the Exodus

supplies the tools to challenge an individual’s identity and recast it into a discursive space

in which unity with others similarly constituted is natural (Keeley, 2008). This common

identity requires actors to move past traditional barriers of unity such as class, gender,

and race to unite with others in the narrative framework. For example, King often

referred to his audience with labels that would allow them to transcend the dominant

racial dichotomies of black and white. Instead, he would constitute them (and potentially

other hearers) with labels such as “God’s people” and “freedom-loving people” (King,

Jr., 1955).

While the narrative positions individuals as collective subjects, it also serves to

position them as transhistorical subjects. That is, the identity and ideology of the Exodus

exist apart from any time, period, or cultural context. This idea suggests that the Exodus

exists outside of the vacuum of time and is ready to emerge with power whenever the

situation demands (Boyarin, 1992; Walzer, 1986). Therefore, the narrative serves to

produce a mystic unity or discursive solidarity in the form of a community of the

 23

oppressed between the present and the past. This solidarity functions in a Rortian sense

to (re)describe the present in a way that lends itself to social reform (Rorty, 1989).

Individuals are not performing their narrative roles independent of the past, but in

conjunction and partnership with it. King’s speech following Rosa Parks’ arrest, using

Exodus imagery, displayed the transhistorical partnership that constitutive rhetoric

attempts to foster as King encouraged oppressed African Americans to take their rightful

spot in history through the journey motif:

Let us go out with a grim and bold determination that we are going to stick

together….When the history books are written in the future, somebody will have

to say, ‘There lived a race of people, a black people, fleecy locks and black

complexion, a people who had the moral courage to stand up for their rights. And

thereby they injected a new meaning into the veins of history and of civilization’”

(King, Jr., 1955, para. 12).

Third among the ideological effects of constitutive rhetoric is the illusion of

freedom. Contemporary rhetorical scholarship on social and political movements has

drawn attention to the simulacrum of freedom within constitutive rhetoric (Drzewiecka,

2002; Tate, 2005; Zagacki, 2007). To recognize the illusory nature of freedom in

constitutive rhetoric does not imply a narrative free of trials and challenges. Embedded

within the concept of Exodus is the reality of trials en route to the Promised Land (Ryken

et al., 1998). Rather, the ideological effect draws attention to the fact that constitutive

rhetoric recasts identity, ideology, and purpose into a discursive space free of any

apparent contradictions or tensions. Within any subject position, tensions and

contradictions will arise. For example, within the original Exodus narrative, Israel was
 24

constituted as God’s people free from bondage. With this identity, they would no longer

experience the brutalities of bondage. However, their new identity also exposed them to

the insecurity of wandering in the wilderness. As a result, there were numerous times

during the trek that Israel sought to reject the leadership and return to Egypt (Exodus

13:3, 17:3; Numbers 11:3, 14:2, 20:5, 21:5). In situations like this, when expected

discursive freedoms are contradicted by material realities, the discursive visions of

constitutive rhetorics are rendered inadequate and become vulnerable to disruption and

contestation.

2.2.2 Constitutive Rhetoric: Tensions and Conflicts.

Beyond the vulnerabilities that the illusion of freedom may create, several aspects

of the narrative have the potential to render it problematic as a source of identity and

ideology. Naturally, the similarities between oppressed Israelites and the plight of

African Americans have ensured the popularity of the narrative as a constitutive resource.

Nevertheless, there are sources of tension and conflict. The ambiguity of the Promised

Land fosters uncertainty as to the nature of the goal to be reached. The Promised Land

could be social, political, geographical, or economic in nature. For example, the night

before he died, King (1968) gave a soul-stirring speech to the end that African Americans

would eventually reach the Promised Land. But he provided no specificity regarding the

ontological status of the destination. Also, the narrative’s constitutive power faces

challenges from the constantly changing sociopolitical context in which it is embedded.

Important for scholars to consider is how an increasingly secular public sphere impacts a

sacred narrative’s ability to constitute individuals with identity and ideology. However,

some have argued that the Exodus’s detachment from its sacred roots has rendered it
 25

more useful in multiple sociopolitical and socioreligious environments (Boyarin, 1992;

Walzer, 1986). Having examined the constitutive function of Exodus narrative, I turn my

attention to its prophetic function.

2.3 The Prophetic Tradition

In this section, I will trace the roots of the prophetic tradition, define the tradition,

highlight its presence in society, and demonstrate its use in rhetoric and more specifically

in Exodus rhetoric.

2.3.1 The Foundations of the Prophetic Tradition

The prophetic tradition finds its roots in the Hebrew Old Testament with its

accounts of men and women, Israelites and non-Israelites holding the office of the

prophet in different social contexts (Heschel, 2010). Typically, the Exodus is identified

as the origin of the prophetic tradition, with Moses being the first in the long line of Old

Testament prophetic figures that have emerged since his advent (Chappell, 2005; Frank,

2009). Within the American context, these prophets have served as examples for the

Puritans (Bercovitch, 1978), minority groups (Howard-Pitney, 2005), and numerous other

groups in various contexts throughout the nation’s history (Darsey, 1999; Gutterman,

2005; Jendrysik, 2008). Before delving too deeply into the role that the prophetic

tradition has played in society, it is necessary to define it.

2.3.2 Defining the prophetic tradition

Cornel West (1999) provided a useful entry point to understanding the prophetic

tradition: “to be a part of a prophetic tradition is not to be a prophet or elitist. Rather, it

is humbly to direct your strongest criticism at yourself and then self-critically speak your

mind to others with painful candor and genuine compassion” (p. 357). There are two
 26

important components in this statement to unpack when defining the prophetic tradition:

the messenger and the message. In the Old Testament, the prophetic role was not limited

to recognized religious leaders, but it included people from a wide variety of backgrounds

such as shepherds (Amos 1:1), political refugees (Exodus 2:15), and government officials

(Daniel 1:3-6). The messenger serves as a witness of evil and a critic of the society

engaging in it (Heschel, 2010). From this standpoint, messengers emerge from various

fields including religion (Brueggemann, 1986, 2001; Buber, 1985; Cone, 1997a, 1997b;

Thurman, 1949), rap music (Forman & Neal, 2004; West, 2004), media (Gutterman,

2005), and politics (Darsey, 1999). The messenger within this tradition is identified as a

prophet because it is the prophet’s place to boldly diagnose evil in society. Tied to this

function, the prophet also serves as a reflexive critic calling society to repent of evil. The

prophet courageously calls society to change, even at his or her own expense (Heschel,

2010; West, 2002).

At the heart of this tradition is “a commitment to an absolute sacred truth”

(Darsey, 1999, p. 57). This sacred truth is the source of the prophet’s burden, message,

and vision for society. This truth should not be misconstrued as inherently Christian in

nature. Instead, it is a system of doctrine to which the prophet subscribes (Hart, 1971;

Hoffer, 1951/2002). Seeing society violate or transgress sacred truth is the source of the

prophet’s burden. Furthermore, seeing society’s transgression in this way compels the

prophet to the point that silence in the face of evil and persecution becomes impossible.

The Old Testament prophet Amos notes this impossibility, stating, “The Lord God has

spoken who can but prophesy” (Amos 3:8).

 27

Contemporary figures in this tradition find motivation in equally pressing

burdens. While the tradition is commonly associated with issues related to social justice,

it can be seen in a wide variety of areas of social life where individuals hold systems of

doctrine closely as prescriptive of social life (Bercovitch, 1978; Gutterman, 2005;

Howard-Pitney, 2005). Furthermore, prophetic messages can be proclaimed in both

secular and religious settings. Scholars have acknowledged that even “strictly Christian

thinkers like Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr were quick to admit that an atheist might

take a prophetic stance more readily and faithfully than a typical twentieth-century

Christian” (Chappell, 2005, p. 3). That is, the prophetic tradition is grounded in a

commitment to truths regarded as sacred in society. These truths may find their source in

religious or secular sources. For example, equality as a sacred truth is not inherently

religious. However, certain people root their belief in the equality of people in a religious

framework. Others find cause for that belief in secular sources. As such, the prophetic

message varies greatly across time, culture, and context; but it does maintain distinctive

elements. At the core, the prophetic message is a call to repentance. By nature, to be

prophetic is to stand in the minority and warn society of an impending crisis in

maintaining the evil status quo.

The message of the prophet is generally pessimistic, but not devoid of hope. The

prophet is caught between what Burke (1969a) would call a tragic and a comic frame.

That is, the prophet foresees societal destruction and still hopes for positive

transformation. The sociopolitical, religious, and cultural context of the prophet creates a

dialectical tension between hope and pessimism. The prophet’s message is pessimistic in

that the prophet has no reason to anticipate repentance on the part of society. The
 28

ultimate consequence for not heeding the prophet is destruction. However, the message

is hopeful in the vision the prophet imagines for a repentant society. It is the hope of this

vision becoming reality that motivates the prophet’s message. The vision tied to the

prophet’s message is conservative and progressive--conservative in that the message calls

society back to a previously established standard of truth, but progressive in the new

future the vision imagines for society if it repents. Therefore, to identify someone as

prophetic signals an individual who has taken a radical stance in opposition to the status

quo as a means of calling society to repent of evil and turn back to sacred truth. This

tradition rejects apathy, complacency, and cowardice, esteeming courage, boldness and

endurance in their place. It embraces persecution, rejection, ostracism, and even

martyrdom in the present in hope of promoting a better future.

2.3.3 The Current Status of the Prophetic Tradition

Of concern within contemporary American scholarship on the prophetic tradition

is the general decline of prophetic voices within society (Brueggemann, 2001;

Gutterman, 2005; West, 1993a). These scholars long for a return of the significant

prophetic voices of the past such as Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham

Joshua Heschel, Mahatma Gandhi, and Frederick Douglass, among others (West, 1999).

Such longed-for prophetic voices would lament societal decline and the absence of other

prophetic voices. The prophetic voice can be observed primarily in socio-political

(Darsey, 1999; Gutterman, 2005; Jendrysik, 2008), cultural (Howard-Pitney, 2005; West,

1993a, 1999), and religious (Brueggemann, 2001; Buber, 1985; Fleer & Bland, 2009)

contexts. Individuals drawing on the prophetic tradition argue for societal awareness of

issues related to social justice, economic reform, racial equality, and moral decline. Due
 29

to the nature of the prophetic voice, it is impossible to neatly classify various voices into

specific spheres of influence. For example, Cornel West has drawn on the prophetic

tradition to call out society in the areas of religion, culture, politics, and race (West,

1993a, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004). Furthermore, prophetic voices can occupy spaces along

a wide spectrum of sociopolitical, sociocultural, and socioreligious perspectives. They

criticize one another and challenge the legitimacy of opposing voices (Jendrysik, 2008).

However, to call opposing voices prophetic is not to imply that they all advocate for the

same causes. Instead, I am identifying the nature, urgency, and manner in which various

figures make a plea for society to repent from certain evils.

2.3.4 The Prophetic Tradition and Rhetorical Studies

Darsey (1999) linked radical rhetoric in an American context to the prophetic

tradition, providing an entry point to discuss the prophetic tradition as a rhetorical genre:

Rhetorics of radical reform, in particular, exhibit similarities with the discursive

tradition of the Old Testament prophets. Both have in common a sense of mission,

a desire to bring the practice of the people into accord with a sacred principle, and

an uncompromising, often excoriating stance toward a reluctant audience. (p. 16)

Several tenets of the prophetic tradition can be observed from the contributions of West,

Darsey, and other scholars. First, the tradition is primarily concerned with the promotion

of sacred truths or values within society and giving voice to the oppressed. Second, those

operating within the tradition serve as heralds to call society back to a certain moral code

or ethic. Third, adopting a prophetic stance positions the individual as radical in

opposition to the status quo.

 30

Reliance on the prophetic tradition in social movement rhetoric is based on the

premise that society depends on rhetoric to achieve certain outcomes and negotiate

meaning (Darsey, 1999). Through rhetoric, prophetic voices seek to promote the

transcendent values that are essential to society’s survival. These values include truth,

freedom, justice, morality, and love (Cone, 1997a).

In using rhetoric to advance these values, the prophetic tradition differs from what

is referred to in rhetorical studies as political style (Darsey, 1999; Hariman, 1995). These

two rhetorical approaches are separated by their general pursuit. Political style elevates

power as the primary pursuit of rhetoric. The prophetic tradition views adherence to a

certain moral code or ethic as the goal of rhetoric. Within political style, rhetoric

functions as a tool by which power is secured, defended, and maintained. Therefore, this

type of rhetoric seeks consensus, values compromise, and pursues negotiation. Rhetoric

emerging from the prophetic tradition functions to challenge power structures that pull

society away from a certain moral code or ethic. This type of rhetoric calls for

repentance, desires separation for sin, and refuses to compromise at the expense of the

moral code. It works towards separation from sin, injustice, and hatred. Unity within the

prophetic tradition stems from the regeneration that occurs following the separation from

sin (Darsey, 1999). Values are viewed as transcendent within the prophetic tradition

because truth, whether rooted in religion or not, is considered to be absolute and

“immutable” (Darsey, 1999, p. 21).

Understanding truth to be immutable is one element that contributes to the

irrationality that mainstream society has often perceived to be part of the prophetic

tradition. The tradition makes no attempts for compromise. Truth is not open to
 31

adjustment. Therefore, this stance holds that it is possible to know and articulate the

values on which society is built. Furthermore, it holds that these values are unchanging.

Another important ontological standpoint of the prophetic tradition is a general

pessimism towards the inherent goodness of human beings. The prophetic stance

generally holds that mankind is evil and in need of confrontation to be made righteous

(Buber, 1985; Darsey, 1999; West, 2002).

Key to understanding the flexibility of the prophetic tradition as a rhetorical genre

in different movements and historical contexts is the knowledge that its core virtues of

freedom, truth, and love are (re)appropriated by different rhetors in the different contexts

in which they are used as organizing principles around which to promote social action.

Connecting the present to the past in what some have called sacred time is a key strategy

of the prophetic tradition in gaining legitimacy and support (Chappell, 2005; Darsey,

1999; Frank, 2009; Gutterman, 2005; Murphy, 2011; Selby, 2008). For example,

Murphy (2011) has explored how Obama drew on the prophetic tradition as a means of

positioning himself within and as the product of the civil rights struggle at a time when

his racial identity was being questioned by many African Americans. His use of the

language of the prophetic tradition positioned him as a son of the movement who should

be embraced, rendering him a viable presidential candidate. Linking a cause to the

immutable truths of the prophetic tradition is vital to maintaining moral authority within

society. This step positions the movement in a transhistorical setting where it becomes

consubstantial with past movements that have stood up against evil for the sake of good.

Before advancing to the next point, it is important to highlight the nature of the

legitimacy that the prophetic voice pursues. This legitimacy is not from society, but from
 32

a divine being or a set standard of sacred truth. Simply put, the prophet equates

legitimacy with authenticity, being true to the inspired message.

Another characteristic of the prophetic tradition is that the prophet is positioned

apart from society. The concept of prophetic distance is drawn from biblical passages

such as John 15:19 where Christ commands his followers to be apart from and a part of

the world, a liminal position in the world. John the Baptist, whom Scripture identifies as

“the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” (John 1:23), is another exemplar of the

prophetic voice in the New Testament This position allows the prophet to call society to

renew its commitment to a higher power or standard. Darsey (1999) has considered the

position and nature of the prophetic call:

The prophet is an accuser and judge; he is called into being when the law has been

violated, a critical time. The prophet announces both the charges and the verdict

of God or nature against the transgressors of the law. (p. 24)

In this sense, “the prophet does not speak as a member of the group he (sic) is

addressing…as a messenger, the prophet speaks in the voice of the divine ‘I,’ and the

message of the judgment is against ‘you’ the people” (p. 26). Through this stance, the

prophet occupies the role of mediator between the people and the divine being or

standard. In this role, the prophet occupies a radical stance because of his or her

countercultural message. In addition, the prophet will often be rejected because of the

fundamental positions taken against the status quo. Despite opposition, the prophet must

have the courage in the midst of rejection to “move back into the deepest memories of his

community and activate those very symbols that have always been the basis for

contradicting the regnant consciousness” (Brueggemann, 2001, p. 66). It is the activation

 33

of these symbols on which the prophetic task depends. The goal of the prophetic is

always partly historical because the prophet is always calling the people back to a

previous communal understanding of reality.

The role of the prophet is always presented as an unavoidable position; that is, the

prophet does not choose the role, the role chooses the prophet. It is not entered

voluntarily. Prophets will always position themselves and their presumed prophetic

identity as an uncontrollable (sometimes even unwanted) result. Historically, prophets

have been routinely rejected in a variety of ways (Darsey, 1999). Enduring persecution is

a key sign of the authenticity of the prophetic call: “the willingness to suffer is the most

compelling evidence of the abandonment of the self” (Darsey, 1999, p. 33). A final point

should be made on the nature of the prophet. The prophet’s position and sense of destiny

should not be taken to imply that the prophet is infallible. A key characteristic of the

prophetic tradition is that the prophet is limited by imperfection (West, 1993a).

Prophetic appeals are characterized by attempts to constitute individuals as

members of movements. In constituting membership to the cause for which they are

advocating, prophets have several rhetorical tools at their disposal. The goal underlying

their rhetorical appeals is “to create an emotional response to sin, a reaction to the pathos

of God” (Darsey, 1999, p. 76). the process of constitution within American social

movements drawing on the prophetic tradition took three steps: 1) the rhetors of the

movement link their cause with the transcendent values of society (e.g., truth, justice, and

love), 2) they identify people as the defenders of these values against all odds, and 3) they

position these people toward specific action to repent and adhere to sacred truths. To

borrow the religious language in which the prophetic is rooted, this tradition holds that
 34

God’s warriors were responsible to change evil situations (Chappell, 2005). Also,

Chappell has noted that within the prophetic tradition “evil demanded complete

renunciation and opposition, not gradual ‘progress’” (p. 71). People were responsible to

call certain publics to adopt a new moral framework that would automatically put them in

a hostile position to the status quo. The “return” that prophets would ask them to make

would be one of returning to the moral or natural covenant that mankind had with some

higher power or standard (not necessarily religious). Challenges to the prophetic mission

come in the form of opposition that seeks to silence prophetic voices and reinforce the

status quo (West, 1993a). An important part of my argument in this project is that the

Exodus has often functioned in rhetoric to advance the aims of the prophetic tradition.

Within African American rhetoric, the narrative is most commonly linked with the

tradition (Frank, 2009; Miller, 1992; Murphy, 2011; Osborn, 1989; Selby, 2008). Having

outlined these three areas of literature that I will draw from in this project, I will proceed

to explain the methodological approach that I will take in this study.

2.4 Methods

My key goal in this project is to explore differences in how the Exodus narrative

has been used discursively within African American rhetoric during the Civil Rights

Movement compared with how it is being used during the Age of Obama, which I date

from 2004 till the present. The purpose of this exploration is to identify the nature and

significance of these differences. In particular, I am interested in discovering if and how

the narrative has changed in its ability to constitute African American identity, ideology,

and telos. In addition, I will analyze varying discourses to discern whether or not the

narrative still serves the aims of the prophetic tradition.

 35

To accomplish the goals of this study, I will engage in a rhetorical analysis of

discourses emerging from the Civil Rights Movement and contemporary African

American rhetoric that draw on the Exodus language or imagery. In the next section, I

will preview the artifacts that I will look at in my analysis, the manner in which I will

conduct my analysis, and a projection of what the final product will look like.

2.4.1 Artifacts for Analysis

To accomplish the goals of this dissertation in determining changes in the

utilization of the Exodus from the Civil Rights Movement to the political rise of Barack

Obama, I examine the text of speeches of from Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama,

and contemporary African American political forums such as Tavis Smiley’s State of the

Black Union series and We Count Too! These three bodies of texts will allow me to

engage in historical comparison of uses of the Exodus. In particular, they will allow me

to contrast historical uses of the narrative during the Civil Rights Movement to

contemporary uses during the Age of Obama.

First, I examine key texts from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s career as a civil rights

leader. Granted, there were many other notable people drawing on the discursive power

of the Exodus during the Civil Rights Movement including notable figures such as

Gardner C. Taylor (Taylor & Taylor, 1999; 1981), and Joseph Lowery (2011). Its use

extends beyond notable figures to lesser known individuals and even organizational

documents (Houck & Dixon, 2006). However, my analysis concentrates on King

because his rhetoric provides an excellent entry point to understanding the prophetic roots

of Civil Rights Movement uses of the Exodus in rhetoric. My goal, in this project, is not

to establish the pervasive uses of the Exodus during the movement. Specifically, I will
 36

look at King’s speeches given at the conclusion of the march from Selma to Montgomery

and his Birth of a New Nation address delivered following Ghana’s liberation from

British rule. These speeches offer insight into the relationship between the Exodus and

prophetic tradition in the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement. While I focus this part

of my analysis on King’s speech, I will draw in content from other speeches of his and

others as I seek to demonstrate the role of the narrative during the period.

Second, I will draw on the rhetoric of Barack Obama to highlight how the Exodus

surfaces in his discourses. I utilize C-SPAN’s extensive archive of American political

rhetoric to identify speeches in which he invokes the Exodus. While President Obama

has delivered countless speeches since being elected, I will concentrate my analysis on

speeches which he seeks to position himself as the product of or in relation to the Civil

Rights Movement. In particular, I will focus on two key campaign speeches that he

delivered during the 2008 presidential campaign in 2007 at a memorial for the 1965

Selma March and in 2008 at a celebration of King’s birthday at the slain leader’s church

in Atlanta, Georgia.

Third, to compliment my contrast of King’s and Obama’s rhetoric, I will draw on

the statements of key African American leaders at forums designed to promote awareness

of key issues facing the African American community. Several of these forums such as

Tavis Smiley’s We Count Too! event highlight key responses of contemporary African

American leaders to the rise of Barack Obama. Specifically, their critiques of the

president highlight the ways in which certain segments of the population feel that Obama

had co-opted the prophetic tradition of King and other for political advantage. These

forums demonstrate how key leaders utilized the language of the Exodus to (de)legitimize
 37

Obama at different points and how they contextualized his rise in the historic shadow of

Dr. King and other African American leaders. Drawing in the contributions of

contemporary African American leaders will provide an entry point for a clearer

comparison to be made between utilization of the Exodus during the two periods. More

specifically, I will examine transcripts from Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union

series, as well as the We Count Too! forum of 2010.

2.4.2 Metaphor criticism

From a rhetorical standpoint, I will engage in an analysis of the Exodus drawing

from the principles of metaphor criticism. Granted, I define the Exodus as a narrative;

however, I believe that metaphor criticism provides a lens through which to study the

particulars of the Exodus as its language and imagery appear within African American

discourse. Metaphor criticism provides a more suitable entry point to studying the

narrative because the Exodus is never used in totality within a speech. Rather,

individuals and groups break up the narrative into smaller metaphoric components and

invoke those components for their discursive purposes.

The absence of the explicit language of the entire Exodus does not mean that its

imagery is not working beneath the surface. Smith and Eisenberg (1987) explained that

metaphors can operate below the surface within discourse, remaining hidden in the

language that rhetors use. Therefore, I will extend my analysis beyond explicit

references of the Exodus and include in my analysis rhetoric in which the Exodus is

invoked through imagery or word choice. For example, Darsey (2009) has argued that

Obama’s language features the idea of a journey as a central metaphor. While many of

these speeches do not contain explicit references to the Exodus, I would argue that they
 38

still rely on its discursive power in advancing key arguments. That is, the idea of Exodus

lies beneath the surface of journey references.

As a starting point, I need to disclose a few assumptions on narrative and

metaphor that I carry into this project. First, I conduct this study in agreement with

Booth’s (1983) perspective that narrative structure is inherently rhetorical in nature. That

is, the structure of a narrative is as much a part of its message as any other component.

Second, I argue that the narrative need not be recreated in totality in order for the

rhetorical effects of the narrative to be experienced by the audience. As Joseph Campbell

(2008) has highlighted in his work, narratives can be divided into different elements that

can be analyzed independently of one another. It is this fact that influenced my decision

to rely on metaphor criticism as a methodological approach. Third, I view these narrative

divisions as metaphors operating independently, but in conjunction with other metaphors

belonging to the Exodus narrative. These metaphors are often hidden beneath the surface

of conscious thought in rhetoric. With regards to metaphor, I draw on an interactional

view that metaphor is the interaction of thoughts that surfaces and is negotiated through

language and shapes social realities (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Richards, 1965;

Wheelwright, 1962).

Therefore, studying how metaphors rooted in the Exodus have dominated the

discursive landscape of African American thought and how the metaphor has changed in

meaning, application, and centrality over time can yield fresh insights into the evolution

of identity and thought. For instance, how the Promised Land was constituted during the

Civil Rights Movement may be different than how it is envisioned today. Changes in

how it is imagined may yield insight into how the identity and telos of African Americans
 39

have changed as well. Having outlined how I view the Exodus as a narrative and its

subplots as metaphors, I will proceed to discuss how I will excavate Exodus language and

imagery in the places where it might not be invoked explicitly.

2.4.3 Deconstructing the Exodus Narrative

Within the Exodus, there are five distinct categories from which metaphors arise.

Categorizing the Exodus into distinct motifs is recognized by biblical scholars as a

challenge (Ryken et al., 1998). For the purposes of this project, I identify the Exodus as

the period in the Old Testament from the beginning of the book of Exodus to the end of

the book of Joshua. This determination allows me to identify dominant subplots at work

in the broader narrative framework. Beginning with the concept of deliverance, I will

walk through each of these terms and identify language and imagery associated with

these terms that I will use as a guide to identify the presence of the Exodus in discourse.

First and foremost, the Exodus is a story about deliverance. The children of Israel were

slaves who needed a deliverer or savior. Metaphorically, this concept focuses on the

condition in which individuals are positioned at the beginning of the discursive narrative

and the quest for freedom. As a result, when searching for its presence within discourse,

the concept of deliverance must be at the forefront of scholarly attention. Therefore, I

will identify “exodus language” in terms highlighting deliverance from bondage,

freedom, release, rescue, liberation, and relief from oppression or a condition perceived

to be adverse, unjust, or inhumane.

Second, the concept of journey is central to the notion of Exodus. The word

“Exodus” literally means a journey, so any discussion of the narrative’s metaphoric

function must mention the spatial, mental, historical/temporal, or discursive journey from
 40

one location to another. Second, using the literal meaning of the term Exodus as journey,

I will identify “exodus language” when rhetors use language that calls for movement,

discursive or material, from one location to another. Included in the motif of journey are

terms like wayfaring, pilgrimage, march, migration, odyssey, progress, quest, and even

campaign.

Third, the narrative includes the related concepts of miracles and blessing.

Embedded within the notion of blessing is the concept of purpose. This element focuses

on why there is the need for an Exodus or a journey to be made. The children of Israel

were leaving Egypt in search of the blessing of the Promised Land of Canaan. The

blessings being pursued in rhetorical uses of the Exodus motivate the journey, despite its

inevitable hardships. The notion of blessing indicates divine approval of a people or a

course of action. Furthermore, the notion also relates to miracles because blessings

would only be realized through the miraculous events by which God brought Israel

through the wilderness into the Promised Land.

By these events, the Israelites were able to escape Egypt, defeat armies, and avoid

starvation in the wilderness. The events are invoked in texts to demonstrate divine

sanctioning of causes during moments of victory. For example, Israel experienced the

power of God when he parted the Red Sea as a means for them to escape the advancing

Egyptian army. Rhetors often link key events in different movements with those miracles

of the past as a means of supporting their cause with legitimacy and motivating

faithfulness to the cause and future action. The language associated with miracles was

seen in the Civil Rights Movement as moments of victory and can even be seen in the

titles of Taylor Branch’s (1989, 1999, 2006) bestselling series on the movement. The
 41

language of miracles include phrases and terms like parting the waters, pillar of fire,

manna in the wilderness, moving or troubling the water, and dreams.

Fourth, there are specific personalities associated with the narrative. Each of the

key characters within the narrative embodies a key persona that is used within a variety

of contexts to cast individuals as heroes, enemies, and different collective entities such as

God’s chosen people and recipients of his wrath. These characters include Moses,

Pharaoh, Joshua, Israelites, Egyptians, and Canaanites. These terms are used to refer to

individuals, groups, and even entire generations (Murphy, 2011). Moses implies a leader,

deliverer, savior, and emancipator. Pharaoh signifies an oppressor, tyrant, persecutor,

supremacist, authoritarian, elitist, and task master. Paired with Pharaoh, the language and

imagery surrounding the Egyptians signifies those who would support the Pharaoh-type

in maintaining the status quo and oppressing the weak. Israelites are identified with

terms such as God’s people, pilgrims, wayfarers, freedom fighters, sojourners, pioneers,

and strangers.

Fifth, the notion of geography is very important to all rhetorical uses of the

Exodus. Geography is closely related to the concept of journey. Whereas journey

implies a linear progression, the notion of geography seeks to provide insight on where a

movement, group, or individual is in relation to the Promised Land. For example, stating

that an individual or group is in the wilderness is very different than saying that the same

individual or group is geographically situated on Canaan’s edge, or (at the opposite

extreme) in Egypt under the oppression of Pharaoh. Differences in location identify how

far or close that individual or group is to reaching the Promised Land and their ultimate

blessing.
 42

This concept interacts with the concept of journey to chart progress, determine

position, and map out the future. Within the narrative there are several points of

geography that surface in discourse. These terms include Egypt, the wilderness, the Red

Sea, on Canaan’s edge, Canaan or the Promised Land, the mountaintops of Sinai or Nebo,

and Jericho. Terms to draw attention to these places include land of captivity or slavery

for Egypt. The wilderness received attention with terms like place of wandering. Also,

Canaan and the Promised Land is highlighted with terms such as the land of opportunity,

freedom, equality or whatever language the discursive or material end of that particular

Exodus invocation is.

These five elements are the crucial metaphoric components of the Exodus as it is

used discursively. In reading the narrative, I will look for explicit references to the

Exodus narrative or sub-metaphors associated with it. I identify explicit references as

those that draw on the exact language of the Hebrew Scriptures in discourse. An example

of this would be Martin Luther King, Jr.’s (1968) final speech before his assassination.

At numerous points throughout the speech, he makes specific references to Moses,

Pharaoh, and the Promised Land. Obviously, I will view references such as this as

invocations of the Exodus. However, I will also note moments when rhetors draw on the

language of the Exodus without explicit references to Moses, the wilderness, or the

Promised Land. Previous scholarship on metaphor criticism has examined the ways in

which metaphors lurk beneath the surface of conscious thought and become embedded in

the very language rhetors use (Boyd, 2003; Ivie, 1987, 2005; Medhurst, Ivie, Wander, &

Scott, 1997; Smith & Eisenberg, 1987). Boyd, for instance, explores how the war
 43

metaphor appeared in the language of force and coercion used by competing

organizations in the case of a hostile takeover.

2.4.4 Interpreting Exodus Language and Imagery

While I have demonstrated what I will be looking for in the texts that I analyze, I

have not explained how I will interpret uses of the Exodus, explicit or implied. This

interpretive task is essential to this project because “metaphors are not neutral

representations of reality; they are manifestations of particular ideologies and world-

views, and have implications for what counts as information, and what is thinkable”

(Smith & Eisenberg, 1987, p. 369).

The Exodus emerged as the discursive manifestation of key ideologies and world-

views in the African American community during slavery and has endured as an essential

interpretive framework to the African American experience (Feiler, 2009; Glaude, Jr.,

2000; Murphy, 2011; Selby, 2008). Once I have identified the metaphor in discourse, I

will observe how it is linked with different ideologies and agendas in texts. In King’s

final speech prior to his assassination, for example, he draws on the Exodus extensively

to position African Americans into an ideological framework in which victory over

racism and prejudice was inevitable (Keeley, 2008). My analysis will first recognize the

presence of the narrative in texts and then determine how ideology is being manifested

and identity is being constituted. To continue with the example from King’s final speech,

he links the notion of Exodus with the ideology of nonviolent resistance. Having

deconstructed the narrative in different motifs, I will use the divisions to recognize how

they are being linked with different ideological agendas and identity constructions in
 44

texts. I will explore how narrative elements such as the Promised Land are being

configured in discourse and how certain constructions position individuals to pursue it.

Therefore, I will begin by analyzing texts in which the narrative is present to

observe the discursive connections that are being made in the texts between those

constituted and particular ideologies and identities. Excavating the ideologies and

identities implied in texts evoking the Exodus provides an entry point for me to address

how the narrative has evolved and to explore the implications of these changes for

African American sociopolitical discourse.

 45

CHAPTER 3. THE EXODUS IN ANTELBELLUM AFRICAN AMERICAN

RHETORICAL HISTORY

Rhetoric, as Bercovitch (1978) argued, “reflects and affects a set of particular

psychic, social, and historical needs” (p. 1). Early uses of the Exodus highlight these

“needs” in Colonial America and the different ways that settlers and slaves sought to

address them. Finding themselves in a strange land, early American settlers and slaves

attempted to structure reality in the so-called new World around the elements of the

Exodus narrative. Consistently throughout history, Americans have drawn on the Bible

to interpret their experiences (Downey & Burnett, 2013). The early settlers were no

exception. The presence of the Exodus in rhetoric from early American history to

contemporary rhetoric suggests that it is the “nation’s most powerful and long lasting

myth” (Raboteau, 2005, para. 1). Stephen Prothero (2012) echoed this perspective,

stating, “No biblical narrative has been more important in U.S. history than the Exodus”

(p. 18). While the Exodus is properly understood to be a narrative, in early American

rhetoric it functioned as a discursive field of metaphors that people used differently in

various contexts to interpret their American experiences. The common denominator in

these early American uses of Exodus, as I will highlight in this chapter, is the metaphor

“we are Israel.” However, self-identification as Israel held different implications for each

group that adopted this perspective. The inconsistency in meaning that each group

derived from this identity stems from the fact that metaphor is grounded in experience
 46

(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). That is, metaphor operates within culture, time, and space.

Metaphoric meaning does not operate independently of contextual factors but in

conjunction with them.

Understanding the relationship between metaphor and context provides insight

into the reason that groups draw on the same metaphor for completely different purposes.

For example, Mormons interpreted the metaphor as an impetus to flee oppression by

journeying westward (Bennett, 2009). Slaves, on the other hand, viewed it as a call to

struggle through oppression (Glaude, Jr., 2000; Raboteau, 1994). The point of

highlighting differences in interpretation is not to privilege one interpretation. Rather, I

am trying to highlight the fact that interpretation derived from a metaphor is intimately

connected with context. In this chapter, I will explore the origin of the link between the

Exodus and the African American community, how the Exodus functioned as a source of

and critique of power, and how the Exodus constitutes those who identify with it in

relation to time and history.

Black solidarity with the Exodus is something of an enigma. This narrative

developed into an archetypal metaphor that continues to play a fundamental role in

(re)creating and (re)shaping the African American community. Furthermore, the debate

over Obama’s authenticity to the prophetic past of African American rhetoric must begin

with a perspective on the historical significance of the Exodus in African American

history. That is, authenticity is attributed to people on the basis of a rhetorically

constructed solidarity with a previous point in history. I view early African American
 47

uses of the Exodus as enigmatic because Christianity was anything but an emancipatory

religion to Blacks1 prior to the 1800s.

Throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, Christian doctrine and science

were used to marginalize and oppress people of African descent (Carter, 2008; Kidd,

2006). The Bible and scientific findings were interpreted to position blacks as inferior,

less than human, and unintelligent. During this period of oppression, Americans operated

from the metaphor “we are Israel” and “America is the Promised Land” (Bercovitch,

1978; Feiler, 2009). That is, the nation perceived itself to be chosen by God as a

collective agent of His divine will. The irony of this perspective is that the constant

emphasis on justice, freedom, and liberty did not conflict with injustices committed

against American Indians or the restrictions that settlers placed on the freedoms of

African slaves in the minds of the early settlers. Rather, Christianity was utilized to

justify oppressive policies against these groups (Cave, 1988; Corrigan, 2012; Glaude, Jr.,

2012). The religion that for some was used to promote liberty became the justification of

oppression against others in Colonial America. Despite the cultural priority that justice,

liberty, and righteousness received, Christian settlers operated from the metaphor,

“slavery is just.”

Considering their experiences with Christianity as a tool of oppression and

marginalization, there is no reason to expect Blacks to ever turn to the Exodus to make

sense of their predicament in the New World. However, numerous factors contributed to

1
In this chapter, I use the term “black” to refer to people of African descent because at this point in
American history they had not yet been granted citizenship in America.
 48

an evolving relationship between Blacks and the Exodus. Metaphoric application of this

story allowed them to reimagine their identity in America.

The mystery surrounding the Exodus state of mind that emerged at the turn of the

nineteenth century raises several key questions: What factors influenced the adoption of

the Exodus by African slaves and free blacks? What do uses of the Exodus suggest about

Blacks’ understanding of self and America? What insight do these uses provide into their

values? How do early uses of the Exodus contribute to our understanding of the

contemporary role of the story in African American cultural life? To interrogate these

questions, I will examine early American texts featuring the Exodus, including speeches,

sermons, and organizational documents. Specifically, I will examine these texts to

identify how the Exodus functioned metaphorically in early American life among Blacks.

To contextualize their use of the Exodus, I will briefly highlight how it was used by

Whites in early American life.

Blacks turned to the Exodus because it provided them with a sense of identity,

agency, and a perspective on history that allowed them to reimagine the future. Their

interpretation of the narrative provided them with a strategic entry point to disrupt socio-

religious structures that sought to unite American slavery with Christian doctrine. Prior

to demonstrating how the metaphoric framework functioned among Blacks, I must first

outline some of the key details of the original Exodus as displayed in the Old Testament.

This understanding will shed light on how different groups adapted the narrative to fit

their different needs. Second, I briefly highlight how Whites utilized the narrative in

early American life to provide context for black interpretations of the Exodus. Third, I

will concentrate attention on how blacks adapted the Exodus as a discursive framework
 49

from which to operate. Finally, I will briefly highlight the relevance of the chapter to the

broader dissertation project.

3.1 The Exodus in the Bible

The story of Israel’s Exodus is rooted in the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity,

and Islam (Alexander, 2002; Heschel, 2010). It takes center stage in the first six books of

the Old Testament where the account of Israel’s journey to the Promised Land of Canaan

is recorded. The children of Israel escaping slavery in Egypt and journeying to the

Promised Land is one of the most widely discussed events in the Hebrew Torah and the

Christian Bible. Several themes emerge from the story of the Israelite Exodus including

bondage, oppression, redemption, rebellion, punishment, chosenness, blessing, and

promises.

According to the book of Exodus, the story begins with the children of Israel in

bondage to the Egyptian Empire. The author, commonly believed to be Moses

(Alexander, 2002), sets the stage for the drama by describing the slavery that the

Israelites experienced at the hands of the Egyptian Empire: “they ruthlessly made the

people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar

and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made

them work as slaves” (Exodus 1:13-14 English Standard Version). This harsh treatment

even included acts of genocide against the Israelites (Exodus 1:16). In response, the story

begins in Egypt with an enslaved Israelite nation pleading to God for “help” (Exodus

2:23). God chose Moses to lead Israel out of their captivity in response to this cry

(Exodus 3:9-12). God’s support for Israel’s freedom was displayed in the ten

supernatural disasters he plagued Egypt with including turning the water supply to blood
 50

(Exodus 7:20), slaughtering Egyptian livestock (Exodus 9:6), and killing the firstborn

sons of those who did not revere him (Exodus 12:12-13). This final plague is

memorialized annually during Passover remembrances (Exodus 12:14).

Additionally, each of the plagues was designed to demonstrate Israel’s God’s

superiority over the Egyptian gods (Stuart, 2007). The final plague was the tipping point

for Pharaoh, Egypt’s king. He granted Israel its freedom, although he did later change his

mind, sending his entire army to recapture Israel. This event led to the showdown at the

Red Sea where God parted the waters, allowing Israel to escape from the advancing

Egyptian army, which was drowned when the waters crashed in on the pursuing Egyptian

army, protecting the Israelite escape (Exodus 14).

However, the escape from Egypt was only the first leg of the journey. Along the

way to the Promised Land, there were food shortages (Exodus 16), skirmishes with

surrounding nations (Exodus 17:8-13), and internal rebellions against their God and his

appointed leadership (Exodus 32; Numbers 16:3). Due to a lack of faith in God’s power,

Israel was condemned to an additional forty years of wandering in the wilderness

(Numbers 14:33). Moses, the legendary leader, was forbidden from ever entering the

Promised Land (Numbers 20:9-12). Despite numerous setbacks, the people of Israel

finally arrived at the border of Canaan (Deuteronomy 1:6-8). During the forty years of

wilderness wandering, a new leader was appointed (Numbers 27:18-23) and additional

commands were given to integrate the Exodus story into the cultural memory of the

people: “you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord

your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm”

(Deuteronomy 5:15). God commanded this remembrance to inspire Israel’s religious

 51

fidelity. Upon entering the Promised Land, there were notable military triumphs (Joshua

10:40); however, the significance of those victories was diminished by Israel’s failure to

obtain possession of the entire Promised Land (Joshua 13:1).

The events of Exodus loom over the remainder of the Old Testament. They are

present in practically every literary genre, serving as the basis of religious worship

(Psalm 105), national repentance (Amos 2:10), and religious fidelity (Nehemiah 9:9-21).

In the Old Testament, most uses of the narrative were localized to the nation-state of

Israel, but the Bible suggests that the events of the Exodus held discursive power and

inspired fear even in people outside of Israel (1 Samuel 4:8). This story served as a

conceptual field of metaphors that people frequently consulted for meaning during the

nation’s infant stages.

3.2 America as the Promised Land

Christian doctrine, and more specifically the Exodus, emerged as a crucial site

where power, identity, and meaning were articulated, challenged, and negotiated in early

American life, beginning with the arrival of English settlers in the 17th century.2 Their

arrival in America was immediately interpreted through the discursive lens of the

Exodus. John Winthrop’s (1630) famous sermon, A Model of Christian Charity, offers

evidence of this relationship:

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people

are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have

undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be

2
In this chapter, I will provide only a brief overview of the influence of the Exodus on early American life.
For further research, please see Bercovitch (1978) and Raboteau (1994).
 52

made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of

enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We

shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to

be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we

are going. (para. 55).

A cursory reading of Winthrop’s sermon might reveal nothing more than a harsh warning

to early settlers. However, more is going on in this text. While not explicitly mentioned,

the Exodus lurks beneath the surface throughout Winthrop’s message. First, Winthrop

structured the entire message to resemble Moses’s final sermon to the children of Israel in

Deuteronomy 30,3 which occurred immediately prior to their entry in the Promised Land.

Understanding the metaphoric framework of this important speech offers insight into the

identity of the early settlers as it was rhetorically constructed. Second, Winthrop’s

message suggests that early settlers viewed themselves as a new Israel (Bercovitch, 1978;

Raboteau, 1994). Within this configuration, their previous home (Europe) was cast as

Egypt and the journey across the ocean as the wilderness period.

Their self-identification as the people of Israel carried the assumption that they,

like Israel, had been chosen by God to carry out his divine will. That is, God had

specially selected them to accomplish his will of taking possession of America.

Winthrop’s strong warnings suggest he did not view chosenness as a blanket endorsement

of whatever the settlers wanted to do. Rather, he understood it to mean that they had a

3
Deuteronomy 30 features Moses’s final charge to Israel prior to their entry into the Promised Land and his
death. In his message, he reminded them of the terms of their covenant with their God. Winthrop
structured him message to resemble the covenantal emphasis of Deuteronomy 30. In the last section of the
message, Winthrop even quoted the passage directly.
 53

responsibility to be faithful to God. He did not view God’s presence, blessing, or

approval to be a guaranteed reality. Instead, Winthrop argued that God’s presence is

secured only through faithfulness to Christian doctrine. America, to the early settlers,

was their Promised Land. By taking possession of it, they were accomplishing God’s

will. Over time, this very mindset became the foundation for the systematic

extermination of American Indians. Metaphorically, American Indians were cast as the

illegitimate Canaanites occupying the land that God had reserved for Israel (Cave, 1988;

Corrigan, 2012). Therefore, it was Christian duty to eliminate them from the land,

serving as agents of God’s judgment on them.

Within this framework, fidelity to God was the supreme value. Faithfulness was

vital to the success or failure of their attempt to take possession of America. Without it,

they would fail to shine as a “city upon a hill.” Instead, Winthrop’s interpretation of the

Exodus suggested that God would wipe them out as punishment for infidelity.

Understanding early interpretations of the Exodus renders theological influences on the

political, social, cultural, and economic life of the nation intelligible. The rhetorical link

between faithfulness and favor encouraged Puritan efforts to structure America as a

theocracy in which citizens would view the God of the Bible as the supreme authority.

Gradually, the early settlers’ commitment of fidelity to God as a means of

securing divine blessing gave way to the assumption that God’s blessing was present no

matter what the settlers chose to do. This shift limited the settlers’ need to hold

themselves accountable to divine values. Rhetorically, Raboteau explained that “the

salient features of the American Exodus story changed. As the actual experience of

migration with all its fear and tenuousness receded, Americans tended to lose sight of
 54

their radical dependence upon God and to celebrate their own achievements as a nation”

(p. 11). The shift created a discursive opening in the reality that the Exodus had

constructed for America to (re)imagine herself as a redeemer nation as for ideas such as

manifest destiny to become central to national identity and ideology.4 The developing

ideological framework was laced with tension and contradiction. America’s newfound

destiny and understanding of freedom contradicted the growth of slavery in the nation

(Harding, 1997; Wilmore, 1984). Central to this understanding of freedom was a

rearticulated interpretation of the Exodus that functioned to provide divine endorsement

for various imperial moves in early American history. During this period, citizens came

to view America as the redeemer nation. From this standpoint, even the atrocities of

slavery functioned to rescue the slave from the atrocities of Africa. Amidst this tension

and contradiction, African American Christianity was born.

Generally speaking, Blacks became familiarized with Christianity and the Exodus

as a result of Puritan influences in the colonies (Raboteau, 1994; Wilmore, 1984).

However, the interpretation of Christianity and the Exodus that the slaves adopted was

distinct. Their experiences and cultural framework were different than those of the

majority of Americans. Therefore, their understanding of the Exodus was fundamentally

different. The contrasting interpretations of Christianity did not evolve independently of

one another, but in tension with and conflict with one another. That is, the tension

produced by the contradictions of freedom, slavery, and Christianity provided an entry

4
This shift featured a turn from warning, caution, and responsibility to rhetoric featuring a blind optimism
in divine blessing and prosperity. For example, see the well-known 18th century sermon by Ezra Stiles in
Ezra Stiles (1783/1998). The United States elevated to glory and honor. In Reiner Smolinski (Ed.), The
kingdom, the power, and the glory: The millennial impulse in early American literature (pp. 441-492),
Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt.
 55

point for Blacks to rearticulate a version of Christianity featuring the Exodus, which they

viewed as emancipatory. Indeed, the tension between competing perspectives on the

Exodus led to one of the greatest paradoxes in early American life: White Americans

viewed America as the Promised Land, whereas Blacks understood it to be Egypt

(Glaude, Jr., 2000).

3.3 America as Egypt

African American Christianity was distinct from dominant American versions of

Christianity. It served as a site for Blacks to fuse Christianity with practices of other

indigenous religions. While Puritan America celebrated its status as the new Israel

conquering the Promised Land of Canaan, African slaves struggled to understand their

captivity and forge an identity in a strange land. In Christianity, they would eventually

locate “a theology of history that helped them to make sense of their enslavement”

(Raboteau, 1994, p. 1). However, this discovery was a long time coming. Prior to the

Great Awakening, slaves did not generally identify as Christian, nor were there

significant attempts to Christianize them (Kalm, 1770/1987). Masters believed that

Christianity had the potential to disrupt the power dynamics of the master-slave

relationship (Mintz & Price, 1997; Raboteau, 1994, 1997). Under growing pressure from

the Church of England, masters began to allow the religious instruction of slaves during

the first half of the 18th century. This policy change came as a result of the Church

assuring masters that Christianization would not complicate the master-slave relationship

at all because Christian doctrine did not apply to it. Organizations such as the Society for

the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts made this assurance a key part of their

evangelistic platform:
 56

As human authority hath granted them none, of the Scripture, far from making

any alteration in civil rights, expressly directs, that every man abide in the

condition wherein he is called, with great indifference of mind concerning

outward circumstances: and the only rule it prescribes for servants of the same

religion with their masters, is not to despise them because they are brethren, but to

do them service. (Secker, 1741, p. 22)

This mode of thinking resulted in the creation of “a religious foundation to support

slavery” (Raboteau, 1994, p. 3). Predictably, these efforts at indoctrination were not

overwhelmingly popular among slaves. But these early efforts helped spur later growth

of the religion among Blacks during the First Great Awakening (1730 – 1743) by

increasing their familiarity with Christian doctrine.

The Great Awakening featured a version of Christianity that was much more

attractive to Blacks. It was egalitarian in nature and in several instances featured Whites

who took strong anti-slavery stances. The religious practices featured at the services in

this movement were closer to slaves’ previous religious experiences (Glaude, Jr., 2000;

Levine, 1997; Raboteau, 1994; Wilmore, 1984). The similarities created points of

identification for the slaves to embrace Christianity as their own. The significance of the

Great Awakening to Blacks is that it planted the thought that Christianity could be a tool

to help the slaves in their condition: “For a short time, revivalist evangelicalism breached

the wall that colonial missionaries had built between spiritual and temporal equality.

Converting slaves to Christianity could have implications beyond the spiritual, a

possibility slaves were to explore” (Raboteau, 1994, p. 6). Over time, much of the

support for anti-slavery stances that Blacks received from Whites in the Great Awakening
 57

waned. However, the seeds had been planted for blacks to take Christian doctrine and

make it their own.

The Bible had been used to justify oppression towards them. It had been used to

demand submission from them. Yet in the pages of Scripture, Blacks located the

rhetorical resources to offer a potent critique of American slavery. Of these resources, as

Raboteau (1994) has noted, “no single symbol captures more clearly the distinctiveness

of Afro-American Christianity than the symbol of the Exodus” (p. 9). Blacks grew to see

themselves through the lens of Israel’s bondage in Egypt. As the 19th century began, the

Exodus began to dominate the cultural landscape of Blacks. It appeared in language,

songs, poetry, and stories that they used to make sense of their existence (Joyner, 1994;

Levine, 1997; Washington, 1994). They drew on the Exodus because it provided what

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) would call a “cultural coherence” (p. 22). That is, the Exodus

functioned metaphorically to unite the various elements of the black experience into a

framework that served to give meaning and purpose to their lives. Metaphors are

selected as discursive frames based on their ability to resolve apparent tension and

contradiction (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Rhetorically, the Exodus allowed Blacks to

rearticulate an identity that emancipated them from ideologies that had been used to

oppress them. They had been told that they were less than human, that God intended for

them to be slaves, and that God wanted them to be obedient to their slave masters

(Harding, 1997; Joyner, 1994; Kidd, 2006; Raboteau, 1994, 1997). In the Exodus, they

found identity, discovered agency, and imagined a new future.

First, Blacks drew on the Exodus metaphorically as a source of individual and

collective identity. They understood the Exodus to mean that they were a contemporary
 58

[oppressed] Israel. Blacks found solidarity with the plight of the Israelites in Egypt.

Simultaneously White America saw itself as a contemporary [liberated] Israel. Within

Black uses of the Exodus, America was Egypt and those oppressing them were the

Egyptians. The narrative functioned as what Glaude (2000) has called “countermemory”:

“an alternative narrative that directly or indirectly opposes – operating under and against

– the master narrative of the nation” (pp. 83-84). This countermemory was necessary

because slavery in America was premised on the fact that the slaves were somehow less

than human. Through their use of the Exodus, Blacks recovered a sense of humanity as a

people chosen by God. Nineteenth century political activist Maria Stewart’s speech

highlights how the narrative functioned during the slavery-era to constitute identity:

You may kill, tyrannize, and oppress as much as you choose, until our cry shall

come up before the throne of God; for I am firmly persuaded, that he will not

suffer you to quell the proud, fearless and undaunted spirits of the Africans

forever; for in his own time, he is able to plead our cause against you, and to pour

out upon you the ten plagues of Egypt. (qtd. in Richardson, 1987, p. 39)

Stewart’s quote reveals several metaphors that operated in Black rhetoric during the

period. Metaphoric relationships are implied between Blacks and Israel, America and

Egypt, the oppressors and the Egyptians, and the ten plagues and impending judgment.

Since Stewart viewed Blacks as a contemporary Israel, oppression would not last forever

because God was on their side and would eventually deliver them, even if it required

miraculous efforts. Furthermore, the power that was exercised over Blacks in society

was illegitimate because it was against the will of God and would eventually incur his

wrath. The significance of this rhetorical position is that it taught slaves and free blacks
 59

suffering the difficulties of inferior status in the nation that submission to authority was

not always right. It taught that God was attentive to their oppression. It taught that

deliverance was on the horizon. In short, the Exodus invited Blacks to a world in which

they were human, free, and equal.

Second, the Exodus served to reposition Blacks with community. Upon arrival in

Colonial America, Blacks faced an intense struggle to build community. When they were

taken into captivity and brought to America, they came from different tribes, had

different customs, and spoke different languages. This reality and the lack of any history

made the process of building a united community awfully difficult (Glaude, Jr., 2000;

Raboteau, 1994). The Exodus provided fragmented populations of Blacks with the

rhetorical resources to unite as an Israelite community. While they may have different

biological origins, the discursive framework of the Exodus provided them with a

common history and future: together, they became God’s chosen people.

In strengthening communal bonds, the Exodus served as the basis for Blacks to

mobilize for collective action. For example, in the middle part of the 18th century, a key

debate was going on among abolitionists regarding the best way for Blacks to pursue

emancipation and equality in America. This topic was debated for years in speeches,

sermons, and pamphlets. The numerous appearances of the Exodus in the rhetoric of this

debate suggest that it served as a key site for perspectives on this issue to be debated and

challenged. In 1843, Henry Highland Garnet (1843/1969), a popular preacher and

activist, took a radical stance and argued that violence was a necessary prerequisite to

emancipation. Abolitionists were divided over the role that violent action should have in

the struggle for emancipation (Woodson, 1969, pp. 149–150). But Garnet argued
 60

forcefully in his speech to the National Convention of Colored Citizens that violent action

must be part of any pursuit of emancipation: “There is not much hope of redemption

without the shedding of blood….It is impossible, like the children of Israel, to make a

grand exodus from the land of bondage. The Pharaohs are on both sides of the blood-red

waters” (Garnet, 1843/1969, p. 155). Garnet’s statement is interesting and useful

because it demonstrates how the Exodus was adapted to meet the rhetorical needs of the

day. In this message, he sought to demonstrate the inescapable nature of violent action.

To do this, he utilized the Exodus, but he adapted it to reposition Blacks into a trapped

position from which there must be battle to escape. Key to his argument is the idea that

for Blacks, there is nowhere to flee for freedom. It must be won through violent action.

Furthermore, his adaptation of the Exodus suggests that he recognized the power the

Exodus held in this debate. Therefore, he saw the need to customize it to fit his

argument.

The presence of the Exodus in anti-slavery rhetoric served to reposition Blacks

with a sense of agency to effectively pursue social change. Previously, Blacks had been

marginalized under an ideological framework that cast their oppression as divinely

sanctioned. Anti-slavery interpretations of the Exodus suggested that slavery was wrong

and that it was the responsibility of God’s chosen people to fight this sinful institution in

the same way that the Israelites fought against Pharaoh. While particular approaches to

this change differed, the consensus was that change needed to happen and Blacks

possessed the power to pursue it. Recognizing the agency that the Exodus equipped

Blacks with is essential to understanding its dominance and persistence in the Black

community. It provided them with a framework from which they could challenge the
 61

status quo from a minority position. Glaude (2000) has referred to this potential as

“Exodus politics,” which he has defined “as a form of criticism that pressures a given

society to live up to its ideals” (p. 111). This criticism is based on a “hope against hope”

for deliverance (p. 111). That is, African Americans did not see any reason to be

optimistic that things were going to change for the better, but in the Exodus they found

reason to sustain hope and hold out for a better future. From a political standpoint, the

Exodus provided legitimacy, a sense of destiny, and an impetus to collective action. It

taught 19th century Blacks that no matter how society responded, it was never wrong to

pursue justice because God was always on the side of justice.

Third, the Exodus provided an entry point for Blacks to reimagine their future.

Previously, their lives were organized around an identity structured in slavery. The

Exodus allowed them to cast aside despair in exchange for the hope of reaching the

Promised Land. In probing their understanding of the Promised Land, the most

significant difference between Blacks’ and Whites’ understanding of the Exodus can be

observed. Whites in Colonial America understood the Promised Land to be a land-based,

tangible reality to which they would physically arrive via a journey across the ocean from

Europe or a journey westward in the case of Mormons (Bennett, 2009; Bercovitch, 1978).

However, Blacks never fully articulated an interpretation that included an arrival at a

geographical location to call their own. Granted, attempts were made by Whites and

Blacks to encourage Blacks to make an Exodus to locations like Africa, Mexico, and

Canada. But none of these attempts ever fully materialized (Glaude, Jr., 2000).

For Blacks, the Promised Land was a discursive reality in which righteousness,

freedom, and equality reigned supreme as intrinsic values. They viewed the Promised
 62

Land as an America that was true to its core ideals. This understanding of the Promised

Land required a fundamentally different journey than Puritans crossing the Atlantic. For

Blacks to reach this Promised Land, they had to reinvent America. In the Exodus, they

found courage, despite opposition, to dream of a day in which America would be the

Promised Land that they believed it should be, a point seen in speeches such as Nathaniel

Paul’s (1827) message celebrating the abolition of slavery in New York: “There shall yet

be one found like to the wise legislator of Israel, who shall take his brethren by the hand

and lead them forth from worse than Egyptian bondage to the happy Canaan of civil and

religious liberty” (p. 76). Through the Exodus, Blacks not only imagined a better future,

they anticipated it. In adopting the Exodus as a metaphoric framework, the Black

community in the 18th and 19th centuries made a decision to adopt a framework that

contradicted their daily experiences. This adoption provided them with hope and gave

them a responsibility to make their dream a reality. More specifically, they sought to

expose American hypocrisy and renew the nation’s original commitment to fidelity.

3.4 The Legacy of Blacks and the Exodus

In this chapter, I have sought to explore the circumstances that fostered a

discursive solidarity between African Americans and the Exodus. Specifically, I

demonstrated how early settlers interpreted the narrative to identify themselves as the

New Israel and America as the Promised Land. Next, I proceeded to show how Blacks

utilized the Exodus to decenter this understanding of the country as a means of

uncovering hypocrisy in the nation’s emphasis on freedom and tolerance of slavery.

Last, I highlighted how the Exodus was adopted by Blacks because it served as a

metaphoric source of identity, agency, and a future. This understanding is important

 63

because following the slavery era, African Americans drawing on the Exodus did so in

the context of its usage during the 18th and 19th centuries. That is, previous uses of the

Exodus serve as a cultural backdrop against which contemporary uses emerge. More

specifically, understanding the past provides an entry to understand the present and

future. Upcoming discussions of the Civil Rights Movement and the Age of Obama are

dependent on understanding the roots of the Exodus in the African American community.

Beyond using the metaphor to rearticulate a reality, the Exodus serves as a source of

legitimacy for the community. Activists like Nathaniel Paul, Maria Stewart, and Henry

Highland Garnet are revered heroes of the abolition movement. They framed their

struggle as an Exodus. When African American leaders utilize the narrative, they are not

only recalling the history of Israel’s flight from Egypt. They are also positioning

themselves in the same discursive tradition as Blacks from previous eras. History is

utilized in contemporary times to rhetorically construct authenticity and continuity. That

is, people utilize archetypal metaphors to articulate perspectives of the past that position

them as consubstantial with previous figures as a means of gaining legitimacy, influence,

and power.

Finally, the Exodus emerged over time as the foundation of a rhetorical genre

used by oppressed peoples to critique dominant power structures and to call people to

action in opposition to illegitimate uses of power. In the next chapter, I will explore the

specifics of this rhetorical genre known as the prophetic tradition. In particular, I

examine the relationship between the prophetic and political traditions.

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CHAPTER 4. UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE

PROPHETIC AND POLITICAL TRADITIONS

4.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter, I explored how the Exodus served as a crucial source of

identity for Blacks forced into slavery in a foreign land. Besides providing a sense of

self, the Exodus equipped African Americans with political agency and a mode of

political engagement in the form of the prophetic tradition. For a people left

marginalized by existing political structures in America, the Exodus equipped them with

a political philosophy that served as the basis for subsequent sociopolitical activism. The

Exodus taught that true social change came at the hands of prophets, not kings.

Therefore, the Exodus provided the conceptual foundation for the emergence of the

African American prophetic tradition. As Houck and Dixon (2006) stated, “the Judeo-

Christian religion was the rhetorical hinge on which the [Civil Rights] movement

pivoted” (p. 7).

The prophetic tradition inherited from the Exodus concerns itself with various

forms of oppression that have become normalized in society. In a general sense, it is

focused on speaking truth to power as a means of calling society back to the sacred

values upon which it is built. However, the reality that forms of oppression have become

normalized or a part of the status quo often positions rhetors speaking from the prophetic

tradition as radical in society. The radical stances that contemporary prophets take often
 65

end in them being castigated as enemies of the state. The reason that prophetic voices are

often rejected by society is that the radical nature of their messages often obscures the

sacred values on which those messages are based. That is to say, it is easy to reject the

messages of controversial figures such as Joseph McCarthy, Malcolm X, or Jeremiah

Wright without critically engaging their messages. This is not to imply that all of them

are equally prophetic or that they operate from a similar axiological framework. Rather,

my point is that the controversial nature of their messages obscures the value systems

driving their messages. The Western canon of rhetorical theory evaluates rhetoric

according to standards of decorum, civility, and identification. However, rhetorical

theory emerging from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome does not provide a suitable lens

to analyze radical rhetoric rooted in a particular system of values because the foundation

and focus of radical rhetoric is fundamentally different than that which the Western

canon seeks to analyze (Darsey, 1999). The Western canon of rhetorical theory explores

the ability of rhetoric to appeal to publics with the goals of persuasion and power, a focus

that I’ll call the political tradition. However, radical rhetoric does not prioritize

persuasion as the goal. Rather, it is concerned with fidelity to a system of values best

described as the prophetic tradition. The source of the tradition began with Moses’s

prophetic utterances against oppression in Egypt and continued throughout Israel’s

history as prophetic figures arose to decry oppression, marginalization, and other social

sins that destroyed Israel’s relationship with God.

From a rhetorical standpoint, the prophetic tradition is best understood as a

theologically-influenced rhetorical genre that functions as a form of social criticism. It

heavily influenced the rhetoric of key leaders during the Civil Rights Movement. Its
 66

influence is not limited to one particular period of history. From ancient Egypt to

contemporary America, prophetic voices have played a pivotal role in shaping,

challenging, and disrupting hegemonic structures of power (Darsey, 1999; Gutterman,

2005; Hanson, 1996; Heschel, 2010). The importance of this tradition is found in its

potential to shape the consciousness of people around societal virtues such as

righteousness, justice, freedom, and love. In his work on Israel’s prophets, Rabbi

Abraham Joshua Heschel (2010) articulated this potential as prophetic responsibility: “the

prophet’s task is to convey a divine view” (p. viii). His good friend and fellow activist,

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967), also supported the prophetic ideal that “a genuine leader

is not a searcher of consensus, but a molder of consensus” (p. [3]). Thus, the prophetic

tradition functions as a mode of political engagement that seeks to (re)structure a

society’s perspective on values deemed essential to its survival. Furthermore, the

tradition gains appeal in its claim to truth, divine authority, and concern for the oppressed

(Hanson, 1996; Walzer, 1996). In this chapter, I explore the relationship between the

prophetic and political traditions. Specifically, I will seek to answer one main question:

what is the nature of the political agency that African Americans gained from the Exodus

in the form of the prophetic tradition?

In this chapter, I will juxtapose the prophetic tradition with the political tradition

at times to explain the relationship between the two. When I juxtapose the two traditions,

I am not claiming that the prophetic is not political and that the political is not prophetic

or vice versa. From my standpoint, the prophetic and political traditions are rhetorical

standpoints, not political positions. By this, I mean that it is entirely possible for a

politician to articulate a prophetic perspective and for a prophetic figure to be co-opted

 67

into serving the interest of existing power structures, thus the emphasis in the Old

Testament on false prophets. In this chapter, I use the terms prophetic tradition and

political tradition in reference to rhetorical genres articulated by James Darsey (1999) and

Robert Hariman (1995) respectively.

My goal is not simply to explain the difference between the prophetic and

political, nor is it to highlight the centrality of the prophetic tradition to the Civil Rights

Movement. Both of these tasks have previously been taken up by other scholars

(Chappell, 2005; Darsey, 1999; Gutterman, 2005). My goal is to build on their work as a

means of shedding light on the relationship between the prophetic and the political. At

the heart of this chapter is my argument that the prophetic functions as the counterpart of

the political tradition. That is, the prophetic tradition does not operate antithetically to

the political tradition or in ignorance of the political tradition. Instead, the prophetic

tradition operates to hold the political tradition accountable to a set of sacred values that

society has approved as central. Remember, the political tradition focuses on persuading

people as a means of securing power. The prophetic tradition provides a counterpart to

the discourse of persuasion as a means of power to state that true power resides in

unwavering adherence to society’s sacred values. To be able to properly analyze whether

or not Obama’s rhetoric operates from the prophetic or political tradition, it is necessary

to establish the roots of the prophetic tradition, its influence, values, and test of

authenticity. This chapter seeks to accomplish this task.

4.2 The Roots of the Prophetic Tradition

In considering the roots of the prophetic tradition, two points are important to

consider: the centrality of a moral code to the prophetic tradition and the discursive tie
 68

between the prophetic tradition and the Exodus in African American culture. To begin,

the prophetic tradition is founded on the idea of a divine moral code or social contract. A

prophet, in the Old Testament, was an individual who was committed to the law of God

as delivered by Moses, widely considered to be the father of the prophetic tradition

(Alexander, 2002; Baker, 1996). His prophetic leadership in Egypt and the wilderness set

the standard for prophetic modes of political engagement in Israel and the Western world

(Feiler, 2009; Hanson, 1996). When Israel made the Exodus, God delivered his law to

the people through Moses. This legal code, known as the Mosaic Law, served as the

basis for God’s covenant with Israel and as the basis for all subsequent prophetic activity

in the Bible. Subsequent prophets functioned as vanguards of the Mosaic Law among the

people. As Heschel (2010) explained, “the purpose of the prophet is to maintain the

covenant, to establish the right relationship between God and man” (p. 202). This

purpose highlights a key aspect of the prophetic tradition: it is rooted in communal

covenant, social contract, or moral code. That is, the prophetic tradition roots its power

in the divine or secular creeds that society has established. The prophetic tradition is

premised on the idea that society is not being true to its covenant, contract, or moral code

(Walzer, 1996). It is not simply the prophet speaking out about things that s/he is

opposed to that gives the message(s) of the prophetic tradition force, but rather it is the

prophet’s fidelity to society’s moral code that bolsters his or her message.

In ancient Israel, the Mosaic Law formed the basis of the nation’s covenant with

God. When the prophets engaged in social criticism, they based their critiques on

interpretations of the Mosaic Law. For example, the command to do justice (Leviticus

19:15) provided the discursive foundation for the prophetic pronouncements of Amos,
 69

Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Critiquing society for hypocrisy and inconsistency in relation to a

social construct creates friction between the prophetic and the political. The goal of the

prophetic tradition in both historical and contemporary contexts is to reawaken a society

to sacred truths that have been forgotten, overlooked, or ignored. This task is of the

utmost importance to the prophet because sacred truths, to the prophet, form the very

foundation of social life. From the prophetic perspective, the current trajectory of society

dooms it to collapse. Repentance is the only pathway to societal renewal. This is the

ideology upon which the prophetic tradition was founded. In contrast, a political

perspective views society as progressing toward a brighter future. The difference is that

this brighter future within the prophetic tradition is not dependent on adherence to sacred

values. It is based on maintaining power in society.

Due to the strong identification with the Exodus in the African American

community, the prophetic tradition was inextricably linked with the narrative; however,

there were some differences. Unlike Old Testament prophets who based their

pronouncements solely on the Mosaic Law, African Americans rooted their prophetic

stances in founding documents like the U. S. Constitution and the Declaration of

Independence. Granted, these documents were influenced by Christian doctrine so there

was overlap as evidenced in the numerous juxtapositions of Christian doctrine and

American laws during the Civil Rights Movement. The founding documents served as

dynamic records of the covenant that served as America’s democratic experiment. I label

them as dynamic because originally the Constitution did not include Blacks as part of the

covenant with the three-fifths rule. Therefore, Blacks felt that the nation’s sacred truths

were dynamic in that they could evolve into a more inclusive covenant. To accomplish
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this task, much of the anti-slavery rhetoric of the 1800s focused on creating a dissonance

between sacred truths such as the universal equality of man and a constitution that

supported slavery. This focus was perhaps most clearly evidenced in Frederick

Douglass’s (1852) famous address, “What to a slave is the 4th of July.” It was this

reinterpretation of America’s core values that provided African Americans with a

discursive space to take a prophetic stance in America against racism, injustice, and

oppression. African American reliance on the prophetic tradition as a form of political

agency forged a discursive solidarity between prophetic thought and language that

frequently surfaced in a variety of disciplines including religion (Cone, 1997; Thurman,

1949), poetry (Hughes, 1994; Johnson, 1922/2010), literature (DuBois, 1903/2011), and

philosophy (West, 1993a, 2002). In a sense, to quote the Exodus became shorthand for a

prophetic pronouncement (Selby, 2008). Given the strong ties between the African

American prophetic tradition and the Exodus, this chapter provides crucial insight into

the foundational commitments of the prophetic tradition as a means of understanding the

ideology tied to contemporary uses of the Exodus. So I begin this chapter with the

understanding that the prophetic tradition functions as a source of political agency for

African Americans that is frequently expressed in the language of the Exodus. Prophetic

declarations, then, have influenced many cultures and institutions from the Israelites to

present day America.

4.3 The Influence of the Prophetic Tradition

The influence of the prophetic tradition in society is to be found in the tradition’s

ties to divine sources and radical stances in relation to sacred truths. The prophet’s

calling is to pressure dominant hegemonic structures and the people of a community to

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faithfulness to the sacred truths on which the community was built. Unlike the politician

who is chosen by the people, the prophet is called by God. In Ancient Israel, the prophet

was called by God to challenge Israel’s faithfulness to God. As a result, they emerged

from all corners of society including government (Daniel 1:3), religious leadership (1

Samuel 3), and even agriculture (Amos 1:1; 2 Kings 19:21). The prophetic office was

not limited to men, but also included women such as Miriam (Exodus 15:20), Deborah

(Judges 4:4), and Huldah (2 Kings 22:14). The prophetic calling in the Old Testament

came not by the will of the individual but by the will of God. Jeremiah’s divine calling in

the words of God displays this fact: “before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and

before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (1:5).

The influence or ethos of the prophet stemmed from the reality of the prophet’s higher

calling. God’s word carried weight with the people of Israel. Therefore, when the

prophet spoke, people listened. The divinely ordained calling served as the source of the

prophet’s authority to the people and accountability to God.

In the interest of being accountable to God, the prophet was an individual who

was fiercely committed to the truth. This commitment brought the prophetic and political

into tension in society. The tension erupted in ancient Israel when Israel’s first king,

Saul, disregarded God’s word from the prophet Samuel in favor of the people: “Saul said

to Samuel, ‘I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and

your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice’” (1 Samuel 15:24). As a

prophet, Samuel viewed God’s word as weightier than all of the political pressure that the

people might place on Saul. However, from a political standpoint, Saul felt the

immediate pressure of pleasing his people. In discussing the influence of the prophetic
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tradition, it is important to recognize that accountability to God over human authority

positioned the prophet with legitimacy not accorded to other leaders. This creative

tension between accountability to God and the people structures the relationship between

the prophetic and political traditions. The prophet is called to defend sacred truths in

society, whereas the political tradition desires the approval of prophets and entices them

with social acceptance, approval, and material wealth. For example, the prophet Micah

explained that Israel’s “prophets practice divination [prophecy] for money” (Micah 3:11).

In this case, the prophets were delivering favorable prophecies to the people in return for

money. They abandoned fidelity to God’s word for the approval and financial backing of

the people. In this exchange lies a constant threat for prophetic voices to be co-opted.

The divine call equips the prophet with ethos in society. However, it is the

prophetic message that shapes the identity of the prophet within various sociopolitical

contexts. As Thomson and Motyer (1996) explained, “A Hebrew prophet’s ministry and

message were intimately bound up with the conditions in which the people to whom he

(sic) preached lived” (p. 32). As a messenger, the prophet operates as judge, social critic,

and motivator. The message relies on a delicate balance of hope and despair. That is, the

prophet is simultaneously calling people back to a previous moral standard and warning

them of the future results of continuing in their current trajectory. For example, Jeremiah

warned Israel that continued rebellion against God would inevitably lead to divine

judgment in the form of being conquered by Babylon (Jeremiah 35).

While the messages of the prophets were contextually based, they generally

contained three key components: hope for deliverance, a call to repentance, and a

prediction of judgment. For example, Moses prophesied deliverance for Israel from
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Egypt; he called Israel to repentance from spiritual apostasy, and he predicted judgment

for the nation’s sins committed in the wilderness. The close connection between the

prophet and the culture in which s/he speaks makes the prophetic message a burden.

With only a few exceptions, prophets generally delivered their controversial messages to

their own people, risking estrangement and ostracism. The prophet is called to condemn

society for sin, a task that is often resented by members of society. When Civil Rights

forerunner Benjamin Mays (1954/2006) preached about the consequences of America’s

system of segregation or King prophesied the destruction of the backbone of America’s

power, they were not simply seeking to condemn the nation out of bitterness. Rather,

they were delivering prophetic pronouncements of future realities if the nation did not

return to certain sacred values. Heschel (2010) noted that these pronouncements created

internal grief for the prophets. They were not individuals who were emotionally detached

from the people, but rather were “overwhelmed by sympathy for God and sympathy for

man (sic)” (p. 121). The prophets are called to prophecy doom against people with

whom they are in a relationship. These messages of doom positioned them as radical

figures in a society perceived to be stable. Where the people see the stability, the prophet

sees danger. Where the people see peace, the prophet sees disaster on the horizon. The

task of the prophetic message is to refocus the eyes of the people onto the future and off

of the present. Through vivid language and harsh condemnations, the prophet seeks to

reawaken the nation to sacred values that had been lost, forgotten, or perverted. In the

Old Testament, this radical message was clearly seen in the strong pronouncements

against Israel. Whether it was Ezekiel likening Israel to a “whore” (Ezekiel 23:3) or

Jeremiah Wright linking recent tragedies with America’s past sins, prophetic voices use
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shocking and socially unacceptable language in their messages in an attempt to wake up

the people to the reality that they see in the nation. Promoting social reflexivity is

essential to social reformation. To put it in a Burkean sense, the prophetic tradition is the

intersection of tragic and comic frames (Burke, 1984). The prophet is comedic in the

sense that s/he presents a message that seeks to shock the people into acting in a manner

that will change their condition, providing hope to the people. However, the frame is also

tragic in the sense that if the people do not change, they are the scapegoats who will bear

the punishment for their actions. Recognizing the tragic and the comic frames in the

prophetic message is a prerequisite to understanding its radical nature.

Apart from the tragic and comic intersections, the message of the prophetic

tradition also functions as a burden upon the soul of the prophet. Given the radical nature

of the message, the prophet does not simply delight in delivering such strong

pronouncements in and against society. However, the prophet feels so strongly about the

sacred truths that are being violated that silence is not an option. For example, in 1967,

King encountered much criticism due to his controversial position on the Vietnam War.

In responding to his critics, he expressed a commitment to the truth characteristic of the

prophetic tradition: “I have taken a stand against the war in Vietnam because my

conscience leaves me with no other choice….There comes a time when one must take a

stand that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because it is right”

[3]. The prophet’s message was a weight in the soul of the messenger that had to be

expressed. Even though the prophet recognizes that the message will result in future

accusations of being unpatriotic, radical, and anti-authoritarian, the sense of burden,

conviction, and conscience is impossible to ignore (Darsey, 1999). In the O. T., this
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weight was best illustrated by Jeremiah. At a time when he was facing increasingly

intense persecution for his prophecies, he decided to stop speaking in the name of the

Lord. However, he found he was unable to stop: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or

speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my

bones and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9). Amos

acknowledged the burden of prophesy when he helplessly stated, “the Lord God has

spoken; who can but prophesy” (Amos 3:8). The concept of being irresistibly called by

another to deliver a message has shaped the structure of the prophetic tradition in the

African American community. During the Civil Rights Movement, this burden was

described by activist Percy Chase (1957) as the unbearable “sin” of “silence” (p. 212).

Individuals operating from the prophetic tradition opposed the status quo, risked their

lives, and took stances against their own better judgment in response to the higher calling

they received, which could not be controlled. This sense of calling and burden of

message is at the heart of the urgency driving the prophetic tradition.

4.4 The Values of the Prophetic Tradition

Due to the radical nature of the prophetic tradition, society often rejects the

prophet’s message as unpatriotic or detrimental to the welfare of the people. The

message is often misconstrued to be a revolt against existing powers or the people rather

than judgment against them for various sins against God (Amos 7:10-11). This

misunderstanding often occurs because various societies fail to understand areas of

concern to the prophetic tradition. That is, society does not truly understand the values of

prophets. In evaluating a society for hypocrisy or inconsistency, three things are

important to the prophetic tradition: power properly submitted to God, a balance of

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justice and righteousness, and a love ethic that extends to all members of society. These

virtues comprised the basis for peace and prosperity in Israel, and the prophet sought to

reawaken the people to their value and importance. Perhaps Micah’s message to Israel

regarding God’s expectations from them best expresses the values of the prophetic

tradition: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

As the counterpart of the political, the prophetic functions to hold national leaders

accountable for their use of power and to decenter perspectives of power or political

expediency that marginalize the power of God in society. The prophet provides a

different kind of check on the power of a leader. The prophet serves as a critic of various

leaders in society with regards to their fidelity to sacred values. When the prophet feels

that the politician has departed from sacred truths, he will challenge the politician’s

legitimacy. The goal is not to overthrow the leader to lead a revolt. Rather, the goal of

the prophetic in challenging the legitimacy of the politician is to demonstrate that the

politician’s authority and power are rooted in the politician’s fidelity to the sacred truths

of society. From this standpoint, the prophet might be viewed as a divine lobbyist

seeking to advocate to the powers that be to make God’s word top priority on their

legislative agendas. The influence of power leads the prophetic to critique its use,

believing that social reform is predicated on the proper use of power. This perspective

led the prophet Nathan to sharply rebuke King David due to his abuse of his position to

commit adultery and murder: “Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what

is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have

taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him” (2 Samuel 12:9).
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During the Civil Rights Movement, this form of lobbying surfaced in

relationships between A. Philip Randolph and FDR (Bynum, 2010), Kennedy and King

(Branch, 1989), and Johnson and King (Branch, 1999, 2006). In the African American

community, prophetic voices have critiqued America’s domestic and foreign policies

deemed inconsistent with national values. This type of challenge is at the heart of King’s

(1963) “I Have a Dream” speech image of the “bad check which has come back marked

‘insufficient funds.’” The “bad check” that he identified was the metaphoric absence of

justice and equality for African Americans. His point was that justice and equality had

been promised in the nation’s founding documents and later constitutional amendments,

but the leaders of the nation had never acted to make those truths reality. America had

not been true to the social contract that it had with citizens of color. The rhetorical

purpose of the March on Washington was to challenge leaders to use their power to

promote freedom and equality in the nation. From the standpoint of the African

American prophetic tradition, the failure to properly regard God’s power and authority is

at the heart of America’s sins.

In addition, the prophet seeks to decenter perspectives on power that challenge the

sovereignty of God or society’s sacred truths. The prophet wants to reorient the locus of

power in society. While some center power in military strength, majority approval, and

popularity, the prophet views God as the central power on which all others rest. In Psalm

20:7, David articulates the prophetic perspective on power: “Some trust in chariots and

some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Jeremiah echoes this

perspective:
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Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the

mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him

who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD

who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these

things I delight, declares the LORD’” (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

The prophetic tradition is not inherently opposed to common political concerns such as

expediency, compromise, and the will of the people. However, the prophet is vehemently

opposed to these political strategies when they usurp God’s authority and the place of

sacred truths among the people. God’s authority and sacred truths are non-negotiable

according to the prophetic tradition. Any attitude, perspective, or political strategy that

challenges them will be the target of the prophetic tradition.

Along with power, the prophet is attentive to the presence or absence of

righteousness and justice in society. Righteousness and justice are related to core

attitudes, behavior, and actions that are consistent with a society’s core values. The

persistence of societal hypocrisy threatens to destroy the very fabric of the nation from

this perspective. The prophet attacks society for the tendency to attach perceptions of

righteousness and justice to the economic wealth of the nation. That is, nations that are

prosperous are perceived internally to be righteous and just by those who benefit from the

prosperous times. However, the prophet argues the prosperity serves as veil to material

and discursive inequalities that persist in society.

In recounting the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ezekiel explained that a

key reason that God judged the land was the belief that economic prosperity equaled a

righteous nation: “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters
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had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy”

(Ezekiel 16:49). Amos exposed injustice and inequality in ancient Israel as a part of his

prophetic pronouncements: “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the

mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your

husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’” (Amos 4:1). However, what is essential to know

in this passage is that Amos is criticizing the leaders of society for injustice and

inequality in building their prosperity off of the backs of the weak and oppressed. In this

criticism, the prophetic tradition finds one of its most common arguments: the source of a

society’s apparent righteousness may, in fact, be its greatest bastion of oppression and

marginalization. Society may look to its wealth or might as a sign of its prosperity. The

prophet is going to examine the source of that wealth or might and call society, in the

immortal words of Amos, to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an

ever-flowing stream” (5:24). The prophetic tradition is not satisfied with mere religious

observances. True, the tradition is based on obedience to the Mosaic Law. But the

obedience that the tradition seeks is that which comes from the heart, not the external

observation of religious ritual. In this lies another source of tension between the prophet

and the political. That which is viewed as a sign of righteousness and justice from a

political standpoint is viewed by the prophet as a symptom of structural inequalities if it

is not supported by a strong focus on making the two virtues pervasive throughout

society.

The third value of the prophetic tradition that I will mention is a love ethic that is

extended to all members of society. Love, in the prophetic tradition, is more than an

emotional state of mind. It is an unconditional attitude in which one is committed to

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affirming the dignity and worth of all human beings regardless of race, class, and gender.

However, love goes beyond the discursive reality in the minds of individuals. As Dr.

King (1955) stated following Rosa Parks’ arrest, “justice is really love in calculation.

Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love” (para. 10). From the standpoint

of the prophetic, love and justice are interconnected virtues. Justice functions as the

material manifestation of the love ethic that the prophetic tradition values. This love

ethic begins with the belief that all individuals are made in the image of God. In the Old

Testament, the key reason that murder, kidnapping, and other crimes against humanity

were detested is because God and the prophets considered them to be assaults on the very

image of God in man (Genesis 9:6). Therefore, crimes against the weak and oppressed in

society were an affront to God. On the flip side, love, in proper context, was a right

perspective of humanity on the basis of common identity as God’s children. This belief

served as the motivation for prophetic action in ancient Israel and during the Civil Rights

Movement. The persistence of racial and social inequalities in economics, education, and

employment were considered to be evidence of the lack of love in society. In proper

context, love motivates justice.

However, love, in the prophetic sense, is not simply motivated by a belief in the

common identity of people as children of God. The priority of unconditional love in the

prophetic tradition is also motivated by the belief that God has his eye on the condition of

the weak, oppressed, and marginalized. As Heschel stated, “the prophets proclaimed that

the heart of God is on the side of the weaker” (Heschel, 1962/2010, p. 167). The political

tradition catered to those with power, influence, and status. The social priorities of the

prophetic tradition were completely reversed. The prophet went to the slums, ghettos and
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trailer parks with the belief that God was intimately concerned with the condition of the

oppressed. The prophet sought to call dominant powers to immediately cease from

policies and actions that served to reinforce structural inequalities. In addition, the

prophets sought to deliver a message of hope to oppressed members of society. In an oft

quoted passage from Isaiah, this task is expressed, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon

me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to

bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the

prison to those who are bound” (Isaiah 61:1).

An understanding that all powers come from and are accountable to God, a

commitment to spreading righteousness and justice throughout society, and an

unconditional love evidenced by a concern for society’s weaker members are core values

of the prophetic tradition, message, and vision for society. While the political tradition

might view economic prosperity, military might, and a strong middle class as the keys to

a stable society, the prophetic tradition is going to view righteousness, justice, and love as

the basis for a society to be at peace with itself and with others, linking the tradition back

to divine or otherwise sacred values. Furthermore, it is the commitment to these virtues

that distinguishes the true prophet from the false prophet.

4.5 Authenticity and the Prophetic Tradition

In studying the function of the prophetic tradition as the counterpart of the

political, it is important to mention that the prophetic is not immune from the pitfalls of

the political. Like the political, the prophetic can fall prey to simply pleasing the people

and disregarding sacred truths. In ancient Israel, the power and influence of the prophetic

tradition held a strong attraction for many individuals who claimed to be prophets but did
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not uphold the commitments of the prophetic tradition. That is, the prophet offers society

an alternative vision of reality. The political tradition prioritizes the elements of

compromise, approval, and expediency. The prophetic offers society a perspective that

positions sacred truths as preeminent. In this dissertation, I am arguing that President

Obama’s rhetoric masks itself in prophetic language to achieve political ends. He

attempts to appear to be prophetic due to similarities to the language of the Civil Rights

Movement, but the ideological commitments of his rhetoric have more in common with

the political tradition than the prophetic. In this final section of this chapter, I will

highlight the marks of the authentic prophet. Authenticity in the prophetic tradition is

determined by the prophet’s fidelity to the sacred truths to which s/he has been called.

Authenticity became an important test of the prophetic tradition because of the

legitimacy, power, and influence that accompanied the prophetic calling. In spite of their

radical reputation, the prophets in ancient Israel were among the most feared, respected,

and trusted individuals in society. This status was something others were eager to tap.

As an entry point into this discussion, I offer the example of Micaiah in the Old

Testament. Micaiah was a prophet faithful to God in the midst of a sea of false prophets

and a wicked monarch. His story highlights the potential for the prophetic voice to be co-

opted to serve imperial ends for the State: “And the messenger who went to summon

Micaiah said to him, ‘Behold, the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to

the king. Let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably.’ But

Micaiah said, ‘As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak’” (1 Kings

22:13-14).
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Further study of this passage would reveal that the other prophets were saying

favorable things to the king in order to secure his favor. In this sense, they co-opted the

influence of the prophetic tradition, which rests in its loyalty to sacred truths, to achieve

political ends of favor and expediency. Micaiah, on the other hand, was the faithful

prophet who refused to speak anything outside of the parameter of the truth of God’s

word. This is a fundamental test of prophetic authenticity. The true prophet is not

willing to compromise the message in order to please others or to secure favor with

dominant powers. False prophets commit themselves to serving the status quo rather than

attempting to transform it. The efficacy of false prophets stems from the strategic use of

language. Specifically, the prophetic tradition, as discussed earlier, seeks to deliver a

message in the name of another. Therefore, in the Old Testament the prophets spoke in

the name of God. The key reason prophets have been necessary in ancient Israel and

contemporary America is that people are prone to forget, ignore, and marginalize the

sacred truths on which society was built. Prophets serve to draw attention to forgotten

truths. However, if the people have forgotten the truths, there is an entry point for false

prophets to rearticulate the truths in a way that supports the power structure rather than

reforming it. This is the susceptibility of the prophetic tradition. Jeremiah condemned

many leaders in Israel for using prophetic language to lead the people to believe that God

was pleased with them when he was not: “For from the least to the greatest of them,

everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.

They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is

no peace” (6:13-14). This example highlights the appeal of the false prophets. They link

the power and language of the prophetic tradition with a message that does not come
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from God or from the sacred truths of society. They provide society with a message to

inspire the people rather than to convict the people. The message of false prophets

ignores structural and material realities that oppress and marginalize in favor of providing

feelings of peace, prosperity, and happiness. The true prophet provides a counterpart to

political tradition and the status quo. The false prophet pursues power and legitimacy by

reinforcing the status quo.

Given the susceptibility to mistaking false prophets to be true when they are not,

it is crucial to recognize key criteria for identifying false prophets in society. First, the

prophet is an individual who preaches a message that highlights the tension between hope

and despair. Hope is found in social reformation to reestablish the supremacy of the

sacred truths on which society was built. Without this step, hope is not possible. On the

flip side, false prophets preach a message of hope in the absence of engaging key

structural problems that foster conditions that marginalize and oppress the weaker

members of society. Second, the prophet will not adjust, restructure, or orient the

prophetic message to accommodate or please others. S/he maintains a willingness to

endure persecution, torture, and even death in the interest of exposing hypocrisy and

injustice in society in hopes of social reformation. Finally, the prophet is an individual

who maintains an unwavering loyalty to God over man. This is probably the most

important characteristic distinguishing the prophet from the politician. The prophet

always recognizes accountability to God over man. On the flip side, the politician is

often driven by accountability to the people of the society.

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4.6 Conclusion

In this chapter, I have sought to highlight the roots of the prophetic tradition, the

influence of the prophetic tradition, the values, and the tests of authenticity in the

prophetic tradition. In subsequent chapters, this chapter will serve as the basis for me to

evaluate the presence or absence of the prophetic tradition in American public discourse.

For example, one question that I will raise in subsequent chapters is whether or not

President Obama’s prophetic potential is constrained by the nature of his position as an

elected official. This question raises the issue of whether or not political office is

antithetical to the prophetic voice. Is the elected prophet conflicted in ways that an

unelected prophet is not? Issues such as this will stem from the discussion in this chapter

and will support the primary agenda of this dissertation in highlighting the

prophetic/political divide between King and Obama.

Righteousness with practical results in the material world and not simply in

ceremonial activities was the goal of the prophetic tradition. Here, righteousness is not to

be confused with charity. Charity does not address the structural issues that cause

injustice, inequality, and oppression. Righteousness may include charity, but it must also

include a commitment to right the wrongs in society that create the conditions that

necessitate charity. It focuses on doing right by all citizens, particularly the weaker

members of society. Righteousness is concerned with taking a society’s ideals and

extending them to all citizens. Furthermore, it is concerned with (un)righteousness

operating on the level of the individual and structural levels in society. At the heart of

prophetic utterances in ancient Israel and the African American community is the

passionate plea for society to stop forms of unrighteousness and to be true to core values.
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Dr. King (1968) powerfully articulates this prophetic perspective in contemporary

language in his famous Mountaintop address: “All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what

you said on paper.’”

The three prophetic foci I have identified function together in an intersecting and

complementary manner. For example, power in the prophetic tradition is used to advance

righteous or unrighteous agendas that support the conditions that render peace

(im)possible in a society. Prophets are unconcerned with pleasing dignitaries or common

citizens if that requires them to sacrifice the truth of their message. For example, even

when the prophet Balaam wanted to curse Israel to please an opposing king for financial

gain, he found himself unable to speak contrary to the message of the Lord: “And Balak

said to Balaam, ‘What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies and behold,

you have done nothing but bless them.’ And he answered and said, ‘Must I not take care

to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?’” (Numbers 23:11-12). The prophetic

tradition, then, as a rhetorical genre is concerned with keeping political powers

accountable to the sacred values upon which society is built. In this sense, the prophetic

tradition functions as the counterpart of the political.

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CHAPTER 5. KING’S DIALECTICAL PERSPECTIVE OF HISTORY

5.1 Introduction

Within discourse, history functions politically. That is, rhetorical uses of the past

function to advance imperialistic or emancipatory agendas. For example, rhetors used the

history of the Exodus to justify an imperial agenda against American Indians. African

slaves also used the narrative to locate political agency in pursuit of emancipation from

oppression in American Egypt. One of the fundamental challenges every generation

faces is the challenge of preserving the memory of the past in a way that pushes the

present forward. The ways in which we talk about our history demonstrate our ability to

critically engage the past, to draw from it as a guide for the future, and to avoid repeating

the same failures of the past. Within the massive canon of scholarship on the speeches of

Martin Luther King, Jr., one area that is often overlooked is how he utilized history.

True, several scholars have demonstrated how he utilizes biblical examples and even

other speakers and writers in American history (Miller, 1992; Selby, 2008). However, no

one has undertaken the task of studying how his rhetoric reveals the historical perspective

from which he operated.

His speeches are filled with various discursive clues as to how he viewed history

and how the past related to the present. From his “now is the time” cadence in his

famous “I Have a Dream” speech to his numerous references to death in the latter part of
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his life, his speeches are filled with references to the past, present, and future in a way

that reveals how he drew on history in relation to the present and the future. In this essay,

I will study King’s address at the conclusion of the march from Selma to Montgomery to

demonstrate how King utilized a particular perspective of history to advance the

prophetic goals of the Civil Rights Movement. He tied this prophetic perspective of

history to the story of the Exodus in a way that operationalized historical perspectives for

use in the present struggle for equality.

Through his use of the Exodus, King adopted a dialectical perspective of history

that positioned America’s democratic project as a dream to be actualized, not a

destination to be gained through the steady progress. Metaphor functions within

discourse as a discursive space in which critical questions concerning the past, present,

and future can be engaged.

In tying this chapter to the rest of this project, it is important to recognize that the

Exodus functioned as the discursive space for the dialectical relationship to be formed

between the past and the present. King’s uses of the Exodus did not simply mean that the

past had some insight for the present. Rather, the past liberation of Israelites was going

to become the present liberation of contemporary Israelites, African Americans. In this

sense, the Exodus not only served as the meeting ground of the past and the present, but it

also functioned as the discursive outlet for King and other leaders during the Civil Rights

Movement to articulate a prophetic vision for African Americans and the nation as a

whole in which freedom, liberty, and equality reigned supreme. Understanding the

prophetic perspective of history provides yet another opportunity to contrast the prophetic

and political commitments seen in King’s and Obama’s rhetoric. In this chapter, I
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explore the relationship between historical perspective and social change in King’s Civil

Rights Movement rhetoric.

To explore this relationship and support my central argument in this chapter, I

will first situate this chapter in the work of Walter Benjamin (1969, 1999) on dialectical

perspectives of history. My goal is to interrogate King’s conception of time and history,

as evidenced in his address at Selma. From the very beginning of the Selma march, King

framed the protests within the context of American and biblical history: “You will be the

people that will light a new chapter in the history books of our nation….Walk together,

children, don't you get weary, and it will lead us to the promised land. And Alabama will

be a new Alabama, and America will be a new America” (qtd. in Reed, 1965b, para 17-

18). In doing this, King was not simply using the past as an illustration. Rather, he was

situating the past in a dialectical relationship with the present as a means of effectively

pursuing the realization of the American dream in the present. I will apply Benjamin’s

dialectical perspective to history as a means of interpreting historical references in King’s

address at the conclusion of the march. Benjamin’s philosophy of history provides an

entry to understanding how King drew on the past in a manner that had the potential to

advance the emancipatory aims of the movement, motivating people to maintain the

struggle for civil rights amidst fierce, and even fatal, opposition. The perspective of

history seen in his rhetoric was one in which victory was inevitable in the struggle for

civil rights. While this inevitability is not entirely consistent with Benjamin’s historical

perspective, King’s use of history reflected the same dialectical relationship between the

past, present, and future as Benjamin. In this chapter, I will first explain Benjamin’s

dialectical perspective of history. Second, I will provide background into King’s speech.
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Third, I will engage in my analysis and I will conclude by positioning this chapter within

my broader focus, contrasting King’s rhetoric with that of Barack Obama.

5.2 The Dialectical Perspective of History

The dialectical perspective of history operates from the premise that the past is

most useful to the present in a dialectical relationship, or as Cornel West (2004) has

argued, a partner in Socratic dialogue. This perspective to history functions as an

alternative to linear perspectives of history in society. A popular example of a linear

perspective of history is Marx’s (1867/2007) notion of historical materialism. This

approach to history searches for causal links between various events. Conceptually,

historical materialism views history as a neatly connected chain of links that are loosely

connected in causal relationships. There are significant implications with this view of

history. First, this notion of history seeks to capture history in a chronologically situated

chain of events that have influenced one another. The relationship between the past and

the present in historical materialism is strictly chronological. The immediate past

becomes most important in understanding the present and predicting the future. Second,

this notion of history privileges the concept of progress. History is by no means

apolitical. Within historical materialism, certain events in history fit neatly into the chain

of progress, whereas others do not. For example, in his 2004 lecture at Stanford

University, Cornel West used an example from the World Trade Center attacks to

demonstrate how a linear view of history operates. West explained that a linear view of

history would seek to connect Osama Bin Laden’s strong condemnations of America in

years prior with the attacks on America. However, the perspective would fall short of
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engaging the historical context in which Osama Bin Laden grew angry at America and

the sociopolitical forces that fostered that anger.

This inability to engage the contemporary and distant past in engaging the present

led Benjamin (1969) to diagnose historical materialism as myopic. Writing during the

rise of Nazi Germany, he explained that “one reason why Fascism has a chance is that in

the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm” (Benjamin, 1940/1969, p.

259). That is, historical materialism fails to take account of the ways in which a linear

perspective of history forgets the distant past. In addition, the neatly connected chain of

events serves as a form of historical erasure and as a mask to cover various hegemonic

structures in the name of progress. The consequence of historical materialism is that it

results in the type of myopia that allows the status quo to dominate and the present to

operate independent of the past. In his lecture, Cornel West (2004) explained the

consequences of disconnect between the past and present:

What happens when you lose connection with the best of your past? Every step

forward is some recasting of the past. No relation to the past; the future can only

be a repetition of the present. And a repetition of the present means no

alternatives, no options that could lead toward change let alone fundamental

change of the present. (p. 4)

To West, this disconnect is a fundamental threat to the American democratic experiment.

Democracy, as he understands it, is built and maintained by preserving “the best that has

been transmitted to us” (West, 2004, p. 4). Benjamin (1999) understood this disconnect

to be analogous to entering into the eye of a storm without vision or direction. The past,
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according to Benjamin, has something vitally important to say to the present and the

future.

Therefore, one problem of linear perspectives on history is that they seriously

weaken the link between the past and the present in a way that privileges only the most

recent of historical events. Second, linear perspectives of history are hegemonic. They

weave together the fragments of history into a narrative that functions to bolster the status

quo in the name of progress and normalcy. Third, by segregating the past from the

present, linear perspectives of history rob society of previous elements of history that

have the potential to serve the prophetic aims of the present and future.

As an alternative, individuals like Benjamin (1969, 1999), West (2005), and

McCormick (2008, 2011) have argued for a dialectical perspective of history. Unlike a

linear perspective of history, the dialectical approach seeks to put the past in conversation

with the present. The Socratic dialogue between the past and the present holds the

potential to disrupt the hegemony of linear perspectives of history by enabling social

actors to preserve the past in a way that is useful to the emancipatory goals of the present.

Cornel West (2004) explained it this way: “Every generation has to revitalize and

regenerate the best that has been bequeathed to them” (p. 3). The best that has been

bequeathed is going to be different in every civilization. Within an American context,

West is referring to the democratic ideals of freedom, justice, and liberty on which the

nation was built. His goal is not to say that the terms have been lost within historical

materialism or other linear views of history. Rather, his point is that the reality of what

those terms mean and the process by which meaning is preserved and operationalized for

the present is lost through linear perspectives of history. Revitalization and regeneration,
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according to a dialectical perspective of history, occur through a Socratic engagement

between past and present that raises fundamental questions concerning hegemonic

structures and emancipatory potential that have been masked by linear perspectives of

history. In that sense, the dialectical perspective of history functions as a form of

prophetic engagement.

As Benjamin (1969) has explained, an image, or what I would call metaphor,

functions as the discursive space in which this dialectical relationship occurs:

It is not what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light

on what is past; rather, image is that wherein what has been comes together in a

flash with the now to form a constellation. In other words: image is dialectics at a

standstill. For while the relation of the present to the past is purely temporal, the

relation of what-has-been to the now is dialectical. (p. 463)

Metaphor functions as the discursive space for Socratic engagement with the past. In the

example of Dr. King, the Exodus functioned as the space in which fundamental questions

about America’s adherence to its democratic ideals could be raised. A linear perspective

of history would see the nation as progressively getting better over the course of history,

having abolished slavery and given women the right to vote. However, within the

Exodus framework both slavery and the segregation era functioned as a metaphoric Egypt

to African Americans. Furthermore, this dialectical relationship between the past and the

present positioned them not to pursue progress as the natural accomplishment of time.

Instead, the prophetic promise of the past told of an Exodus that did not happen as the

natural course of time, but was rather an interruption in the status quo, divinely ordained,

and immediate rather than gradual. Therefore, the responsibility of African Americans in
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the present was to secure the promise by engaging in nonviolent protests as a means of

disrupting hegemonic structures that prevented the promise of the past from becoming a

reality in the present.

Important to the dialectical perspective of history is the belief that the past is

inextricably “bound up with the image of redemption” (Benjamin, 1969, p. 256).

Benjamin envisioned a dialectical relationship between the past and the present in this

conception of time in which history became useful to those outside of the ruling class.

From the standpoint of rhetorical uses of the Exodus, this understanding of history served

to dismantle and disrupt hegemonic structures that attempted to marginalize the prophetic

aims of the movement. Therefore, to say that King operated from a dialectical

perspective of history that surfaced in his rhetoric is to say that his rhetoric, relying on the

Exodus, functions to hold up an “image of redemption” for his followers to pursue. This

essay offers insight into King’s utilization of the dialectical perspective of history as a

means of positioning social redemption as the goal of the struggle and to position people

to pursue this redemption. This image of social redemption served as the object of

King’s prophetic gaze.

This dialectical relationship is further contrasted from linear perspectives by its

attempt to enable historical events to (re)emerge from the “continuum of history” through

rhetoric (Benjamin, 1969, p. 263). Through this (re)emergence, the present finds

opportunity to adopt a previous identity or “reincarnate” form of the past, thus

recapturing the best of the past (1969, p. 263). Practically speaking, the goal of the

dialectical approach is actualization, not progress. Actualization focuses on equipping

social actors with agency to realize the promises of the past. The goal is to actualize the
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promise of the past in the present as a means of reinvisioning the future. The prophetic

figures in the Civil Rights Movement held onto a dream derived from the image of

liberation as received from ancient Israel. This image served as the basis for their

prophetic ideal of redemption. As Benjamin (1999) explains, this perspective of history

functions in a prophetic sense to make social change possible:

The dialectical image is an image that emerges suddenly, in a flash. What has

been is to be held fast – as an image flashing up in the now of its recognizability.

The rescue that is carried out by these means – and only by these – can operate

solely for the sake of what is the next moment is already irretrievably lost. In this

connection, see the metaphorical passage from my introduction to Jochmann,

concerning the prophetic gaze that catches fire from the summits of the past. (p.

473)

Here, Benjamin is stating that the past summons itself as crucial moments of

history. The truth is, according to Benjamin, that the past has as much agency as

contemporary actors. It can conjure itself, which is precisely why it appears as a flash. It

is surprising not only because it is fleeting, but also because it was not summoned the

present; therefore, it was not expected. The past is to be recognized in the sense that

people are to identify in the past its applicability and relevance to the present. But it goes

beyond simply learning lessons from the past. People must recognize themselves in the

past. In this configuration, the past serves as a discursive navigator to the storm of life

that we are all entering. In recognizing self in the past, people are able to pursue

actualization and the fulfillment of the promises of the past.

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Therefore, a dialectical perspective of history engages in a Socratic dialogue with

the past in light of the prophetic ideals on which society is built with a prophetic hope

that the promise of the past can be actualized in the future. In this context, the past

functions as preservative of the present through the dialectical relationship that they enjoy

at crucial moments in history. The past serves to preserve the present from social decay.

The future is not viewed as distinct from the present; rather, the “actuality of the present

and the potentiality of the future begin to intermingle” through the redemptive hope and

anticipation that the dialectic with the past creates (McCormick, 2011, p. 435). That is,

this dialectic highlights the imperceptibility of redemption as an always-coming reality

that must be constantly pursued and anticipated.

5.3 Background: Voting Rights & Selma

In 1965, nine in ten African Americans in Alabama were unable to vote (Lewis,

2001). The various maneuvers that were used to prevent African Americans from

participating in the political process served to limit any political agency that they might

exercise in elections. To address this inequity, the Southern Christian Leadership

Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

engaged in a variety of protests. Protester Jimmie Lee Jackson, among others, was even

killed while engaging in nonviolent protests (Branch, 1999). Following these tragedies,

leaders from both organizations organized a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, a

distance of approximately fifty miles. The purpose of this march was to draw attention to

the injustice of voting laws in Alabama and acts of intimidation against African

Americans who dared to register to vote or attempted to register others.

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Selma was targeted for nonviolent protests because of the belief that activists

would face violent responses from the local police and citizens in a manner that would

capture the attention of the nation. The locals did not disappoint. On the first attempt,

marchers were met by approximately 50 armed police officers who ordered them to

disperse. When the marchers refused to do so, the police attacked the marchers, injuring

approximately 60 of them, including SNCC chairman John Lewis (Branch, 1999; Reed,

1965a). In response to the attacks, Lewis angrily remarked, “I don't see how President

Johnson can send troops to Vietnam]--I don't see how he can send troops to the Congo--I

don't see how he can send troops to Africa and can't send troops to Selma” (Reed, 1965a,

para 10).

While tragic, that Sunday in March, known as “Bloody Sunday,” drew the

attention of the nation to the voting rights campaign in Alabama. President Johnson

delivered his famous “We Shall Overcome” speech to Congress in response to this

tragedy and vowed to deliver a voting rights bill to Congress, which he did on March 17

(Branch, 1999). In addition, King came to Selma, vowing to lead a new march over the

fifty miles between Selma and Montgomery. The march began on March 21 with

approximately 2,000 citizens and concluded five days later with 25,000 participants. As

John Lewis (2001) explained, the events in Selma comprised “the last of the great

nonviolent protests.” At the conclusion of the march, King (1965) delivered a powerful

address in which he noted, “there never was a moment in American history more

honorable and more inspiring than the pilgrimage of the clergymen and laymen of every

race and faith pouring in Selma to danger at the side of its embattled Negroes” (para. 6).

However, the significance of this speech extends beyond commemorating the activists
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who participated. In this speech, King utilized history to disrupt the hegemony of

historical perspectives that turned a blind eye to the plight of African Americans in the

nation.

5.4 Disrupting the Hegemony of History: King at Selma

Dominant American historical perspectives, as understood by King, overlooked

acts of oppression, marginalization, and violence committed against minorities. The

whole purpose of the march was to draw attention to the injustice of voting laws and

voter intimidation in Alabama. However, an important part of King’s speech was to

highlight the fact that prejudice against African Americans was bolstered not simply by

racist people, but by historical perspectives that ignored the historical foundations of

racism and prejudice in America. As long as the hegemonic foundations of racism and

prejudice were ignored, they could be explained as a part of the normal status quo by

which society operated, not as evidence of deep pockets of injustice. Furthermore, as

long as racism and prejudice were considered a normal part of the status quo and not

injustice, the prophetic energies connected with America’s democratic ideals could not be

unleashed against them. Third, the hegemony of racism and prejudice snuffed out the

hope from millions of American citizens who languished under an oppressive,

discriminatory climate in which they were ignored as inferior.

Part of King’s goal in this speech was to prevent the accomplishments of the

voting rights campaign in Alabama from simply being co-opted by linear perspectives of

history that would position the achievements of Selma as the natural progress of society.

In discussing the importance of a proper historical perspective of the Civil Rights

Movement, Jacqueline Dowd Hall’s (2005) offered a perspective on the movement

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consistent with King’s goal in the Selma address: “I want to make civil rights harder.

Harder to celebrate as a natural progression of American values. Harder to cast as a

satisfying morality tale. Most of all, harder to simplify, appropriate, and contain” (p.

1235). Instead, he wanted to position it as the result of the tireless efforts of individuals

who fought to overthrow hegemonic structures in society that marginalized and

oppressed America’s weakest citizens. His use of history evidences this purpose.

To accomplish this purpose, King adopted a dialectical perspective of history in

his address to inspire Socratic dialogue with the past, unleash prophetic energies in the

present, and encourage hope for victory in the future. The history that King drew on in

the speech started in ancient Israel, continued during Reconstruction, and was now being

played out in Selma. That is to say, the Exodus served as the dialectical image that

fostered a connection between various historical events and the present. In the speech,

King utilized the Exodus metaphorically both explicitly and by implication through

language. For example, he explicitly likened the campaign to the children of Israel

marching around Jericho (King, Jr., 1965). However, he also utilized key words linked to

the idea of Exodus such as “pilgrimage,” “march,” and “land of freedom.” Collectively,

the explicit and implicit references to the Exodus functioned to position the marchers as

Israelites marching through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. More

importantly, the image of the Exodus served as a way to engage crucial points in history

in which imperialistic and emancipatory acts were taken that fostered the current racial

conditions in America.

Several elements from the Exodus narrative were included in King’s metaphor

telling of history. Segregation as a societal norm was linked with the metaphorical
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concept of Egypt, the land in which the children of Israel were enslaved in bondage

because they were perceived to be a threat to Egypt’s imperial aims. Symbolically, all of

the marchers were positioned as God’s children marching through the wilderness with

their eyes set on the Promised Land. It is important to understand that in King’s retelling

of this historical narrative, the children of Israel were not limited to African Americans

but comprised all individuals who were fighting for the ideals of America’s democratic

experiment to be realized. Jericho, with its impressive walls and foundation, was

identified as the remaining vestiges of inequality and injustice that prevailed in society.

The Promised Land was linked with the freedom and equality that King and other

movement leaders sought to see realized through nonviolent action. These were the

relationships that King forged between the past and the present. Understanding these

different events, systems, and people through the lens of the Exodus provided a

discursive space for critical engagement and examination regarding America’s fidelity to

the democratic ideals on which she was built.

5.4.1 Socratic Questioning & Segregation

King’s adoption of a dialectical perspective of history provided him with the

opportunity to raise critical questions regarding the roots of racism and White Supremacy

in the South. Segregation, as King (1965) explained, was often viewed “as a natural

result of hatred between the races immediately after the Civil War” (para. 9). This belief

formed a discursive barrier between African Americans and Whites that did not offer any

potential for collaboration or reconciliation. Furthermore, it reinforced support for

segregation laws on the premise that African Americans and Whites did not work well

together because of the past. To combat this view, King offered another reading of
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history, one in which racial difference had absolutely nothing to do with segregation

laws.

In his speech, King articulated a view of history that positioned segregation as the

result of efforts to maintain existing power structures over poor whites and freed blacks

in the aftermath of the Civil War, not as the product of racism rooted in difference in skin

color. Drawing on the work of C. Vann Woodward (1955/2001), he argued that “the

segregation of the races was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging

Bourbon interest in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the

cheapest in the land” (King, Jr., 1965, para. 9). His point is that segregation, at its core,

was driven by economic interests, not racism. That is, the power structures in place at the

turn of the century saw racial unity as a fundamental threat to their power. The bridging

of racial gaps might result in existing powers being challenged in overpowering ways.

King explained that the Populist Movement sought to accomplish this goal of racial unity

as a means of decentering power in society. In explaining this history, King (1965)

sought to expose the very heart behind the institution of segregation: “to meet this threat,

the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated

society…they saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, thus clouding their

minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement” (para. 11). King went on to

say that segregation and White Supremacy eventually caused the demise of the Populist

Movement.

In King’s speech, history becomes the discursive tool to understand the bondage

of racial animosity in the present in a way that will liberate its captives in the future.

Understanding it as a tool of oppression and economic exploitation casts it in a

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completely different light than simply positioning it as a taken-for-granted reality

following the Civil War. In exposing the purpose of racial hatred, he is attempting to

communicate the fact that racism and segregation served the interests of power structures

that were threatened by America’s democratic ideals becoming a reality. He positions

racism in this historical context as an opiate for southern whites, meant to dull the pain of

inequality and injustice in a way that would preserve existing economic powers: “If it

may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro

Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the

world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow” (King, Jr., 1965, para. 12). To the extent

that existing historical narratives did not generate, stimulate, or allow critical questions

regarding the foundations of racism and segregation in society, they functioned as a

hegemon of a class system that segregated the poor from one another to preserve the

power of the elite. That is, a lack of understanding the history of segregation was

rendering people complicit in their own marginalization. Through their support of

segregation, the poor were limiting their own power. That is, King’s key argument here

is that segregation became the foundation of power divisions in America. In Exodus

terms, the institution of segregation functioned as a metaphoric Egypt segregating the

Egyptians (those in power) from the Israelites (those without power).

5.4.2 America’s Democratic Project

King utilized this dialectical approach to the history of racism and segregation to

position people to actualize in his present the promise of the past. Simply put, King used

history as a means of unleashing prophetic energy against segregation in the present.

Key to the argument that he is making to his audience is that there is no such thing as
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natural progress in relation to America’s democratic experiment. The ideal that the

nation claims to hold must be fought for and preserved by every generation. The

example he holds up as a metaphoric image from reconstruction is meant to demonstrate

in vivid terms how a failure to preserve America’s democratic ideals can weaken the

nation and divide people. He spoke of efforts to institutionalize segregation as “that

travesty of justice…perpetrated upon the American mind” (King, Jr., 1965, para. 14).

This history became useful to the present in providing a metaphoric image of the goal

that they were pursuing.

The Exodus paired with the history of reconstruction served as the basis for this

image. America had been in bondage to the Egypt of racial and economic exploitation.

King uses the phrases “we are on the move now” and “let us march” in cadence form to

indicate that in the contemporary Exodus, the oppressed are journeying through the

wilderness en route to the Promised Land. This served to position them in relation to the

past, the present and the future. In relation to the past, his rhetoric assumed that existing

power structures had spread the ideology of White Supremacy in the past to exercise

dominance over the weaker members of society. Implied in his speech is the idea that

history serves as a catalyst for action in the present and future. The whole purpose of

sharing the history of segregation is to position it as an evil within American society that

can and must be overcome. In situating the current situation in Selma within the context

of the Exodus, he is seeking to unleash prophetic energies against the entire structure of

segregation and oppression that was operating within society at that time. Selma was by

no means an end. It was simply another step toward the Promised Land: “We are on the
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move now. Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies

can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom” (King, Jr., 1965, para. 16).

Furthermore, he is also able to argue for a particular understanding of what it will

mean for them to pursue and arrive at the Promised Land. During the Civil Rights

Movement, the Promised Land was not used to designate a physical location. English

settlers, Mormons, and others cast the Promised Land as a physical location that they

would enter (Bennett, 2009; Bercovitch, 1978; Feiler, 2009). Within King’s rhetoric, the

Promised Land was a metaphysical reality of what America could be if it lived up to its

potential through the persistent, prophetic efforts of its citizens. The idea of redemption

was intertwined with the concept of the Promised Land. The American Promised Land

was not new, but it was a reality that America had yet to actualize or realize. King was

seeking to position American, and specifically African Americans, with agency to realize

it: “Let us therefore continue our triumphant march to the realization of the American

dream” (King, Jr., 1965, para. 17). To reach the Promised Land, social inequalities such

as “segregated housing,” “social and economic depression,” “every vestige of segregated

and inferior education,” and “poverty” had to be challenged (King, Jr., 1965, para. 17).

The metaphoric images drawn from Exodus history and reconstruction functioned

constitutively to tell marchers who they were and what they should do. Fellow marcher

John Lewis (2001) explained this fact in recounting the events in Selma: “This march was

like Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. Dr. King was leading African

Americans and the whole nation out of slavery into full political participation.”

But King was not just using the past as a means of motivating activists to

challenge existing structures of inequality and injustice. Along the journey to Selma,
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various groups accused the Civil Rights leaders of simply disrupting the peace (Branch,

1999). King (1965) articulated their concerns with the question, “when will Martin

Luther King…let Alabama return to normalcy” (para. 29). He also utilizes historical

perspectives as a response to those who were accusing him of disrupting the status quo in

a way that was harmful to the nation. However, King’s response to this is that a

perspective of history that views the status quo as desirable fails to account for the

structural inequalities and injustices that are maintained by the status quo: “It is normalcy

all over Alabama that prevents the Negro from becoming a registered voter. No we will

not allow Alabama to return to normalcy” (para. 31). Instead, King argues that present

conditions demonstrate that an overhaul on what is considered “normalcy” is needed.

Therefore he unleashes the prophetic energies of activists in his presence on the status

quo. Furthermore, he uses this depiction of the status quo as inherently evil as a response

to those who opposed his disruptive tactics.

5.4.3 Hope for the Promised Land

King also utilized this dialectical approach to history to predict victory in the

struggle for Civil Rights. This prediction was not on the basis of optimism. Rather, he

made this prediction with the premise that the power of God was historically on the side

of justice; therefore, God would work through their efforts to deliver justice, equality, and

freedom to America. In the same way that Joshua and the children of Israel overcame

seemingly insurmountable obstacles at Jericho by marching around the city walls, so

would King’s “children of Israel” see the walls of segregation and inequality fall down in

society as they continued their march toward freedom. This is the metaphor framework

that King constructed in this address to predict victory. It promised victory to the people
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on the basis of three elements. First, victory was assured if the people continued to press

on in the midst of the struggle. King (1965) asserted this confidence in the address: “If

we will go on with the faith that nonviolence and its power can transform dark yesterdays

into bright tomorrows, we will be able to change all of these conditions” (para. 33). This

confidence is rooted in the belief that history teaches that the agency for social change

always lies with the people. In explaining the Exodus, he emphasized human agency

when accounting for Israel’s success at Jericho. When highlighting the failures of the

generation following Reconstruction, he explained that the problem that they faced was

that they did not stick together when the southern aristocracy introduced White

Supremacy. The “faith” that King called on all of the followers to hold is that they could

make a difference in the south and entire nation by enduring. This call is significant.

King was not just calling them to adopt a new perspective of the present. This idea of

“faith” he asked his audience to adopt was a faith that sees the unseen. The experiences

of the present might yield little hope that true social transformation is possible, but King

utilized history as evidence of the change that would come. To use Benjamin’s example,

the Exodus did not necessarily provide a guide to the storm of life. Rather, it provided

hope for a battered people that the storm would eventually end if they would endure. In

this sense, the Exodus functioned alongside of historical examples to communicate to call

them to a prophetic hope that being on the side of right in history is the source of might.

It was this perspective that led King (1965) to predict, “segregation is on its deathbed in

Alabama, and the only thing uncertain about it is how costly the segregationists and

Wallace will make the funeral” (para. 8).

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One of the key questions that King repeats in cadence form toward the end of the

speech is “how long” will it take for societal wrongs to be made right. Every time he

asked the question, he responded “not long” and delivered a maxim as to why

righteousness would eventually win over evil. One of the more memorable statements

delivered in the conclusion is King’s oft quoted statement, “How long? Not long,

because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This statement

captures his use of history in inspiring a prophetic hope. The source of this hope came

from the belief that justice was greater than injustice and that eventually all of the

injustices of society would be defeated as God’s people joined together in solidarity

against evil, injustice, and oppression. However, this confidence of victory was

inextricably tied to the Exodus. If God could deliver Israel from oppression, injustice,

and inequality, then he could deliver African Americans and others who faced these

oppressive social conditions in 1965. This is the function of the dialectical perspective of

history. It operationalizes the past in a way that makes it useful to the present and the

future. It enables individuals to adopt a prophetic gaze in relation to society, meaning

that they view society from a perspective which supersedes the immediacy of the present.

It seeks to put the past in conversation with the present as a means of reimagining the

potential for the future.

5.5 Conclusion

In this chapter, I sought to highlight how the dialectical perspective of history

operated within King’s rhetoric to position individuals toward the goal of actualizing the

promises of democracy, not simply passively relying on the steady progress of the status

quo to gain freedom and equality. First, I contrasted this perspective with linear
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perspectives of history. Next, I sought to demonstrate how King’s speech in Selma

revealed a commitment to Socratic dialogue between the past and the present on the issue

of race and segregation. In addition, I demonstrated how his historical perspective

functioned to position his followers toward active engagement in the civil rights struggle.

Finally, I closed by demonstrating how his historical perspective was the basis for the

prophetic hope in his speech. His message at the conclusion of the Selma march was

delivered in the context of the Exodus narrative. It functioned metaphorically throughout

the speech to contextualize the march within the broader struggle for civil rights and to

define what needed to take place in the future in order for the Promised Land to be

reached eventually. In relation to the broader project, contrasting the rhetoric of King

and Obama, this analysis of history is important because it demonstrates how King

utilized a dialectical perspective of history to critically engage the past, present and

future. Part of my argument about Obama’s rhetoric diverging significantly from King’s

is that it fails to critically engage the past and the present in discourse in a manner

consistent with King’s rhetoric. The Exodus still appears prominently in Obama’s

rhetoric, but it is not utilized to adopt a prophetic gaze in relation to the past, present, and

future. Instead, Obama utilizes the narrative to position his political ascendency as a sign

of the natural progress of the nation toward being a more just, equitable, and free society.

In using the Exodus as a narrative of progress, he departs from a dialectical perspective of

history.
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CHAPTER 6. THE PROPHETIC SCOPE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT:

KING’S “BIRTH OF A NEW NATION” ADDRESS

Somehow we will discover that

We are made to live together as brothers.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
April 7, 1957
6.1 Introduction

America has experienced drastic changes in the forty-five years since Martin

Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. African Americans have ascended to the highest levels

of government, education, and industry. In the age of Obama, America likes to think of

herself as postracial (Ansolabehere & Stewart III, 2009; Okamura, 2011; Touré, 2011).

That is, the election of Obama is used to argue that the nation has risen above the

historical barriers of race. Despite the progress that has been made on a variety of fronts,

glaring inequalities continue to segregate society into the haves and the have nots (Smiley

& West, 2012). Ten days before the civil rights leader’s assassination, Rabbi Abraham

Joshua Heschel famously stated that “the future of America will depend upon the impact

and influence of Dr. King” (qtd. in King, Jr., 1991, p. 658). Heschel’s point was that

America’s ability to transform itself into a more just society was dependent on how the

nation responded to the prophetic voice of King and his prophetic vision of a “Beloved

Community.”

Since his death, America has wrestled with King’s prophetic legacy and its

relevance to the present. At the time of his death, King was perceived as a threat to the
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status quo. Today, he is celebrated as a national hero. Scholars have lamented the ways

in which contemporary celebrations of King tend to minimize discussion of the more

controversial elements of his prophetic legacy (Harding, 1987; Hoffman, 2000). For

example, Harding (1987) argued that “the things we have chosen to forget about King

(and about ourselves) constitute some of the most hopeful possibilities and resources for

our magnificent and very needy nation” (p. 469). It is easy to celebrate the beauty and

universal appeal of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech while ignoring his more

controversial addresses such as his “Beyond Vietnam” speech. The problem, according

to Harding, is that America privileges “amnesia rather than continue King’s painful,

unchartered, and often disruptive struggle toward a more perfect union” (p. 469).

Historical amnesia when it comes to his legacy serves to silence his prophetic voice. He

is relegated the historical role of civil rights leader and African American activist

(Harding, 1987; Hoffman, 2000; West, 2011).

Times have changed since the 1960s. When King prophesied, African Americans

were the largest minority group; now Hispanics are the largest ethnic group (De Vries,

2009). In the age of Obama, many leaders in the African American community argue

that the protest form of politics that dominated the Civil Rights Movement are no longer

relevant (F. C. Harris, 2012a; H. R. Harris, 2010a). In a nation that views itself as

postracial and post-protest politics, what is the relevance of the prophet who engaged in

protest politics to fight for the rights of African Americans? Simply put, is King’s

prophetic legacy still relevant today? I agree with Harding (1987) that King’s “vision

always included more than ‘rights’ or ‘equal opportunity’” (p. 473). Contemporary

perspectives that fail to acknowledge this reality restrict the influence of King’s prophetic
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voice. They limit him to a particular ethnic focus and mode of political engagement that

renders him irrelevant to the present. Some have sought to address the apparent loss of

King’s prophetic legacy by engaging in discussions over how the slain leader would

address contemporary issues such as the Iraq War (Jones & Engel, 2009), the Obama

presidency (Lewis, 2011; Safi, 2012), and escalating poverty (West, 2011). These

discussions are important; however, I will take a different approach in this chapter in

responding to the marginalization of King’s voice.

With few exceptions, rhetorical scholarship has privileged King’s most well-

known addresses in research (Keeley, 2008; Lucaites & Calloway-Thomas, 1993; Selby,

2008). In this chapter, I will analyze one of King’s lesser known speeches, his “Birth of a

New Nation” address, as a means of demonstrating King’s concern beyond race and his

embrace of multiple forms of political advocacy. Specifically, I argue that King’s use of

the Exodus reveals a prophetic concern that extended to all humanity and an embrace

forms of political agency beyond protests politics. My goal in this chapter is to

contribute to the work of scholars such as Harding (1987) and Hoffman (2000) who argue

that contemporary society has lost sight of King’s prophetic vision. I contribute to their

work by seeking to disrupt perspectives that limit King’s focus to ethnic minorities and

his sense of political agency to protest politics. The importance of this task goes beyond

simply excavating facts of King’s record for historical record. If Heschel was correct on

the relationship between King’s prophetic voice and the future of America, then this task

is vital to preserving King’s prophetic voice as a means of equipping the nation with the

rhetorical resources to move towards the realization of his dream. From the standpoint of

the broader project, excavating the nature of King’s prophetic commitment provides an
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entry point for comparison between his prophetic uses of the Exodus and Obama’s to be

made.

6.2 King: The (Afro)-American Prophet?

It is impossible to deny King’s strong concern for the welfare of the African

American community. Indeed, it is impossible to ignore the fact that this was the focus

of the majority of his campaigns. In addition, his use of the Exodus might indicate an

exclusive concern for oppressed African Americans. However, King’s concern for

African Americans was always situated within a broader context rhetorically. That is,

King’s concern for African Americans was part of a broader concern for the prophetic

virtues that he emphasized throughout his public career. Regarding King’s significance,

theologian James Cone (1987) observed, “It is important to remember that the meaning of

his life is not bound by race, nationality, or creed” (p. 455)

King’s universal concern for others was not simply an attribute that others cast

upon him. Rather, it was a truth that was evident in his rhetoric and interactions with

others. In a sermon delivered about a month before his assassination, King (1968/1998)

recounted a conversation he had while imprisoned in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963:

And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all

enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem….And when those

brothers told me what they were earning, I said, "Now, you know what? You

ought to be marching with us. You're just as poor as Negroes." And I said, "You

are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice

and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in

American society oppress poor white people. (pp. 178-179)

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The significance of this anecdote to the current discussion is twofold. First, the language

that King uses to describe his oppressors was inclusive. Throughout his career, he would

always refer to his opponents as “brothers,” even when he was decrying their actions. He

was a firm believer in the universal brotherhood and sisterhood of mankind. Second,

King’s point that the jailers needed to be marching with him displays his universal

concern for all people who were victims of oppression and economic exploitation. In

fact, this universal concern put him at odds with many of his contemporaries, such as

Malcolm X, who advocated for a far more Afrocentric agenda than what King was

proposing (Branch, 1989, 1999).

In the midst of growing discontent in an African American community desiring

Black Power, King (1967) continued to advance a different agenda: “Let us be

dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout, ‘White Power!’ when nobody will

shout, ‘Black Power!’ But everybody will talk about God's power and human power”

(para. 64). My point is that King never considered himself to be only the prophet of

African Americans. King (1968/1998) considered himself to be a prophet of the truth or,

as he liked to say, a “drum major for justice” (p. 186). To the extent that contemporary

perspectives limit King to the African American community, they fail to realize the scope

of his prophetic vision.

To support my thesis, I will defend three arguments. First, I will argue that

King’s use of the Exodus reveals a prophetic concern that encompasses all humanity.

That is, I will explore how he expresses concern for various groups of people (not only

African Americans) rhetorically. Second, I’ll argue that his rhetoric reveals a

commitment to coalition-building strategies of mobilization and political engagement.

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Third, I argue this speech demonstrates his keen understanding that for the movement to

be effective, it would have to be able to evolve with time. Key to this discussion is the

metaphoric linkages that King makes between Exodus elements including Israel, Egypt,

and the Promised Land in his rhetoric and events of his time in Ghana and Montgomery,

Alabama. The goal here is to dissociate King from perspectives that restrict him to one

group of people or antiquated form of political advocacy.

King’s “Birth of a New Nation” speech, among speeches often overlooked by

rhetorical scholars, “represents the most complete, paradigmatic application of the

Exodus story to the struggle for racial justice of King’s career” (Selby, 2008, p. 91). The

overwhelming presence of the Exodus in this speech provides an opportunity to uncover

the scope of King’s prophetic concern and his recognition that the methods of the

movement would need to evolve with time. King gave the address as a report to his

church on his recent trip to Ghana.

6.3 Background: Independence in Ghana & Difficulty in Montgomery

On March 6, 1957, after a long struggle, Ghana successfully gained economic,

political, and social independence from Great Britain through nonviolent means. The

leader of Ghana’s new political party, Kwame Nkrumah, had just been elected Prime

Minister of the newly liberated country. In celebration of Ghana’s liberation, leaders

from all over the continent and the world were invited to share with the Ghanaians in the

festivities.

Among those invited from America was Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of

his trip to Ghana, King’s international profile was on the rise. King had successfully led

an extended boycott of city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Now, he was receiving

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attention from national news organizations and magazines (Branch, 1989; Selby, 2008).

In addition, his star power had grown to the point that he received the invitation to join

other national leaders in Ghana. However, all was not well in King’s life. With his

newfound fame came much envy and jealousy from others. Other Civil Rights leaders

from Montgomery, such as E. D. Dixon, felt that King was receiving a disproportionate

amount of the praise for the success of the movement.

Additionally, the success of the Montgomery bus boycotts had perhaps created

unrealistic expectations for the progress of the struggle for Civil Rights in America.

Despite recent successes, numerous inequalities and injustices loomed in Montgomery

and throughout the south. The perpetuation of these inequalities served as a source of

discouragement and despair for many African Americans who expected the success of

Montgomery to be the beginning of a landslide victory in Civil Rights. For many, the

success of the Montgomery boycotts had raised expectations, resulting in a more difficult

and oppressive existence (Selby, 2008).

The speech came on the heels of King’s trip to Ghana. Delivered at Dexter

Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, the address served as a report of his

experiences in Ghana to his home church. Also, it served to bolster the commitment of

African Americans in the local community who had grown weary of the difficulties and

setbacks that they experienced in their struggle for freedom. For them, King (1957)

delivered the message that “freedom only comes through persistent revolt, through

persistent agitation, through persistently rising up against the system of evil” (p. 161).

This text is a valuable artifact of analysis to this project because it reveals the

ways in which King lifted the struggle in Montgomery out of the immediate context of
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difficulty, setbacks, and oppression and resituated it within a broader, mystic quest for

justice and equality in the world. In relation to the Exodus, Selby (2008) noted that

“King adapted the story in several ways as a response to his changing rhetorical situation,

reflecting both his authority as an ‘interpreter’ of the Bible and the movement as well as

the elasticity of the cultural myth itself” (p. 104).

6.4 Framing the Ongoing Struggle as a Universal Exodus

As King began the speech, he immediately situated his comments within the

context of the Exodus. He introduced the narrative as the “basis” for the speech (p. 155).

Everything that followed in the speech functioned as a part of King’s retelling of the

Exodus in contemporary terms. That is, all of the events were situated as part of a

universal Exodus narrative that King perceived around the world.

To King, the Exodus was not an event or journey limited to any one people.

Rather, it was a template for a struggle that all people encountered eventually:

This [the Exodus] is something of the story of every people struggling for

freedom. It is the first story of man’s explicit quest for freedom. And it

demonstrates the stages that seem to inevitably follow the quest for freedom.

(para. 1)

It was the archetypal nature of this struggle in King’s rhetoric that created a sense of

solidarity between African Americans and the people of Ghana. This solidarity came

from the perspective that the Exodus was a repeating cycle that occurred in various

sociopolitical contexts when people mustered the courage to fight oppression and pursue

freedom: “there is something deep down within the very soul of man that reach out for

Canaan. Men cannot be satisfied with Egypt” (para. 9).

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Having established the Exodus as the framework for the speech, King proceeded

to make three points in the speech and finish with a climactic charge to African

Americans in Montgomery to persevere in their struggle for justice and equality. King

recounts the Exodus that the nation of Ghana made from colonial rule to independence.

The story of Ghana’s struggle for independence, Kwame Nkrumah’s rise to political

power, and the end of British colonial rule taught three lessons. These events taught that

the struggle for freedom is a prolonged struggle. He pointed out the fact that Ghana had

first attempted to gain independence in 1844, but those aspirations were not realized till

1957. Second, Nkrumah’s dramatic rise to power, including being elected Prime

Minister from prison, demonstrated that even at movements’ darkest moments, agendas

of freedom were still being advanced. Third, the demise of British colonial rule

highlighted the power of truth over military and economic might. King was quick to

point out how much stronger Britain was compared to Ghana. However, Ghana prevailed

over the British Empire because of the surpassing power of the truth in the hands of those

who were willing to fight for it. Breaking free from the metaphoric Egypt functioned as

“the birth of a new nation” (p. 160).

In the next section of the speech, King explored the challenges that Ghana would

now face as an independent nation. He discussed the “problem of adjustment”

economically, socially, and politically (p. 160). Specifically, King highlighted the need

for Ghana to industrialize and develop more exports apart from cocoa. Learning to

navigate these various economic, political, and social issues functioned as what he termed

Ghana’s “wilderness” (p. 160). This wilderness period functioned as a prelude to the

Promised Land that Ghana was seeking to reach. Part of the strategy that Nkrumah was
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pursuing to navigate this wilderness was encouraging the immigration of talented African

Americans to aid in the development of the new nation.

Next, King applied the lessons that he drew from Ghana to African Americans

engaged in an intense struggle for Civil Rights in America. Using Ghana as an example,

King drew attention to the challenges of making the Exodus to the Promised Land out of

Egypt. The example of Ghana meant that African Americans had to continue to pursue

equality even in the midst of an increasingly hostile climate in places like Montgomery

where the conditions seemed to be growing worse, not better (Selby, 2008). To citizens

discouraged at the apparent lack of progress, King used Ghana as motivation to keep

pursuing freedom in the midst of difficulty: “Freedom is never given out, but it comes

through the persistent and the continual agitation and revolt on the part of those who are

caught in the system. Ghana teaches us that” (p. 162).

An additional point that King made in this section is that nonviolence must

continue to be the trademark of their protests. In the midst of growing discontent, he

warned them that to grow impatient with nonviolence was to risk alienation from others

and casting their movement as illegitimate. He contrasts the results of nonviolence in

Ghana with the alienation that occurred between Britain and China following China’s

violent revolt from British rule. In the speech, nonviolence functioned as the pathway

through the wilderness to the Promised Land.

In the final section of the speech, King delivered a powerful and pointed call to

his immediate audience to remain persistent in their quest for justice and equality in the

midst of an increasingly hostile climate. Using the Exodus and examples from the British

Empire and several third world countries, he sought to make the point that racial
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oppression was on its deathbed. As he stated, “somehow the forces of justice stand on

the side of the universe, so that you can’t ultimately trample over God’s children and

profit by it” (p. 164). That is, through the efforts of contemporary Israel, “God’s

children,” racism would eventually be laid to rest. He also draws on the metaphoric

elements of the Exodus such as of “Canaan,” “the mountaintop,” and “Joshua” to argue

that even though he might not live to bring African Americans into the Promised Land,

they would eventually get there (para. 45). This is the confidence and motivation that he

sought to communicate to African Americans in Montgomery. Next, King sought to

remind them yet again of the importance of an unwavering commitment to meet the

obstacles that they would face “without violence” (p. 162). The greater the oppression,

the more that individuals were going to start advocating for violent resistance to racial

oppression. However, King suggested that nonviolent resistance was the only pathway

toward true liberation from the shackles of racism and prejudice that had hindered unity

across racial lines. His notion of the “beloved community” was the goal of nonviolent

resistance (p. 162). That is, his goal was the emergence of communities in which people

of different ethnicities, nationalities, and classes co-existed in a spirit of brotherhood

rooted in the acknowledgment of common humanity. The idea that “the road to freedom

is a difficult, hard road” was central to King’s final section of this speech (p. 162).

Having explained the basic structure of the speech, I will now turn my attention to

explaining how various metaphoric uses of the Exodus in this speech reveal King’s

broader concern that extended beyond the plight of African Americans. King’s

metaphoric use of elements of the Exodus in an international context reveals an inclusive

approach at the heart of his prophetic concern.

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6.5 Interpreting the Exodus on the Global Stage

6.5.1 Who Are The Israelites?

In the original telling of the Exodus narrative, people were divided on the basis of

ethnicity. For example, the Egyptians were oppressors while the Israelites were the

oppressed. King’s use of the Exodus has the potential to imply a concern limited to

oppressed African Americans. However, he uses the terms from the narrative

strategically in the international context. To King, the journey to the Promised Land was

the “story of every people struggling for freedom” (para. 1). That is, King did not

operate from a metaphor, African Americans are Israel. Rather, he operated from the

metaphor, the oppressed are Israel. Therefore, within his use of the narrative, the Exodus

was not just a story for African Americans. It was a narrative that linked all the

oppressed people of the earth in solidarity. To be a part of King’s Israel was to embrace

a status as the oppressed people of the earth and work together for emancipation from

oppression: “there is something deep down within the very soul of man that reaches out

for Canaan. Men cannot be satisfied with Egypt” (para. 7). Egypt, in King’s account, is

the center of oppression in society. Egypt dehumanizes, marginalizes, and oppresses

people. The prophetic tradition that King subscribed to taught “that freedom is

something basic, and to rob a man of his freedom is to take from him the essential basis

of his manhood. To take from his freedom is to rob him of something of God’s image”

(para. 7). The ontological commitment at the heart of King’s use of the Exodus in this

context is that all humanity is held together by internal desires for freedom. When

desires are not met, people’s humanity is stolen. It is impossible to understand King’s

concern for African Americans without considering it against the backdrop of his belief
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that all humanity was entitled to values that he drew from the Exodus and the prophetic

tradition. In this sense, Israel, metaphorically, comprised all humanity that, like the

original Israel, had been enslaved in a condition that God did not intend for them. This

value system allows him to draw the plight of African Americans in Montgomery

together with the recent developments in Ghana. The people were held together by a

common struggle to break free from oppression and gain their freedom.

Liberation from Egypt, according to King’s interpretation of the Exodus, did not

require the oppressed to triumph over the oppressors. Rather, it involved the two groups

joining together in friendship: “We must come to the point of seeing that our ultimate

aim is to live with all men as brothers and sisters under God and not be their enemies or

anything that goes with that type of relationship” (para. 30). The goal of King’s Exodus

was not freedom from the oppressors, but freedom to integrate with the oppressors in a

spirit of shared humanity. Oppression, to King, was like a cancer that infected all

humanity. Yes, it marginalized the oppressed, but it also gave the oppressor a false sense

of superiority over the oppressed. King’s fundamental concern, expressed in his uses of

the Exodus, was to see the emergence of a “beloved community” in which all peoples

could co-exist in a climate of freedom, justice, and equality. However, this goal

necessitated departing from Egypt, journeying through the wilderness, and tearing down

the wall of Jericho in the Promised Land. The key thing to note is that this was a journey

for all people. It was led by the oppressed for the benefit of all humanity. In this

framework, King’s universal concern for humanity beyond the limits of the African

American experience manifests itself. He expressed concern beyond African Americans

and Ghanaians, including oppressed people in India and modern Egypt.

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Therefore, in understanding the scope of King’s prophetic vision for America and

the world, it is important to acknowledge that his goal was not to elevate or favor one

group of people over others. The social climate that produced oppression in America and

the world was King’s concern. While he clearly opposed the imperial aims of America

and the British Empire in the speech, he never did so with the goal of triumphing over

them. Rather, he explained that his goal was “to defeat the evil that’s in them” (para. 29).

The evils were colonization, segregation, and Jim Crow laws. Collectively, these

structures comprised Egypt for the oppressed. King did not want to triumph over the

Egyptians as much as he wanted to dismantle Egyptians structures of oppression. He

devoted his life to systematically root out structures of oppression in defense of “the soul

that cries out for freedom” (para. 8). This was a goal that transcended race, ethnicity, or

creed. It served as the basis for the multiracial coalitions he built in Ghana, at the March

on Washington, and at the Selma March (Branch, 1989, 1999, 2006). The magnificence

of his trip to Ghana to help ring in the dawn of a new nation was the sight “of the people

who have stood in the forefront of the struggle for civil rights over the years, coming over

to Africa to say we bid you Godspeed” (para. 14).

These points bring the scope of King’s prophetic concern into clear view. He

always believed that he was a prophet to all people. African Americans, as those under

oppression in his sociopolitical context, were the focus, not the extent, of his prophetic

concern. Furthermore, the enemy that he fought against was not white people. Rather,

he battled against all dominant power structures that served to marginalize and oppress

others. Citing freedom as a fundamental component of humanity that he was willing to

fight for meant that prophetic fidelity to sacred truth, not political expediency, motivated
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King’s efforts. Whether it was racism, segregation, colonialism, or imperialism, King

was committed to speaking out against that which marginalized the humanity of others.

6.5.2 How Do We Break Free From Egypt?

King’s use of the Exodus did not simply reveal a universal concern for humanity.

In addition, it also revealed a commitment to prophetic forms of political engagement that

would foster coalition-building opportunities. The basis of King’s political engagement

was a commitment to speak truth to power and the belief that “freedom only comes

through persistent revolt, through persistent agitation, through persistently rising up

against the system of evil” (para. 25). This commitment and belief served as the basis for

his solidarity with others engaged in the struggle to overthrow systems of oppression in

the United States and throughout the world. The “birth of a new nation” in Ghana served

as evidence of the fact that endurance and persistence served as the conceptual weapons

in the battle to escape Egypt (para. 18). The view that “privileged classes never give up

their privileges without strong resistance” reinforced King’s belief that any form of

political engagement rooted in the prophetic tradition had to consistently pressure

dominant power structures to cease all forms of oppression in society. Social

transformation, or “breaking aloose from Egypt,” was never accomplished without

“hardness,” “persistence of life,” “toil,” “despair and disappointment” (para. 30). Social

change provided a significant threat to those with “vested interests in Egypt” (para. 8).

However, in the face of significant opposition from those whose power was threatened by

social change, King remained committed to a mode of political engagement that would

transform not only society, but the nature of the relationship between the oppressors and

the oppressed.
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The basis of solidarity from King’s perspective was a common commitment to

challenging and disrupting dominant power structures in society. Beyond this focus, his

priority of nonviolent resistance to oppression highlights the importance he placed on

building relationships and coalitions with others. For King, the movement was never

about defeating privileged whites in America or British colonizers. Instead, he saw his

task as one of conversion. By conversion, I refer to the process of calling on the

oppressor to a change of heart consistent with the sacred values of the prophetic tradition

such as embracing freedom for all people. That is, through nonviolent action, the evil

contained within the hearts of oppressors in America and Britain would be challenged,

dismantled, and replaced with a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood. Marches, protests,

and sit-ins provide a symbolic challenge to the conscience of the oppressors. Through

nonviolent action, coalitions based on a common commitment to the sacred truths of

love, justice, and equality would be established: “we must come to the point of seeing

that our ultimate aim is to live with all men as brothers and sisters under God, and not be

their enemies or anything that goes with that type of relationship” (p. 163).

King’s perspective was that nonviolent action must inevitably produce hostility

for a period, but in the end it would produce the fruit of social change without perpetual

bitterness: “this is the one thing that Ghana teaches us: that you can break aloose from

evil through nonviolence, through a lack of bitterness” (p. 163). Unlike Israel who

decimated the Egyptians before leaving Egypt, King refocuses the metaphoric elements

of the narrative onto a defeat of social evils that occupy the hearts and minds of the

contemporary Egyptians who occupied the seat of power in the Western world. The goal

of the struggle in reference to those individuals who occupied the seat of power was to
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challenge power in a way that did not produce animosity, but a foundation for

brotherhood and sisterhood. While King invokes the language of the Exodus, he

articulated a different, better outcome from the animosity that characterized the Israelites

and Egyptians in the aftermath of Israel’s departure.

In other words, Egypt, as King framed it, did not offer the possibility for positive

coalitions between people from different segments of society because Egypt served to

reinforce power relationships that marginalized some to empower others. The answer to

this condition was to break free from ideologies that place restrictions on the freedom of

some in order to provide economic, political, or social privilege to others. This answer

was at the heart of his approach to building coalitions as a means of gaining greater

political agency. The victory of Ghana gaining independence from the British Empire

was that the Ghanaians had done so in a way that would not prevent the two nations from

building a coalition to explore creative ways to build toward a better future: “These two

nations will be able to live together and work together because the breaking aloose was

through nonviolence and not through violence” (p. 162). Nonviolent forms of protests

would foster eventual reconciliation between those among whom existing power relations

had created tension.

King’s rhetorical construction of the Promised Land also highlighted his belief

that building coalitions across existing racial, ethnic and class lines was the ideal

direction for society to go. Within the Exodus story and King’s speech, the Promised

Land plays a vital role. It is the end upon which everything else in the story rests.

Therefore, paying attention to the nature of the Promised Land in King’s rhetoric

provides insight into how he saw the movement evolving over time and what goals he
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would pursue to reach that end. To King, the desired result of the Civil Rights Movement

was always “the promised land of cultural integration” (p. 161). Freedom, justice, and

equality served as the prerequisite states that must exist in any society before true

integration could take place. The dream of “cultural integration” would only be

emphasized as forms of oppression against African Americans and Third World countries

like Ghana were addressed (para. 24). As he argued, “the aftermath of nonviolence is the

creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The

aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation” (para. 28). Drawing on the Exodus imagery

of the battle of Jericho, King argued that the elimination of the “walls of segregation”

would allow African Americans “to live with people as their brothers and sisters” (para.

28). Jericho was the first city that Israel took possession of after entering the Promised

Land. It was heavily defended by a mammoth wall that protected the city from all

opposing armies. King argued that segregation was the Jericho wall that protects systems

of oppression in society from being transformed into a beloved community in America

and the world. Unlike Israel, who had to defeat human enemies when entering the

Promised Land, the coalitions that he sought to build had to defeat pervasive ideologies

that justified segregation, colonialism, and imperialism. The Exodus, then, served as the

basis for King to articulate his belief that prophetic stances in society were a necessary

prerequisite to social change around the world. King’s political advocacy was not limited

to particular forms of activism, but it was driven by particular commitments of the

prophetic tradition.
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6.5.3 How Do We Get From Egypt to the Promised Land?

Relative to King’s entire public career, this speech was among his earliest

addresses. However, even in this early address, King demonstrated a keen understanding

of the fact that the movement would have to evolve and be open to change with time in

order to remain relevant in a dynamic social and political environment. In discussing the

events in Ghana and the current struggle of African Americans in Montgomery, King

utilized the Exodus as a linear model to map out the direction that the movement would

have to go in order to reach the Promised Land. When I use the term linear model, I am

not at all referring to linear models of history that were examined in the previous chapter.

Instead, King drew on the Exodus to cast a vision of the different stages of the struggle

for freedom, justice, and equality that would have to be navigated over time. In drawing

on the Exodus as a linear model of the different stages that the movement would have to

take, he linked the Civil Rights Movement to three different geographical locations in the

narrative: Egypt, the wilderness, and the Promised Land. He used these different

locations metaphorically to present a vision of “the road to freedom” (para. 32).

Egypt, as previously mentioned, functioned as the seat of power, the place of

bondage and oppression in society. The first stage of the journey to the Promised Land,

in King’s speech, was breaking free from bondage and oppression. He offered examples

from Ghana and the ongoing struggle in America to argue that breaking free from

Egyptian oppression would only be accomplished through resistance and protests. The

recent success of the movement following Rosa Parks’ arrest was an initial stage in

“breaking aloose” from American Egypt: “the bus protest is just the beginning…If you

stop now, we will be in the dungeons of segregation and discrimination for another
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hundred years” (para. 25). The key point to note in King’s depiction of the American

Egypt is that being in Egypt called for certain forms of political resistance, namely

nonviolent protests and marches. Just like the children of Israel marched from Egypt and

around the walls of Jericho, these forms of resistance were essential to escaping the

bondage of contemporary Egypt. As the oppressed engaged in protest marches, they

were discursively walking out of Egypt towards the Promised Land of freedom and

equality.

While African Americans were still struggling to break free from American

Egypt, Ghana offered King an opportunity to cast a vision for what it meant to move

through the wilderness stage of the journey to the Promised Land. This stage, for King,

involved a broadened focus onto economic opportunity, educational quality, and

infrastructure building. King explained specific challenges that Ghana would have to

face in its wilderness period:

This nation was now out of Egypt and had crossed the Red Sea. Now it will

confront its wilderness. Like any breaking aloose from Egypt, there is a

wilderness ahead. There is a problem of adjustment. Nkrumah realizes that.

There is always this wilderness standing before him. For instance, it’s a one-crop

country, cocoa mainly. Sixty percent of the cocoa of the world comes from the

Gold Coast or from Ghana. In order to make the economic system more stable, it

will be necessary to industrialize. (para. 21)

For King, different stages of the journey called for different forms of prophetic action.

However, every stage of the journey was built on the same prophetic goals. While

protests and nonviolent resistance might not be the norm during this stage, King was a
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strong advocate of the prophetic urgency of seeking to build an economic system in

Ghana that would extend economic opportunity to all of the nation’s citizens.

Decidedly, this stage of the journey involved a much more politically focused

agenda than that which was going on in America at the time. When I say that it was more

politically focused, I mean that King viewed this aspect of the journey as being

accomplished through governmental means. Marches and protests were not obsolete, but

his statements definitely suggest a shift in strategy in the wilderness period. For example,

during the 1960s, King and other Civil Rights Movement leaders pressured the Kennedy

and Johnson Administrations heavily for policy agendas designed to accomplish the

prophetic goals of the movement (Branch, 1999, 2006). This shift highlights an

important point in this project on the relationship between King’s prophetic legacy and

Obama. For King, the prophetic goals of the movement would only be achieved through

a prophetic partnership between contemporary prophets, such as himself, and politicians.

That is, a partnership based on a common commitment to the sacred truths of society was

vital to successfully escaping Egypt and navigating “the prodigious hilltops of evil in the

wilderness” (p. 163). Within his prophetic worldview, political office was not

antithetical to prophetic action. To explain it in Exodus terminology, King argued that

there was a shift in the nature of Moses’s leadership of Israel from when Israel was in

Egypt and when they were in the wilderness. Navigating the wilderness, from King’s

perspective, was dependent on the ability of a people to successfully evolve in their focus

and emphasis on certain core issues, while still maintaining a sense of prophetic urgency.

The Promised Land was the final stage of the journey. King’s discussion in

relation to the Promised Land reveals in a deeper sense his conviction that the movement
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would necessarily evolve with time and take on new forms to meet new challenges that

emerged. However, at each stage, the goal of eliminating all barriers to humanity

experiencing oneness and equality is affirmed. This goal was consistent at every stage of

the struggle and served as the guiding principle that would lead African Americans into

the Promised Land of equality:

We got orders now to break down the bondage and the walls of colonialism,

exploitation, and imperialism. To break them down to the point that no man will

trample over another man, but that all men will respect the dignity and worth of

all human personality. And then we will be in Canaan’s freedom land. (p. 166)

While the methods would change over time, the goal of the Civil Rights Movement, from

King’s perspective, was crystal clear: a social transformation towards freedom, justice,

and equality. This transformation was “the birth of a new nation” (p. 160).

Tied to this vision of the Promised Land was King’s belief that entry into

American Canaan would require a different kind of leader:

Moses might not get to see Canaan, but his children will see it. He even got to the

mountain top enough to see it and that assured him that it was coming. But the

beauty of the thing is that there’s always a Joshua to take up his work and take the

children on in….Oh, what exceedingly marvelous things God has in store for us.

Grant that we will follow Him enough to gain them. (p. 166)

In the original Exodus, Moses died shortly before Israel began its conquest of the

Promised Land, yielding his leadership to Joshua, his assistant. Here, King is expressing

his doubt that the current generation of leaders would be able to accomplish all of the
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prophetic goals of the movement. Joshua in this context functions individually or

collectively as one or people who are an extension of the prophetic tradition of the

movement.

The task of Joshua was fundamentally different than that of Moses, but it was a

continuation of Moses’s task. Moses had to lead the people out of Egypt and through the

wilderness. Joshua had to lead the people on a military conquest of Canaan. These are

two very different tasks, but they are part of the same journey to take possession of the

Promised Land that God had promised to Israel. The key point to take away from King’s

statement is that he understood that the movement would evolve in terms of its leadership

over time. This was necessary due to an ever-changing sociopolitical climate. However,

even in acknowledging the necessity of a shift to Joshua, King called for solidarity

between leaders to the prophetic goals and sacred truths that God had called the people to

adopt. The only path to the Promised Land, within the Exodus, comes through

righteousness/faithfulness to sacred truths. This reality implies that a failure to reach the

Promised Land is a lack of disciplined faithfulness, nothing else. The commitment to

speaking truth to power as a means of leading a people to the Promised Land situated

King as a prophetic within the tradition inherited from Moses.

6.6 Conclusion

In this chapter, I have sought to explore the scope of King’s prophetic legacy and

the flexibility in his mode of political advocacy. Specifically, I argued that the scope of

his prophetic concern extended to all humanity. King’s universal concern emerged from

his belief that humanity was held together by the common trait of being made in “God’s

image” (para. 7). Next, I argued that King’s brand of prophetic politics always included
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building coalitions across traditional lines of race, class, and ethnicity—not a single-

minded focus on African American needs only. Contemporary America’s perception of

herself as postracial calls for forms of political advocacy that reach across traditional

barriers of class, race, and ethnicity. The basis of King’s coalitions with others was a

common commitment to speak truth to power. In this speech, the Exodus was utilized to

provide a discursive roadmap for the future of the movement and to instill a commitment

to the sacred truths on which the prophetic tradition was built.

In this chapter and the broader unit, my purpose has been to expose the

foundations of the prophetic tradition in King’s rhetoric as a means of understanding

whether or not Obama has been true to the tradition in his rhetoric and policies. Based on

King’s prophetic approach, the building of coalitions is a political reality that is still

consistent with King’s prophetic voice. In the same way that King branched out from

southern pastors and ministers to build alliances with politicians and other activities, so

Obama has reached out to the Democratic Party to establish coalition capable of electing

him to office. But while King’s rationale for these coalitions was always pursing a call to

faithfulness to sacred values, that crucial prophetic underpinning has not always been

present in Obama’s coalition building. That is, Obama situates himself as an extension of

King in the form of a contemporary Joshua, but he does not operate from the same

prophetic tradition that motivated King and others during the Civil Rights Movement.

Rather, as I will argue in subsequent chapters, he co-opts their prophetic voice through

strategic, metaphoric uses of the Exodus in his rhetoric.

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CHAPTER 7. OBAMA: THE BUREAUCRATIC PROPHET

7.1 Introduction

As Martin Luther King, Jr. neared the end of his life, he began to reflect on his

legacy and the future of the struggle for justice and equality. This period of reflection

was never seen more clearly than in King’s (1968) final public address. In his famous

“mountaintop” speech, he delivered what was arguably his most important prophecy. He

predicted that he would not live to lead African Americans into the Promised Land of

justice and equality in America; however, this pessimism was tempered by his complete

confidence that eventually they would achieve the goals of the struggle:

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life–longevity has its place. But I'm not

concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to

go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I

may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people,

will get to the Promised Land. (para. 44)

King’s prophetic pronouncement was based in the Old Testament story of God taking

Moses to the Mountaintop at the end of his (Moses’s) life. God had forbidden Moses

from entering the Promised Land because he disobeyed God during Israel’s trek through

the wilderness (Numbers 20:9-11). However, when Israel arrived at the edge of the

Promised Land, God took Moses to a nearby mountaintop to show him the land before he
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died and to give him assurance that Israel would take possession of it (Deuteronomy

34:1-4). As a replacement, God appointed Moses’s assistant Joshua to lead the people

into the Promised Land (Joshua 1:1-5).

As Bethany Keeley (2008) has noted, this functioned in King’s speech to frame

the movement as an epic story that required the continual efforts of African Americans to

complete. In addition, it positioned African American activists with divine authority in

completing the work that King and others had begun. His use of the story suggested that,

as he was on the side of Israel, God was on the side of oppressed African Americans. In

the face of a Civil Rights Movement that had not seen any significant achievements in

several years, King drew on the Exodus to confidently express his belief that justice and

equality would be a reality in America (Branch, 2006). Simultaneously, King was

acknowledging his mortality in predicting his death prior to African American entry into

the Promised Land. Rhetorically, his use of the Exodus in this speech had two main

functions. First, his use of the Exodus in relation to the Civil Rights Movement

communicated his belief that victory was inevitable in the ongoing struggle for justice

and equality. The whole purpose of God taking Moses to the mountaintop was to assure

him that Israel would take possession of it after his death. Second, King’s use of the

Exodus necessitated the emergence of a prophetic successor to lead Israel into the

Promised Land and guide them through the challenges that they would face in this

endeavor. In this way, King’s use of the Exodus created a discursive opening for another

individual to assume leadership of the journey to America’s Promised Land as an

extension of King’s prophetic legacy. This rhetorical opening is crucial to understanding

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Obama’s metaphoric uses of the Exodus in his appeals to the African American

community.

Following King’s assassination, many wondered who would succeed him as the

next prophetic deliverer for the African American community. Rhetorically, King had

positioned African Americans as a contemporary Israel on Canaan’s edge. Now, the task

was to locate a new prophetic leader to fight for the same sacred truths for which King

gave his life and guide the people the rest of the way into the Promised Land. Over the

next forty-five years, African American intellectuals would lament the lack of prophetic

leadership in the African American community (Condit & Lucaites, 1993; Harris, 2012a;

West, 2001). But in 2004, Obama’s memorable speech at the Democratic National

Convention immediately cast him into the spotlight of the national political stage

(McPhail & Frank, 2006). As the unlikely star of American politics, Obama became the

heir apparent to the prophetic legacy of King (Harris, 2012b).

The rapid and historic rise of Barack Obama as the first African American

president offered African Americans hope that a contemporary deliverer in the prophetic

tradition had arrived to complete the work that King left unfinished. Upon entering the

race for the 2008 presidency, Obama prompted citizens, media outlets, and Civil Rights

activists to explore the significance of Obama’s candidacy and election in relationship to

King and the Civil Rights Movement. For example, Southern black James Presley told

CNN that “with Obama coming in, it's gonna be another Martin Luther King helping us”

(Drash, 2009, para. 40). From his speaking style to his word choice to his topics, the

common question that dominated the media was “is Obama like King” (Gitell, 2008).
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In this chapter, I will explore how Obama positioned himself as the successor to

King’s prophetic legacy through rhetoric. Specifically, I argue that Obama strategically

deployed the Exodus to establish himself as an extension of the prophetic legacy of

Martin Luther King, Jr. and to legitimize the differences that distinguished him from the

slain leader. He invokes the metaphor, Obama is Joshua, to position himself as what I

call a “bureaucratic prophet” who will lead African Americans into the Promised Land of

freedom, justice, and equality. I use the term “bureaucratic prophet” to describe Obama

in this speech because he seeks to position himself as a prophet occupying political

office. While he was different in many respects from the leaders of the Civil Rights

Movements, his use of the Exodus positions him discursively within the same prophetic

continuum as them. Obama utilized the Exodus to navigate the obvious differences

between his political identity and King’s prophetic identity. King operated as a prophet

outside of the power structure. Obama was campaigning to be the head of the power

structure. To explore this phenomenon, I will analyze Obama’s address at the conclusion

of the 2007 ceremony honoring the memory of the Selma March. His speech reveals how

he utilized rhetoric to strengthen his ties with African American history and the

community.

In order to support my argument, I will briefly outline key perspectives that

emerged in the African American community on the significance of Obama’s rise to

national prominence. Next, I will highlight ways in which Obama has strengthened his

bond with the African American community outside of discourse as a means of

highlighting the fact that gaining the support of the African American community was a

key priority for him throughout his campaigns and presidency. Third, I will situate his
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speech at Selma within the historical context in which it was delivered. Fourth, I will

examine the speech to highlight how he sought to use the Exodus to establish a strong

bond between his candidacy and the prophetic legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, and

then I will explore the consequences of this strategy. However, I must first highlight

different perspectives on Obama that were articulated when he first emerged onto the

national scene.

7.2 Competing Perspectives on Obama’s Candidacy

The African American community wrestled with the significance of an Obama

candidacy within the historical context of the Civil Rights Movement. In February of

2008, Tavis Smiley hosted the annual State of the Black Union in New Orleans,

Louisiana. The annual forum functions as a roundtable discussion of current issues in the

African American community. Individuals such as Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Michael

Eric Dyson, Michael Steele, Donna Brazile, and Angela Glover Blackwell are frequent

invitees to the discussion. A central item of discussion at the 2008 forum was the

significance of Obama’s candidacy to the African American community.

At the event, several of the panelists differed in their support. With the exception

of two African American Republican panelists, most of the participants fell into one of

two camps of support. In the midst of an intense primary season pitting Obama against

Hillary Clinton, some cast their lot with Obama, while others remained loyal to Bill and

Hillary Clinton. In spite of the political differences that were present, the rich dialogue of

the forum allowed two dominant perspectives on the significance of Obama’s candidacy

in a historical context to surface. One perspective viewed Obama’s candidacy as an

indisputable sign of the success of the Civil Rights Movement. That is, the reality that
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Obama had a legitimate shot at the presidency demonstrated how much change had been

accomplished over the forty years since King’s death. Former Louisiana Congressman

and forum participant Cleo Fields articulated this perspective when he offered the Obama

candidacy as evidence of the progress of the struggle for Civil Rights:

W. E. B. Du Bois started to teach so Rosa Parks could take a seat. Rosa Parks

took a seat so we could all take a stand. We took a stand so Martin Luther could

march. Martin marched so Jesse Jackson could run. And…and Jesse Jackson ran

so Obama could win. (qtd in Smiley, 2008)

From this perspective the Obama candidacy was merely a sign of the success and the

progress of the movement. The extraordinary nature of his candidacy and election

functioned to reinforce belief that African Americans had fundamentally transformed the

nation to the point that even an African American could aspire to the presidency. Using

the language of the Exodus, I suggest that this line of thinking positioned his candidacy

as a discursive symbol that the Promised Land had been reached. To say that the

Promised Land had been reached is not to suggest that it had all been conquered and that

there was nothing left to do; rather, it is to say that society was undergoing a

transformation.

Burke’s (1945/1969) concept of the “mystic moment” provides insight into what

Fields and others were arguing in terms of Obama’s significance. The mystic moment,

according to Burke, is when people can look at the same events and attach new

significance to them. In the midst of long struggle, they argued that Obama’s candidacy

allowed them to look back at the ongoing struggle of the past couple of centuries with a

new sense of purpose and hope of victory. In Fields’ quote, all of the people and events
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that he mentioned had an ultimate purpose of making Obama’s candidacy possible. The

important thing to note is that this perspective viewed Obama’s candidacy as a sign that

while equality had not become a reality yet, African Americans were on the right track.

A second perspective that dominated the discourse surrounding Barack Obama

was the idea that his candidacy represented the conduit through which the dream of the

Promised Land would finally be realized in America. For example, the elder statesman

of the Civil Rights Movement, Jesse Jackson, addressed the audience at the Smiley forum

on the significance of Obama’s candidacy: “For those who want to move from racial

battlegrounds, to economic common ground, to moral higher ground, its Obamarama

(sic)” (Smiley, 2008). Jackson’s point about moving beyond battlegrounds to common

ground to higher ground was an oft quoted statement by him. However, what was unique

about his usage in this context is that he attaches the realization of that goal to the

candidacy of Barack Obama. Similar to the other perspective, this perspective viewed his

candidacy and election as a sign that change indeed had occurred in America. However,

where this perspective is different is that it positions Obama not just as a sign of the

change but as the conduit for continuing change in the African American community. To

use Exodus terminology, this perspective situates Obama as Joshua to King’s Moses.

Within this framework, Obama emerges as the contemporary leader that African

Americans had been waiting on to finish the work that King had begun.

7.3 Early Criticism of Obama’s Political Aspirations

Not all responses to Obama’s political rise were positive. Within the African

American community he faced challenges on his African American identity and in

positioning himself as a product and inheritor of the prophetic legacy of the Civil Rights
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Movement. The remarkable family story that he shared with America of an interracial

relationship between a Kansas woman and a Kenyan man was an effective tool at

positioning himself as living proof that the American Dream was possible. But in the

African American community, his unusual story raised questions concerning the

authenticity of his “blackness” (King, 2011). While his skin color was black, his points

of identification with African Americans were weak at best. Unlike many African

Americans, he was raised by a White mother and White grandparents. He spent a large

part of his childhood outside of the U.S. His upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia did not

include much exposure to the vicious history of racism and prejudice that impacted the

daily lives of Blacks in America.

All of these differences fed suspicions in the African American community that

he did not represent the values and concerns of the African American community.

However, these suspicions were not new. Throughout his political career in Illinois, he

faced numerous attacks from political opponents such as Illinois Congressman Bobby

Rush regarding his blackness and ability to represent the interests of African Americans

(Harris, 2012a). The challenges that Obama faced in establishing his authenticity and

legitimacy in the African American community are well documented. For example,

during Smiley’s 2008 State of the Black Union, Georgetown Professor Michael Eric

Dyson chided African Americans for their repeated attacks on Obama’s racial identity:

“Don’t act like y’all always been for Barack. Somebody talking about, ‘is he black

enough?’…You all were saying, ‘The white folk might not vote for him so I don’t

know’” (Smiley, 2008). Dyson’s statement highlights the disconnect that existed

between Obama and African Americans early in his political career. Throughout his first
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presidential campaign, he had to fight to establish his legitimacy in the face of an African

American community that was suspicious of his unusual background and upbringing

(Frank, 2009; Murphy, 2011).

Another early criticism of Obama was that he lacked a radical opposition to

societal evils consistent with the prophetic tradition that strongly influenced the actions of

Civil Rights Movement leaders. This perspective is best captured through the criticisms

leveled at Obama by Union Theological Seminary professor Cornel West. West was an

early supporter and constant critic of Obama. His criticisms, while intense, reveal a

strong concern that Obama remain true to the values and sacred truths of the prophetic

tradition. At the 2007 State of the Black Union, West highlighted this concern in relation

to Obama:

My criteria is (sic) fundamental. I want to know how deep is your love for the

people, what kind of courage have you manifested in the stances that you have

and what are you willing to sacrifice for them? That’s the fundamental question.

I don’t care what color you are….We want to know what your record is, where’s

your courage, what are you willing to sacrifice? (qtd. in Smiley, 2007)

For West, Obama and the other candidates in the 2008 election cycle were “characterized

by unadulterated mediocrity” (qtd. in Smiley, 2007). He was unimpressed with Obama’s

historic rise to prominence because of the belief that Obama failed to exhibit prophetic

courage in defense of sacred truth. This is not to say that West and others were

completely unimpressed with Obama as a person. At the forum, West prefaced his

comments with his belief that “Obama is a very decent, brilliant, charismatic brother”
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(qtd. in Smiley, 2007). But decency, according to West, is not the same as prophetic

urgency.

The point of mentioning these challenges that Obama faced in the African

American community is to expose the fact that he faced several challenges in securing the

support of not just the general electorate, but also the African American community for

his presidential campaign. True, he would eventually secure record levels of support

from African Americans and Latinos (Ansolabehere & Stewart III, 2009). But the

support that he was eventually able to secure did not come about by chance. Obama’s

relationship with the African American community is complex and fragmented. Within

the African American community, he was forced to defend his identity, to explain his

legitimacy, and to tie himself to history. People questioned whether or not he was black

enough, whether he deserved to be considered a contemporary African American leader

in the tradition of King, and whether he was an extension of the prophetic legacy of the

past. Within a presidential election season in which his candidacy was considered a

longshot, African American support was vital.

7.4 Overcoming the Criticism: Creating Links to the African American Community

In response to the challenges that he encountered in the African American

community, Obama consistently made a concerted effort to link his very existence to the

proud history of the Civil Rights Movement. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama (2006)

articulated this relationship: “I’ve always felt a curious relationship to the sixties. In a

sense, I’m a pure product of that era….My life would have been impossible without the

social upheavals that were then taking place” (p. 29).

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Throughout his public career, his efforts to claim this transhistorical relationship

have been numerous and varied. During his two presidential campaigns, he used various

speaking styles to invoke the prophetic voice(s) of leaders like King (Alim &

Smitherman, 2012; Gitell, 2008). At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the

stage from which he spoke was redesigned to resemble the setting of King’s 1963 “I have

a Dream” speech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial (Hawthorne, 2008). Following his

first election, he remodeled the White House Oval Office to include a bust of Martin

Luther King, Jr. (James, 2009). On the occasion of his second inauguration, Obama

included Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Bible in the swearing-in ceremony, a decision that

angered many African American leaders who felt that he was marginalizing King’s

prophetic legacy (Saulny, 2013). All of these actions imply conscious effort from Obama

to establish an ideological link between the legacy of King and his own public career.

Of the numerous ways that Obama sought to position himself as an extension of

King’s legacy, his rhetorical efforts to accomplish this end were perhaps most significant.

Obama’s rhetorical practices in relation to King’s prophetic legacy served to create a

discursive reality that redefined both King’s prophetic legacy and Obama’s historical

significance. His specific uses of the Exodus served to link him with the Civil Rights

Movement. In his speech at Selma, he identifies himself as a member of the “Joshua

Generation” (Obama, 2007). Rhetorically, this self-identification functions to awaken the

debate of who will carry on the prophetic legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. By drawing

on these metaphors, Obama is able to rearticulate what it means to be Moses and what it

means to be Joshua. That is, the differences between Obama and King intersected within

the discursive context of the Exodus. His rhetoric fosters a transversal relationship
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between the age of Obama and the Civil Rights Movement in which the Exodus redefined

what it means to be true to King’s prophetic legacy. The relationship is transversal in

that the intersection of the age of Obama and the Civil Rights Movement within the

context of the Exodus offers new understanding of both periods. That is, Obama’s use of

the Exodus challenged how people understood him against the backdrop of history and

people understood the Civil Rights Movement against the backdrop of the age of Obama.

Following Obama’s election, Nancy Gibbs (2008) made an insightful observation

concerning its significance in Time magazine: “Whether by design or by default, the past

now loses power: for the moment, it feels as if we've left behind the baby-boomer battles

of the past 40 years” (para. 9). This statement captures my fundamental concern with

Obama’s use of the Exodus. From my perspective, the importance of studying how

Obama ties himself to King through metaphoric uses of the Exodus does not just lie in the

potential insight to be gained in how he identified with the African American community.

More important is to study how Obama’s rhetoric functioned to marginalize the perceived

need for authentic prophetic voices in contemporary American society. His rhetoric

impacted not only perceptions of his candidacy but also perceptions of the past and its

relevance on the present. Therefore, as I engage Obama’s Selma speech, I will examine

specifically how he uses the Exodus metaphorically to situate himself as an extension of

King’s prophetic legacy in a way that reduces the power of that legacy not just in the

present, but also in the past. As a consequence of this move to empty the Exodus of its

prophetic power, Obama’s identity becomes that of bureaucratic-prophet.

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7.5 The Battle for Selma

The anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights march from Montgomery to Selma,

Alabama, was heralded as “the showdown in Selma” (National Public Radio, 2007b).

The daylong celebration of the great march “became a proxy battle for black support”

(Healy & Zeleny, 2007, para. 3). The assembling of key African American leaders and

constituents served as a crucial test for Democratic candidates seeking to build a winning

coalition of voters in the 2008 presidential election. While he had started off with limited

support from African Americans, Barack Obama started to rise in the polls among likely

African American voters as the Selma celebrations neared (Balz & Cohen, 2007). His

rise threatened to break the stranglehold that Bill and Hillary Clinton had on the African

American vote. This was a constituency that neither candidate could do without.

At Selma, Obama and Clinton joined Civil Rights activists such as John Lewis, C.

T. Vivian, and Fred Shuttlesworth to participate in a shortened reenactment of the march

from Montgomery to Selma (Gates, 2007). Following the reenactment, both candidates

spoke in local churches. While their messages differed in terms of content, they did have

one thing in common: both were fiercely competing for the African American vote. For

many African Americans, there was a great deal of tension between political loyalty to

Clinton and racial loyalty to Obama (Gates, 2007).

While Obama’s support had been on the rise, he still faced numerous challenges

in securing a winning percentage of African Americans. Recent comments made by the

candidate on the CBS program 60 Minutes concerning his disconnect with certain

agendas in the African American community raised questions in the minds of other

African American politicians and activists concerning his commitment to values and
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policies to improve the condition of African Americans (National Public Radio, 2007a).

Others continued to question whether Obama’s nontraditional upbringing would limit his

ability to faithfully and adequately represent the needs and concerns of African

Americans. As Debra Dickerson (2007) expressed in Salon magazine, Obama’s ties to

the African American community were weak at best: “since he had no part in our racial

history, he is free of it” (para. 15). The challenge that Obama faced was to “show older

black voters that he share[d] their values” (Chen, 2007, para. 1). George Mason history

professor Roger Wilkins explained the importance of Obama linking himself to the Civil

Rights Movement as a means of securing support: “People are going to want to know

how he relates to the civil-rights movement” (Chen, 2007, para. 3).

Despite ongoing challenges, Obama’s prospects to win the African American vote

remained strong. While skeptical on Obama’s electability, Dickerson (2007) reluctantly

admitted that “the black vote is Obama’s to lose” (para. 7). The historic nature of his

candidacy was starting to gain traction in the African American community. Therefore in

his speech at Selma, Obama invoked the Exodus to bolster his relationship to the African

American community and its history.

7.6 The Selma Speech

Obama’s address in Selma at Brown A.M.E. Chapel is best understood from the

standpoint of three main sections. In the first section, he focuses on praising the rich

history of the Civil Rights Movement. Several activists from the movement were

present. He celebrated their sacrifices and courage to fight racism, segregation, and

oppression in society. In the second section of the speech, he countered the claim that his

blackness was not authentic by situating himself as a product of the Civil Rights
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Movement with the language of the Exodus. Specifically, he identifies his generation as

the “Joshua Generation.” To be a member of the “Joshua Generation,” according to

Obama, is to be an individual who exists and lives as a product of the efforts of previous

generations. In this sense, Obama rearticulates his unusual background as a sign of the

success of the movement. He constructed a reality in which he became the fruit of the

movement. In the third section, Obama articulated a vision of the Promised Land that

positioned him as a contemporary Joshua prepared to lead contemporary Israel across the

Jordan River into Canaan.

Throughout the speech, Obama utilized metaphoric elements of the Exodus

narrative to position himself with legitimacy, authority, and authenticity in the African

American community. He labeled the previous group of Civil Rights leaders as the

“Moses Generation.” This identification had the rhetorical effect of honoring them as

patriarchal figures in the community, but it also relegated their prophetic contribution to a

previous time. Second, he drew on the character of Joshua to situate himself and the

present generation of African Americans as the “Joshua Generation.” This metaphor

suggested that a change in strategy and leadership was necessary to meet the demands of

changing times. Furthermore, it functioned to position Obama as the contemporary

Joshua ready and able (and even divinely ordained) to lead the people into full possession

of the Promised Land. Toward the conclusion of the address, Obama drew on the

concept of the Promised Land to articulate a vision of where the African American

community needed to go in order to make real the promises of democracy. The Promised

Land as a destination to be reached , according to Obama, was a place where government

leaders used public policy to ensure that justice, equality, and freedom were extended to
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all citizens:. In spite of progress, Obama expressed dissatisfaction apart from a reality of

“absolute equality” (the Promised Land) for all citizens (para. 29). It was the “task” of

the “Joshua generation” to take responsibility and complete the journey begun during the

Civil Rights Movement (para. 29). These three metaphoric components (Moses, Joshua,

and Promised Land) functioned as the rhetorical tools that Obama utilized to establish

himself as an extension of the prophetic legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the form of a

bureaucratic prophet. That it, Obama’s uses of the Exodus suggest that he recognizes the

ethos of the prophet in the African American community. He draws on the Joshua

persona to appear to be prophetic, when he really isn’t. In my analysis of the speech, I

will highlight how he utilized the metaphors of the Exodus to reinforce his African

American identity, to legitimate his claims to leadership, and to justify his differences

from the prophetic tradition of the Civil Rights Movement.

7.6.1 Reinforcing African American Identity

In seeking to defend the legitimacy of his presidential aspirations and the

authenticity of his place in the African American community, Obama utilized the Exodus

to simultaneously praise the previous generation for their efforts and to situate himself as

the product of those efforts. He celebrates their efforts because “like Moses, they

challenged Pharaoh” (Obama, 2007, para. 12). However, the purpose of praising them as

Moseses was not simply to celebrate their accomplishments and honor. Rather, honoring

them provided Obama an opportunity to redefine his candidacy and very existence as the

product of their labors. He argued that the wilderness period of the 1960s functioned to

make possible the political and social opportunities that he and others were choosing to

exercise by 2007: “They wandered through a desert but always knowing that God was
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with them and that, if they maintained that trust in God, that they would be all right. And

it’s because they marched that the next generation hasn’t been bloodied so much” (para.

15). He tied their efforts to everything that he had been able to accomplish in his adult

life: “It is because they marched that I got the kind of education I got, a law degree, a

seat in the Illinois senate and ultimately in the United States [S]enate” (para. 16).

Rhetorically, the implication of his use of the metaphor, past leaders are the

Moses generation, is that everything that he has been able to accomplish from a political

standpoint serves as evidence of the success of the movement. He argued that the leaders

of the Civil Rights Movement accomplished a social transformation in America that

made the story of Barack Obama possible: “It is because they marched that I stand before

you here today” (para. 17). The link that he created between his political career and the

“march” towards the Promised Land during the Civil Rights Movement presented a

powerful argument to African Americans who were wavering between him and Hillary

Clinton. He repositioned his candidacy as a means of furthering the agenda of the Civil

Rights Movement or as Dr. King (1963) said, “To make real the promises of democracy”

(para. 6). If his political career was evidence of the change that had been accomplished

through the Civil Rights Movement, then to support his candidacy was to support the

continued transformation of society. It attempts to identify his campaign with the Civil

Rights Movement as a means of persuading voters to give their allegiance to him like

they did to the movement in the ‘60s.

Beyond simply using the Exodus to position his political career as a marker of the

success of the Civil Rights Movement, he utilized it to bolster the perceived authenticity

of his African American identity. For Obama, the Exodus functioned to uncover the
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solidarity that he shared with the African American community in spite of his

nontraditional background. He explained the fact that people had been questioning the

similarity of his “experience” to that of the African American community (para. 17). The

“march” through the wilderness of the previous generation had not only made his

political career possible but his life: “my very existence might not have been possible had

it not been for some of the folks here today” (para. 17). He then cites the Harvard

education of his Kenyan father and the interracial romance of his parents as being made

possible “because of what happened in Selma” (para. 24).

The significance of Obama’s use of the Exodus in this context is that he connects

himself with the Civil Rights Movement as its child. As University of Nottingham

professor Richard King (2011) argued, “the Selma speech was the moment when Obama

joined his sacred story to the story of the black freedom struggle” (p. 66). In the original

Exodus story, the original groups of Israelites that left Egypt had all died by the time that

they arrived at Canaan’s edge. Through his use of the Exodus, Obama positions himself

as the product of that first generation. Their Exodus from American Egypt produced a

national climate that made Obama’s ascendancy possible. True, he might have had a

different background than many African Americans, but the basis of his argument is that

his nontraditional background was only possible because of the movement. This

argument is the basis for his claim of solidarity with the Civil Rights Movement:

There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in

Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So

they [his parents] got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don’t tell me I
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don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to

Selma, Alabama. (para. 24)

While the explicit terms of the Exodus are not present in the preceding quote, Obama

used the language of the Exodus in constantly referring to the idea of marching. The

imagery of marching was central to the original Exodus story. When Israel was escaping

the Egyptian army, they marched across the Red Sea that God had parted (Exodus 14).

When Israel crossed into the Promised Land, they marched across the Jordan River

(Joshua 3). When Israel sought to take possession of Jericho, God commanded them to

march around the city (Joshua 6). The language of the marching was connected to

progress being made toward the Promised Land that God gave to Israel. Obama’s

references to the story allowed him to bolster his credibility in the African American

community by positioning himself as a child of the movement.

7.6.2 Legitimating Claims to Leadership

Besides presenting himself as a child of the movement, Obama also utilized the

narrative to establish himself as a contemporary leader of African Americans. In other

words, Obama presented himself not just as a product of the prophetic legacy of the

movement. He used the character of Joshua to position himself as an extension of that

legacy. His use of the metaphor, my generation is the Joshua generation (and even I am

Joshua), held two important implications for his status in the African American

community: it positioned Obama as a prophetic voice and it situated him as the heir to

King’s mantle of leadership.

In the speech, Obama offered a contemporary interpretation of the Exodus that

positioned him and those in his generation as contemporary leaders in African American
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society. He argued that the Joshua generation was responsible to carry on the work that

the previous generation had left undone: “I thank the Moses generation; but we’ve got to

remember, now, that Joshua still had a job to do” (para. 25). His generation, as Joshua,

was faced with “battles that need to be fought; some rivers that need to be crossed” (para.

26). By offering an interpretation of the Exodus, Obama claimed prophetic authority in

the African American community as a legitimate interpreter of God’s word (Murphy,

2011). In the Old Testament, the role of the prophet was to interpret God’s word for

Israel so that they might know how to live in a manner pleasing to him (Heschel, 2010).

In his use of the Exodus, Obama is not simply restating previous uses of the Exodus from

the Civil Rights Movement. He is using the past as a foundation for interpreting the

significance of the narrative to African Americans in the present. He is articulating a

vision of what God’s word has to say to African Americans in 2007. His contemporary

application not only articulates a vision of where the African American community

should go, but it also presents Obama as a prophetic figure, authorized to speak on God’s

account. To interpret the Exodus for the people implies the authority to do so.

It is vital to observe that fact that Obama is gradually constructing a persona in

this speech through his metaphoric uses of the Exodus. He utilized the narrative to

situate himself as a product of the Moses generation. However, by his use of the

narrative, he presented himself as a contemporary prophet with divine authority to

interpret the word of God for the people. Like Moses, Joshua, and King (an ordained

minister), Obama’s rhetoric suggests that he is a legitimate interpreter of Scripture.

While Moses and Joshua had public divine appointments and King was a minister of the

Gospel by training and trade, Obama, in contrast, had none of these prophetic credentials.
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In addition to situating himself as a prophetic voice, Obama’s use of the Exodus

also presents him as the inheritor of King’s prophetic leadership. The point of invoking

Joshua in this context is to construct a reality in which he is not only viewed as

acceptable to the African American community, but that he is viewed as the rightful

leader of the community. In the speech, he explained his relationship to this past using

this story:

The previous generation, the Moses generation, pointed the way. They took us

90% of the way there. We still got that 10% in order to cross over to the other

side. So the question, I guess, that I have today is what’s called of us [African

Americans] in this Joshua generation?” (para. 26)

Obama uses the collective term “Joshua generation” along with collective

pronouns throughout the speech. This usage might seem to imply that he is not arguing

for his own status as a contemporary Joshua but as a collective status for the present

generation of African Americans. To an extent, this is true. However, every generation

has to have its leader within the framework of the Exodus. Martin Luther King, Jr. was

the accepted Moses of the Civil Rights Movement generation. By virtue of his

candidacy, Obama is situating himself as the leader of the Joshua generation. The

importance of this identification as Joshua is that Obama is not simply arguing that he is a

contemporary leader in the African American community. He is arguing that he has

assumed the mantle of leadership from the Civil Rights Movement. He is creating a

discursive endorsement of his candidacy by all of the leaders of the Civil Rights

Movement by virtue of their status as Moseses. To be Moses involved handing off

leadership to God’s replacement, Joshua. Therefore, by invoking Joshua, Obama is

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presenting himself as the legitimate heir to the prophetic leadership of Martin Luther

King, Jr. As David Remnick (2008) argued in the New Yorker concerning the speech,

Obama “implicitly positioned himself at its [the Joshua Generation’s] head, as its

standard-bearer” (para. 8).

7.6.3 Justifying Differences from King

Obama utilizes the Exodus to segregate himself from the same type of prophetic

commitment that King exemplified during the Civil Rights Movement. In a sense,

Obama uses the Exodus to justify differences between him and King. Obama positioned

himself as, what I call, a bureaucratic-prophet. When I use the term bureaucratic-

prophet, I am saying that Obama is trying to synthesize his political career with the

prophetic tradition of the Civil Rights Movement. He was not a traditional civil rights

leader. Unlike most of the civil rights leaders, he was not a pastor. However, he argues

that just like Joshua had a different task than Moses, he has a different task than King.

He segregates himself from the same type of prophetic responsibility that King had. He

justified the differences that separated him from King with a perspective of the present as

requiring fundamentally different type of leadership.

To be a prophet, as I’ve explained elsewhere, is not just the adoption of a title or

an election to an office. The prophet, in the Old Testament, was an individual

characterized by a radical commitment to sacred truth and to speaking truth to power and

the people (Chappell, 2005; Darsey, 1999; Heschel, 2010; West, 1993a, 2002). While the

Exodus was recognized as the foundation of the prophetic tradition in the African

American community, the rhetorical use of it was never the determining sign of one’s

prophetic commitment. Yet this is exactly what Obama suggests through his use of the
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Exodus. In this sense, his use of the Exodus, specifically Joshua, functions to co-opt the

power that prophetic voices held in the African American community. Following the

Civil Rights Movement, prophetic voices were revered in the community. In ancient

Israel, false prophets attempted to appear prophetic as a means of securing power among

those who held prophets in high esteem (Ezekiel 22:25-28). The importance of his use of

the Exodus goes beyond arguing his legitimacy as an African American leader. Invoking

Joshua in relation to his candidacy presented a fundamental challenge to the ontological

status of the prophetic tradition in contemporary African American thought.

In drawing on the Exodus to secure status as a contemporary prophet, Obama had

numerous rhetorical tools at his disposal. He was never locked into using the Joshua

metaphor. Indeed, others would identify him as another reincarnation of Moses instead

of seeing a continuum between him and King similar to the connection between Joshua

and Moses (Drash, 2009). In an age in which others were comparing him with Moses,

why was it vital for him to cling to Joshua? Depending on one’s perspective, Moses

might seem like the more logical choice. Unlike Joshua, Moses was raised outside of his

culture. He was raised as Egyptian royalty, only later deciding to embrace his identity as

a member of an enslaved people (Hebrews 11:23-27). For Obama, Moses’s

nontraditional upbringing was more similar to his own than Joshua’s. However, the

importance of Obama using Joshua instead of Moses to situate himself within the story is

that the Joshua metaphor provided the foundation for him to say that he was different

than King, but still an extension of King’s prophetic legacy. King was radical. He

operated on the fringes of society. He was a martyr. None of these characteristics can be

ascribed to Obama. Even those who praise his use of the Exodus at Selma acknowledge
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that he was not radical like King (Murphy, 2011). If a radical commitment is at the heart

of the prophetic tradition, how might Obama cast himself as a prophetic without adopting

prophetic stances? The answer was Joshua. The character of Joshua allowed Obama to

argue that the movement had reached a stage in which a new kind of leadership was

needed.

Joshua faced a completely different task of leadership than his predecessor.

Moses led Israel out of Egypt and across the Red Sea. He delivered the Ten

Commandments and Old Testament Law to the people at God’s command. He

established Israel’s covenant with God. Joshua, on the other hand, renewed this covenant

and led the people on a military campaign to take possession of the Promised Land. Part

of Obama’s argument was distinguishing himself from Moses. He was not King. He was

not a radical prophet.

Paired with this argument is the implication that Moses is no longer needed. The

efforts of the Moses Generation resulted in a reality in which “the next generation hasn’t

been bloodied as much” (para. 15). Obama is not implying that African Americans are in

the Promised Land. Rather, he is arguing “that Joshua still had a job to do” (para. 25).

The value of the Moses Generation, as Obama articulated, was that they brought African

Americans to the edge of the Promised Land. However, moving into the Promised Land

required a different kind of leadership. For an individual who was facing numerous

challenges because of perceived differences between his leadership pedigree compared

with that of more traditional African American leaders, this articulation of the

relationship between Moses and Joshua functioned to justify the differences that people

observed in him. More than representing the success of the movement, his candidacy is
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presented as evidence of the evolution of the movement. The radical stances taken by

King and others in American Egypt and the Wilderness brought African Americans to the

point that they were ready for a new non-radical prophetic leadership. The task at hand,

according to Obama, was to examine the responsibilities of the Joshua Generation: “What

do we have to do in order to fulfill that legacy; to fulfill the obligations and the debt that

we owe to those who allowed us to be here today?” (para. 25). The premise of this

question is that something fundamentally different than the activism of the Civil Rights

Movement was necessary in order for African Americans to gain the Promised Land. In

part, this notion is not antithetical to the prophetic tradition and the legacy of Dr. King.

As I argued in the previous chapter, King recognized the need for the movement to

evolve. However, where Obama’s prophetic appeals became bureaucratic was in his

implication that radical prophetic voices were no longer necessary. In a sense, his

rhetoric marginalized the need for prophetic voices in the present at the same time that he

positioned himself as an authentic prophetic voice. The radicalism, commitment, and

courage of the past were isolated to a particular time in history in which African

Americans were locked into systems of segregation and racism. Relegating radical

voices to the past is perhaps the greatest threat to the legacy of King in this speech.

While King acknowledged the need for the movement to evolve, he saw a constant need

for prophetic voices to speak truth to power and the people in every generation. In

situating himself as a contemporary prophet, Obama assumed the role without a radical

commitment to speaking truth to power and people. In this sense, he assumed the role of

a divinely ordained bureaucrat. Like a prophet, he suggested that he was committed to a

system of sacred values. On the other hand, he sought to appeal to the people in a
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manner consistent with the political tradition. His language suggests a tie to the

prophetic legacy of King that existed only in metaphoric relationships created through the

Exodus, not in an expressed commitment to radically speak truth to power.

7.7 Conclusion

In this chapter, I have attempted to argue that Obama utilized the Exodus to

situate himself with prophetic authority in the African American community in the

absence of key characteristics of prophetic figures, namely a radical commitment to

sacred truth. Specifically, I sought to highlight how he used the narrative of the Exodus

to respond to those who challenged the authenticity of his African American identity, to

position himself as a legitimate heir to King’s prophetic legacy, and to justify differences

between him and more traditional African American leaders. The significance of his use

of the Exodus is the underlying implication that prophetic voices in the tradition of

Martin Luther King, Jr. are no longer necessary in contemporary African American

leadership. To be a part of the Joshua Generation involves embracing a departure from

the past.

My critique of Obama’s use of the Exodus raises important questions regarding

the role of the prophetic tradition in democracy. Is there space for prophetic voices in the

political sphere? Obama was campaigning for office. Is it possible for a prophetic voice

to secure votes from the majority while occupying a radical stance in society? Are

prophetic voices limited to the margins of political participation? If Obama is presenting

himself as a contemporary prophet, how do his uses of the Exodus function to redefine

the values at the heart of the prophetic tradition? In the following chapter, I will seek to
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answer these questions by exploring how Obama’s rhetoric seeks to adjust the prophetic

tradition to postmodern times by decentering the meaning of sacred truth.

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CHAPTER 8. “A MOMENT OF RECOGNITION”: OBAMA’S POSTMODERN

INTERPRETATION OF THE EXODUS

8.1 Introduction

The power of the prophetic tradition resides in the axiological commitments that it

seeks to defend in society. That is, the sacred values that the tradition claims to uphold

serve as the foundation of its influence in various sociopolitical contexts. Therefore, to

speak with a prophetic voice presumes the presence of a social contract or moral code

that functions as the source of shared values between speaker and audience. While the

source of these values changes from culture to culture, the prophetic tradition that King

operated from traced its values to Judeo-Christian doctrine and America’s founding

documents. For example, in King’s (1955) first prophetic address following the Rosa

Parks’ arrest, he constituted his audience as “Christian people” and justified the

upcoming protests with the belief that they were operating in conjunction with the moral

truths on which American society was founded:

We are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of

this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is

wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of

Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. (para. 8)
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King assumed that consubstantiality or unity with his audience was the product of shared

religious and cultural values. This unity provided the foundation for them to radically

confront dominant structures viewed as out of sync with prophetic values.

A key challenge that rhetoric within the prophetic tradition faces is the dynamic

nature of values and people. Belief systems and demographics vary across cultural,

geographical, and generational lines. The emphasis on establishing continuity between

past and present values in the prophetic tradition conflicts with an always-becoming

sociopolitical environment in which values evolve in a dynamic manner. This conflict

takes center stage in Barack Obama’s speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church on January 20,

2008, during the celebration of Dr. King’s birthday. Obama’s speech offers insight into

how people negotiate the competing demands of prophetic values and dynamic

sociopolitical environment.

The relationship between prophetic values and time is complex, engaging issues

of history, tradition, and progress. That is, the prophetic voice is inherently conservative

in that the values on which it is based are viewed as timeless and unchanging, both in

nature and in application. The voice is also liberal. The prophetic voice holds that

society has consistently failed to truly appropriate the sacred values as the norm.

Therefore, the prophetic voice is conservative in its reliance on sacred values but liberal

in the transformation that it envisions for society resulting from the adoption of the

values.

Ontologically, the prophetic tradition rejects the notion that humans are inherently

good (West, 1993a, 1999, 2002). Therefore, each generation depends on prophetic

voices to reawaken a dynamic society to sacred values that are always one generation
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away from being lost. This reawakening is the task of prophetic rhetoric. The role, then,

of the prophet extends beyond mere criticism. To be an authentic prophet is to be a

defender of sacred values.

Shifting values, changing demographics, and increasing secularism have fostered

an increasingly fragmented populace from an ideological standpoint. That is, a changing

cultural landscape has challenged prophetic voices’ ability to address fragmented publics

on the basis of shared values. An increasingly fragmented audience leaves the individual

or organization with two options: adjust audiences to the prophetic message or adjust the

prophetic message to audiences.

In this chapter, I argue that Obama adapts to an increasingly fragmented

American public by adjusting the prophetic message to his audience. He does this by

offering a postmodern interpretation of the Exodus in his message at Ebenezer. The

strength of Obama’s interpretation from a rhetorical standpoint was his embrace of

difference and rejection of the status quo as crucial sacred values of the prophetic

tradition. In this sense, he shifts the locus of unity in the prophetic tradition. Whereas

King identified with others on the basis of shared values, Obama identified with his

audience through dissociation. That is, Obama’s call to unity identified a common

enemy (the status quo of the Bush administration) as the basis for his persuasive appeal.

The story of Joshua and the children of Israel attempting to secure the Canaanite city of

Jericho served as the discursive space for Obama to adapt the sacred values of the

prophetic tradition to his constituency and still present himself as consubstantial with

King. The sacred values that Obama articulates are a perversion of the values that

motivated the public ministry of King. While claiming to reawaken society to sacred
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values, he actually offers it a rhetorical sedative. To defend this argument, I will situate

this chapter in postmodern theory, relevant background info, and a structural overview of

the speech prior to engaging in my analysis.

8.2 The Exodus and Postmodernism

African American rhetoric drawing on the Exodus is linked with the sacred values

of the prophetic tradition. Obama’s postmodern turn came as he separated the Exodus

from the prophetic values on which it was based. Postmodernism rejects the idea of

meta-narratives and a universal audience (Lyotard, 1984). Meta-narratives addressing a

universal audience functioned as hegemons, according to Lyotard. That is, claims to

objective reality and absolute truth grounded in meta-narrative frameworks operated as

instruments of oppression. In response to this state of affairs, postmodern scholars such

as Lyotard (1984) argued for an attitude of “incredulity toward meta-narratives” (p. xxiv).

Rejection of meta-narratives offered the potential for sublime moments in which their

deconstruction created discursive openings for new possibilities in meaning to emerge.

Meta-narratives were not rejected in search of different meta-narratives. The goal of the

postmodern was not the discovery of objective reality or absolute truth. Rather, the

postmodern condition was built on an epistemological commitment that there were no

objective realities or absolute truths. Reality and truth from a postmodern perspective are

“operational” (Baudrillard, 1993, p. 343). That is, the images that constitute individual

and collective realities are composed of simulacra, not having any referents in an

objective reality.

Simulacrum is a term popularized by Baudrillard (1983, 1994) to describe

discursive images that constitute reality and truth for people from a postmodern
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perspective. These images function to simulate reality. This simulation “is the

generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal” (Baudrillard, 1993,

p. 343). Furthermore, as Baudrillard explained, “the age of simulation…begins with a

liquidation of all referentials….It is no longer a question of imitation, nor a reduplication,

nor even of parody. It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real

itself” (p. 343). Therefore, within the postmodern, simulacra function as false realities.

They have no referents. The lack of referential commitments offers the opportunity for

new meanings to arise. Additionally, simulacra negate the need to connect with objective

reality or absolute truth by an implicit denial of their existence.

While postmodernism treats meta-narratives with suspicion, it uses narrative

frameworks to maintain a sense of continuity with history. Aylesworth (2012) has

explained that postmodernism privileges “continuity, narrative, and difference within

continuity” (para. 2). That is, postmodernism rejects meta-narratives, but utilizes

narratives to create the appearance of historical connection. Postmodernism does not

require consubstantiality or homogeneity as a pre-condition of continuity. Instead,

difference is embraced within the context of postmodern narratives as contiguous with

the past. More specifically, multiple meanings are tolerated, even celebrated, within the

discursive field of simulacra.

Proponents of postmodernism argue that the perspective offers emancipatory

potential (Lyotard, 1984, 1991, 1996). However, scholars such as Frederic Jameson

(1991) have criticized postmodernism as superficial, ideologically inconsistent, and prone

to historical amnesia. Within African American scholarship, Cornel West (1993b, 1993c,

1999) has voiced concern over the threat that postmodernism presents to the prophetic
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tradition that has provided the African American community with political agency in the

face of oppression. For example, the Exodus has functioned as a meta-narrative for

African Americans as they faced the evils of slavery, the despair of reconstruction, the

struggle for civil rights, and the hope of Obama (Feiler, 2009; Glaude, Jr., 2000; Murphy,

2011; Selby, 2008). The link between the Exodus and the prophetic tradition has been

well documented (Chappell, 2005; Darsey, 1999; Glaude, Jr., 2000; Riemer, 1996). The

postmodern response to this would be to seek to disrupt the relationship between the

Exodus and the prophetic tradition in order to resituate the story as a simulacrum, not a

discursive representation of objective realities in order to liberate the story from sacred

values linked to it across time and space in the African American community.

The postmodern agenda, according to West (1993b), weakens the cause of

emancipation in the African American community by challenging realities and truths at

the heart of the struggle for justice and equality. That is, West questions the possibility

for the prophetic tradition, rooted in a system of sacred values, to co-exist with

postmodernism, which holds that the only sacred value is that there are none. The

postmodern limits the political agency of African Americans by challenging its

conceptual foundation. In addition, the focus of simulacra and discursive openings leaves

narrative such as the Exodus vulnerable to co-option. That is, the disconnect between

simulacrum and reality in the postmodern leaves the discursive image open to co-option

as a false reality. In explaining this view, West (1993b) noted that “with political and

economic avenues usually blocked, specific cultural arenas become the space wherein

black resistance is channeled” (p. 395). These cultural arenas include religion, music,

and sports. However, creative forms of resistance are open to co-option through
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postmodernism’s tolerance of multiple meanings. Images, such as the Exodus, have no

clear referent within the postmodern. The prophetic hope that minority groups invest in

the relationship between image and meaning is deconstructed, leaving the marginalized

without a channel to engage in creative forms of resistance.

For a religious narrative such as the Exodus, West’s (1999) fundamental concern

is that “postmodern American culture attempts to eliminate spiritual depth, disseminate

stimulatory surfaces, flatten out transcendence into titillation and replace the sense of the

mystery of existence with that of the self’s feelings of intensity (usually of the orgiastic

sort)” (p. 358). The threat that West identifies in postmodernism is the lack of critical

engagement, commitment to sacred values, and privileging of pleasure that challenges the

potency of the prophetic tradition. The task of this chapter is to explore how this danger

materializes in Obama’s use of the Exodus at Ebenezer.

As it relates to the Exodus, the story that Obama tells uses the words and cadences

of the Civil Rights Movement, but there is a fundamental disconnect between the

historical referents on which metaphoric uses of the Exodus were based in the 1960s and

the meaning that was expressed in the applications of the Exodus by Obama in the 2000s.

It is this disconnect that characterizes his use of the Exodus as postmodern. His

postmodern adaptation of the Exodus permits him to present his candidacy as part of the

ongoing struggle for freedom, justice, and equality, and yet at the same time

fundamentally different. He gives the appearance of being prophetic, but the values that

he espouses are inconsistent with the prophetic tradition. The postmodern interpretation

of the Exodus that Obama offered in the Ebenezer address stemmed from the complicated

set of circumstances that his campaign faced in advance of the South Carolina primary.
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8.3 Background: Celebrating Dr. King’s Birthday

Barack Obama delivered the morning sermon as a guest speaker at Ebenezer

Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, as part of the annual celebration of Martin Luther

King, Jr.’s birthday. King served as co-pastor with his father of Ebenezer during the

Civil Rights Movement (Branch, 1989). The history of the church made Obama’s

presence in the pulpit significant and historic. At a time when his campaign was leaning

heavily on African American voters to help him capture the South Carolina primary, his

presence was “a powerful symbol” of his solidarity with the values of the African

American community (Zeleny, 2008, para. 5).

When he came to Atlanta, he desperately needed strong support from the African

American community in the South. After a surprise victory in Iowa, his campaign had

suffered losses in New Hampshire and Nevada (Brown, 2008). The losses positioned

South Carolina, a state in which the majority of primary voters were African American,

as a crucial battleground that he could not afford to lose (Lohr, 2008). This primary was

Obama’s last chance to regain momentum heading into a Super Tuesday in which 20

state primaries would be decided. The demographics of South Carolina and its close

proximity to Super Tuesday elevated the importance of the African American vote. In

response, the candidates took their campaigns to the site that has arguably served as the

heart of African American culture, the black church (Chappell, 2005; Harris-Lacewell,

2007; Morris, 1984; Raboteau, 1997). This strategy was not new by any means. As

Melissa Harris-Lacewell (2007) explained, the site has been prized by aspiring politicians

for years:
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Sunday morning visits to large, influential black churches have been a standard

strategy of Democratic office-seekers for more than fifty years. Black churches

are a site of organized, committed, well-networked, partisan faithful who can be

influenced and mobilized by adept candidates. (p. 80)

Continuing this tradition, both Obama and Clinton made strong appeals for African

American support in speeches at historic black churches. Clinton visited Abyssinian

Baptist Church in Harlem, while Obama spoke at Ebenezer in Atlanta. While neither

church was located in South Carolina, the selection of these churches was strategic in that

the selections were meant to demonstrate each candidate’s recognition of the importance

of prophetic figures such as King to the African American community (Zeleny, 2008).

In the weeks leading up to King’s birthday, racial tensions had been revived in the

Democratic primary. Hillary Clinton angered many African American voters with

controversial remarks that King’s dream would have never been realized without Lyndon

B. Johnson’s policy agenda (Smith, 2008). In addition, recent attacks against Obama

made by former President Clinton angered many African American politicians who felt

that the attacks were unwarranted (Healy, 2008). As Jeff Zeleny (2008) noted in The

New York Times, Obama “worked to reduce the focus paid to his race” (para. 9). Now his

standing in South Carolina’s primary was dependent on his ability to convince a majority

of African American voters that he shared their values. This reality and the controversial

statements emerging from the Clinton camp provided Obama with great opportunity for

success and failure. From a political standpoint, his status as the first viable African

American candidate for president put him in a solid position to capture the majority of the

African American vote in South Carolina. However, using his ethnicity as a political tool
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also risked scaring off Whites and other ethnic voting blocs who were just beginning to

warm to the idea of his candidacy. On this occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s

birthday, Obama faced the challenge of presenting himself in complete solidarity with the

prophetic legacy of King in a way that would not disrupt the increasingly diverse

coalition of voters his campaign had built. The political brilliance of the Obama

campaign was in convincing voters from diverse backgrounds that the candidate

represented them (Kuryla, 2011; Okamura, 2011). Rhetorically, he had to convince

African American voters that he represented them without segregating himself from other

groups in his coalition. This involved positioning himself in solidarity with the sacred

values of the prophetic tradition, but not limiting himself to the tradition. To do so would

restrict his ability to maintain the ideological fluidity on which his broad coalition of

supporters was built.

Unlike the coalition that King built during the Civil Rights Movement, Obama’s

coalition was not built on ideological solidarity. Change served as the key value of the

Obama campaign. The strength of a fluid concept such as change is that it provided an

entry point for anyone who was dissatisfied with the current trajectory of the nation to

identify with the Obama campaign. In the midst of an increasingly secular nation,

Obama utilized the notion of change and, in this particular speech, unity to disconnect the

values of the prophetic tradition from the language of the tradition to balance the

competing demands of different publics. Untethering the language of the Exodus from its

commitments to social justice gave Obama the freedom to reach out to both Black and

White audiences without making either one feel uncomfortable. This move is a stark

departure from the prophetic tradition, in which the prophet’s very raison d’être is to
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make people uncomfortable by confronting them with sacred truths and values that are

not being maintained. The postmodern interpretation he offered allowed him to address

fragmented publics using a simulacrum of the prophetic Exodus.

Statistically, the African American community is the most religious segment of

the American populace (Brennan, 2011). But even the black church has witnessed a

gradual decline in religious devotion in the age of Obama (Brennan, 2011; Desmond-

Harris, 2011). The changing religious, demographic, and economic landscape of the

nation has altered the dynamics by which African American leaders operate on the

national stage. The Civil Rights Movement and Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns

relied heavily on the black church (Condit & Lucaites, 1993; Harris-Lacewell, 2007;

Morris, 1984). However, Obama’s campaign downplayed the role of the black church as

the locus of political influence. In an increasingly secular society, political leaders such

as Obama needed to find a message that appealed to religious and non-religious, Blacks

and Whites, Democrats and Independents. Articulating this type of message is the task

that Obama faced at Ebenezer, where he would be expected to deliver a message that

affirmed the values of one specific voting bloc. His message would be delivered not only

to the church, but to an entire nation of voters wondering if he represented their values.

To accomplish this task, the candidate deployed the Exodus. His use of the Exodus in his

speech at Ebenezer is significant for several reasons. It demonstrates the potential for

prophetic values to be co-opted through language. It demonstrates the continued utility

of religious narratives despite increasingly secular times. In light of the broader project,

it demonstrates the tension that exists between prophetic values and postmodern thought.

Obama’s use of the Exodus was brilliant politically, but suspect from the standpoint of
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the prophetic tradition because it served to marginalize the values on which the tradition

was based.

8.4 Tearing Down the Walls of Jericho: Obama at Ebenezer

The news story that emerged following the speech was that “Obama appeared to

link himself with King” (Brown, 2008, para. 5). From his use of the Exodus to his

emphasis on unity to his memory of history, his words were designed to situate his

candidacy as maintaining solidarity with the sacred values for which King fought. The

point of situating his comments within the discursive framework of the story is that it

permitted him to establish his candidacy as the first step toward realizing King’s dream in

the Promised Land of America. Of importance in this analysis is how Obama defined the

key metaphoric elements of the story including the walls of Jericho and Israel. In the

speech, Obama used the metaphoric elements to argue that ideological division

functioned as a discursive barrier that America faced prior to reaching the Promised

Land. His solution to division was not unity based on shared values. Instead, he called

for a unity embedded in difference. As Carrie Budoff Brown (2008) stated in Politico,

“Obama struck a chord of unity – political and racial harmony, but also compassion for

gays, immigrants and people of different faiths. He praised King’s legacy and portrayed

his candidacy as a vehicle to fulfill the work that King started” (para. 3). Unity,

according to Obama, was not founded upon shared values. Rather, unity was the

embrace of a plurality of values. This embrace functioned as the collective shout that

would lead to the downfall of the contemporary walls of Jericho, according to Obama.
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8.4.1 Identifying America’s Jericho

Obama began his sermon at Ebenezer by recounting the story of the Israelites

attempting to secure the city in the Promised Land:

Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of

Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one

person to climb. They were too strong to be taken down by brute force. And so,

the people sat for days, unable to pass on through; but God had a plan for his

people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on

the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram’s horn,

they should speak with one voice. And, at the chosen hour when the horn

sounded and chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came

tumbling down. That’s what Scripture tells us. (para. 1)

Jericho was the first city that Israel encountered after entering the Promised Land of

Canaan. Jericho’s impressive exterior walls secured the city against invading armies

such as Israel. However, God delivered Jericho into Israel’s hands when he commanded

the Israelites to shout. Upon their obedience, the walls of Jericho collapsed and Israel

was able to take possession of the city.

Using the Jericho story at the home church of the leader known as the Moses of

the movement was an implicit attempt to build a bridge of continuity over the 40 year gap

that separated King’s death and his campaign. As I pointed out in an earlier chapter, the

Exodus functions as shorthand for the prophetic tradition in the African American

community. The Jericho story occurs in the third stage of the Exodus (Joshua 1). The

first stage was departing from Egypt and the second was the journey through the
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wilderness. By deploying the language of the Jericho story, Obama was not only linking

himself with King, but he was also linking himself with the prophetic tradition that

produced King. King, the prophet, had brought contemporary Israel to Canaan’s edge.

Now Obama, the bureaucratic-prophet, would take them into Canaan en route to the

presidency. The importance of this move from a rhetorical standpoint is that it positioned

Obama as the inheritor of leadership in the African American community. He was the

next deliverer in the prophetic tradition. The Exodus informed every part of his speech as

key terms from the story such as “march,” “shout,” and “wall” played a fundamental role

in his articulation of his vision for America. The Exodus, therefore, served to position

Obama in relation to King. However, it also positioned the African American

community in relation to the goals of the Civil Rights Movement.

To invoke Jericho implies that the Promised Land has almost been secured. A

long journey has been completed and all that remains is for the people to take ownership

of their possession. To King (1957), America’s Promised Land was not a geographical

location to be reached, it was a social transformation to be realized. King envisioned the

Promised Land as an America in which “cultural integration” (para. 24) paved the way

for a long awaited “beloved community” to arise (para. 28). The Jericho story provided

Obama with an entry point to discuss the “walls” that he perceived to be preventing

America from reaching the dream of the Promised Land. As a prophet, it was his

responsibility to contextualize the story for the people. The “walls” that contemporary

America faced included a “moral deficit” and “the inability to recognize ourselves in one

another” (para. 4). Obama connected these “walls” with events such as the slow

government response to Hurricane Katrina, the Jena 6, the Scooter Libby pardon, and the
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genocide in Darfur. He argued that these “barriers to justice and equality that must come

down” (para.4). In a sense, he, like Joshua, surveyed the walls of contemporary Jericho

with African Americans in his speech as a means of highlighting his perspective on the

barriers between African Americans and King’s dream of justice and equality. Obama

presented these barriers as real, strong, and not easily overcome: “All too often, we seek

to ignore the profound structural and institutional barriers that stand in the way of

insuring opportunity for all of our children, or decent jobs for all of our people, or health

care for those who are sick” (para. 5). All of these issues, collectively, function as the

contemporary walls of Jericho. The question that his identification of these issues as

walls invites is, “How can the walls of contemporary Jericho be overcome?”

8.4.2 Division: The Cornerstone of Jericho’s Walls

In Obama’s sermon, the cornerstone holding up the walls of Jericho is division.

That is, divisive belief systems, ideologies, and perspectives bolster the barriers that

prevent the “beloved community” from forming. These barriers keep America from

being transformed in the Promised Land. The solution that Obama offered to these

barriers is unity. Obama reminded the people of King’s words following the Rosa Parks’

arrest: “unity is the great need of the hour” (para. 4). Division, according to Obama, was

supported by a social climate that fostered distrust of difference: “We are told that those

who differ from us on a few things, differ from us on all things, that our problems are the

fault of those who don’t think like us or look like us or come from where we do” (para.

6). It was also supported by the status quo in American politics: “Every day our politics

fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions, across gender and

party” (para. 8). The division that Obama cites as the enemy is problematic, in his
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estimation, because it serves to distract attention away from the real issues: “The

divisions, the stereotypes, the scapegoating, the ease with which we blame the plight of

ourselves on others–all of that distracts us from common challenges that we face, war and

poverty, inequality and injustice” (para. 9). The goal of Obama’s message is to constitute

his coalition within a narrative framework in which unity is not dependent upon

ideological solidarity. Disunity rears its head when “the believer condemns the

nonbeliever as immoral, and the nonbeliever chides the believer for being intolerant”

(para. 6). These varied and numerous forms of division that exist in society prevent

King’s vision of “a beloved community” from becoming a reality (para. 8). Obama does

not localize the problem of division to any one segment of American society. Instead, he

spreads the blame across the landscape of the nation, stating, “None of our hands are

clean” (para. 8). Therefore, Obama challenges the audience to realize that division is

“the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late” (para. 9).

If division is the cornerstone of the wall, then unity is the Israelite shout that

rattles the foundation of Jericho’s walls. That is, the vision of the Promised Land that

Obama offers is only to be realized through the downfall of ideological barriers in

society. This is the “price [of unity] that’s required” (para. 5). Not only did Obama

utilize the Exodus to establish his continuity to the past, but also his emphasis on unity

became a tool to link himself to King. Unity was Obama’s method of presenting his

vision for the nation as an outgrowth of King’s. Obama holds up an image of King that

supported his own political vision: “Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the

cheap, that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination. That’s the

unity, the hard earned unity that we need right now” (para. 12). The brand of unity that
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Obama offers required sacrifice reminiscent of the sacrifices that leaders forecasted

during the Civil Rights Movement. Linguistically, the Exodus, King, and sacrifice

became sources of legitimacy for Obama’s vision. His utilized King’s voice to justify his

own vision of unity for America as prophetic: “If Dr. King could love his jailer…then

surely we can look past what divides us in our time and bind up our wounds and erase the

sympathy deficit that exists in our hearts” (para. 9). I will address the broader issue at

stake here more in the third point, but I want to note briefly that Obama’s use of King

represents a perversion of the prophetic love that motivated King’s reaction to the jailer.

King’s love was never rooted in an ability to “look past” the centers of division in

society. Instead, King desired to engage centers of division in society with an attitude of

love that rejected injustice from the jailer, but did not reject the jailer. Simply looking

past sources of division does not foster the type of critical engagement that King viewed

as vital to the cause of justice and equality. Instead, it marginalizes the differences that

separate people.

Obama’s call to unity did not separate him from King and the prophetic tradition.

The candidate brilliantly deployed references to the Exodus, King, and the movement as

a means of linking himself with the tradition. The postmodern turn in Obama’s

interpretation in his use of the Exodus was the absence of clear referential ties between

metaphoric elements of the Exodus utilized in the speech to mobilize the support of

African Americans. That is, Obama holds up the Jericho story as a simulacrum of a

reality in which he continues the prophetic tradition inherited from King and other Civil

Rights leaders. The appearance of continuity with the past that the Exodus offered

Obama became a strategic means of concealing differences that he had with the prophetic
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tradition. Within his metaphoric uses of the Exodus, differences were legitimized and

acceptable because the appearance of continuity was still present. The Jericho story

motivated Obama’s call for unity. This link is not unique. However, the key difference

is that when King offered metaphoric elements as a motivation for unity, the call was

always backed by certain ideological commitments that the preacher drew from the

Exodus story. For King, the basis of unity was the solidarity found in a common

commitment to the sacred values upon which the nation was founded. Obama’s call to

unity offered no such ideological foundation. Instead, he offered a unity centered on

learning “to see past our differences” (para. 6). In this sense, Obama disconnected the

prophetic tradition on which uses of the Exodus had been based from the values that they

had come to represent. Israel saw the walls of Jericho tumble after a collective shout.

The question emerging from Obama’s interpretation of the Exodus is, “What is the

collective shout needed in contemporary Jericho?” Though Obama identified unity as the

answer to the question, the deeper question that his speech raises is, “How is the unity

that he offers different from King’s?” Understanding the differences between Obama’s

sense of unity and King’s lies at the heart of this analysis. Unlike King, Obama’s call for

a collective shout against contemporary Jericho did not involve shared values as a

prerequisite to victory.

8.4.3 Rearticulating Unity: A Collective Shout

Prior to arriving at Jericho, Israel renewed its covenant with God (Joshua 1). This

covenant renewal involved a collective affirmation of the Mosaic Law as the basis for

civic life in Israel. The people of Israel were called to be holy (set apart) to their God.

Adhering to demands of their covenant with God was the basis of unity in ancient Israel
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with God and each other. That is, obeying God’s laws was the basis of the nation that

was being inaugurated in the Promised Land. During the Civil Rights Movement, there

were numerous factions of the movement such as the SCLC, NAACP, SNCC, Black

Panthers, and the Nation of Islam. While there was mutual respect among many of these

organizations due to a common rejection of the status quo, they were not necessarily

unified due to their different visions of the goal of the struggle. For example, King and

the SCLC promoted an integrated society whereas Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam

pursued an agenda of Black Nationalism (Branch, 1999; Condit & Lucaites, 1993).

Within the contexts of the Exodus and the Civil Rights Movement, the foundation for

unity was not limited to a common rejection of the status. Unity in these contexts was

based on identification by association (shared values), not just identification by

dissociation (rejection of the status quo).

Obama offered a radically different notion of unity in his speech at Ebenezer. His

version of unity was not grounded in shared values, but in recognition of self in the face

of the other. Obama argued throughout the speech that unity is expensive because it

requires flexibility in embracing other perspectives:

True unity cannot be so easily purchased. It starts with a change in attitudes. It

starts with changing our hearts, and changing our minds, broadening our spirit.

It’s not easy to stand in somebody else’s shoes. It’s not easy to see past our own

differences. (para. 6)

Obama offers a completely different locus of unity than that of the Exodus or Civil

Rights Movement, yet he holds these images up as simulacra of the reality that he is

seeking to enact. Both of these images presuppose an ideological foundation for unity in
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the form of shared values. Obama’s speech robs the images of this referent and leaves

unity without any ideological foundation. By this, I mean that Obama’s articulation of

unity is devoid of a notion of sacred values seen during the Civil Rights Movement. In

their place, Obama offered the embrace of difference as the key sacred value to

transforming society into the Promised Land. For King (1957), the “fight” was always

focused on the sacred values of “justice and peace” (para. 28). This fight was always

based on a commitment to love the other in spite of offence: “

Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his

friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a

society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that

will be the day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of

man as man. (King, 1965, para. 35)

Both Obama and King offered visions of the Promised Land. The fundamental

difference is that unity in King’s (1965) vision was the product of the triumph of truth

over evil. This triumph resulted in the toppling of “the barriers to freedom” (para. 26).

Obama on the other hand, viewed unity embedded in difference the primary instrument in

toppling the walls. For King, unity was the result of sacred values being adopted. For

Obama, unity was the sacred value to be adopted.

The clearest example of Obama’s postmodern interpretation of the Exodus in this

speech is his story to conclude the sermon. He tells the story of Ashley Baia. Ashley

was a 23 year-old Caucasian woman working with the Obama campaign in South

Carolina to mobilize African American voters. Noting Ashley’s demographic differences

with the audience members provided the foundation for Obama to rearticulate the locus
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of unity. The candidate shared the story of how Ashley, meeting with potential African

American voters, shared her heart-gripping story of being raised in severe poverty. She

explained her background to the people and then noted that her attraction to the Obama

campaign was her belief that he could lead the battle for people like her: “She thought,

‘maybe Barack would fight for my mother. And if he would fight for my mother, then

maybe I will fight alongside him.’ That’s what had brought her to Florence” (para. 21).

Obama noted that everyone around the table listening to Ashley’s story was attracted to

his campaign for “different reasons”; “ some bring up specific issues; some talk about,

upset about, affirmative action; some talk about, you know, ‘I want to see more jobs in

the community’; some are frustrated about trade; some just like me” (para. 22).

Obama advances the story to tell about an “elderly black man” listening to

Ashley’s story (para. 22). In a room in which everyone was sharing their reasons for

joining the campaign, this man offered an unusual explanation:

He simply says to everyone in the room, ‘I am here because of Ashley. I am here

because of this young girl, and the fact that she’s willing to fight for what she

believes in. And that reminds me that I still have some fight left in me, and I’m

going to stand up for what I believe in.’ (para. 22)

This recognition of having a reason to fight is the basis of the unity that Obama proposes.

This unity did not necessitate the elderly man and Ashley having the same reason to fight.

Rather, it necessitated them both having any reason to fight. This shifting locus allows

Obama to present himself as in solidarity with the prophetic calls to unity of the past

without threatening the diversity of his coalition in the present. He offers an Exodus in
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which divergent views can co-exist. In fact, they must co-exist if contemporary Jericho is

to be captured, according to Obama’s interpretation of the Exodus:

Now, by itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl

and that old black man, that’s not enough to change a country….But it is where

we begin. It’s why I believe that the walls in that room began to shake at that

moment. And if they can shake in that room, then they can shake here in

Atlanta….And if enough of our voices join together, if we see each other in each

other’s eyes, we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can

finally come tumbling down. (para. 24)

Within this Exodus narrative of continuity with the past, Obama articulates a version of

unity that represents a departure from the prophetic values of the past. He adapts the

narrative to a sociopolitical context in which a commitment to shared values would

weaken, not strengthen, his coalition. The “recognition” that Obama called for did not

involve shared values. The recognition demanded seeing beyond differences to

commonalities. In the Exodus and with King, unity was the product of a common

acceptance of core values. Obama rejects the necessity of shared values and marginalizes

the importance of the values of the prophetic tradition. Unlike the link between the

Exodus and the prophetic tradition, Obama’s Exodus focused on turning away from the

status quo and turning towards the other, not turning toward covenantal obligations.

Obama mentioned common reasons that people supported his candidacy: opposition to

the “Iraq War,” “education,” and excitement over “the possibility of the first African

American President” (para. 22). But ultimately, the reason(s) were unimportant. Unity,
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as he articulated it, was grounded in having reasons such as discontent with the status

quo, not a shared commitment to a set of sacred values.

The significance of this rearticulation is that it serves to empty the Exodus and the

associated prophetic tradition of the sacred values on which they were both linked.

Linguistically, Obama is consubstantial with the Exodus and the prophetic tradition of

King. However, he co-opts the prophetic power of the narrative to legitimize an agenda

that decenters the very tradition with which he identifies. Overcoming division in

society, with this understanding of the Exodus, is not a matter of tearing down hegemonic

structures of oppression. Instead, the walls of Jericho are about learning to embrace

differences. My point is not that the embrace of difference is bad or a wrong goal. My

point is that this agenda is inconsistent with the prophetic tradition in that Obama

challenges the need for communal values as a basis for unity and the accomplishment of

societal change. This move serves to position his candidacy as appealing to a broader

segment of the American public. However, it also co-opts the political agency of the

marginalized who utilized the prophetic tradition to challenge dominant power structures

from a minority position. It redirects the prophetic energy formerly reserved for

challenging dominant power structures to efforts to elect Barack Obama as a candidate

whose leadership would bring America into the Promised Land. The postmodern turn in

Obama’s use of the Exodus can be seen in the way in which Obama utilizes the Exodus

and King in a manner that presupposes shared [values]. In this way, Obama holds the

Exodus up as a simulacrum of an ideological solidarity that does not exist. This was a

great move politically. It provided him an entry point to tie himself to the African

American community. But at the same time, it allowed him to avoid the pitfall of
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appearing to be a minority candidate focused on minority issues. Obama’s use of the

Exodus positions him as a postmodern prophet--a prophet who speaks the language of

prophecy without connecting that language to an established system of sacred values.

8.5 Conclusion

In this chapter, I have attempted to demonstrate that Obama’s interpretation of the

Exodus at Ebenezer Baptist Church was postmodern due to the disconnect that it created

between sacred values and the prophetic tradition. It allowed Obama to position himself

as an extension of the prophetic tradition while negating, or at least ignoring, the need for

the values of the tradition. Specifically, I highlighted the postmodern elements of his

speech such as his insistence of continuity with the past embedded in difference. In

addition, he utilized the Jericho segment of the Exodus story metaphorically as a

simulacrum of prophetic commitment that did not exist in his rhetoric.

My argument that Obama’s strategic use of the Exodus positioned him to adapt

the values of the prophetic tradition to his broad constituency fails to account for two

additional possibilities. Given the fact that Obama received neither theological nor

homiletical (preaching) training, is it fair to scrutinize his uses of Scripture in a manner

consistent with preachers and theologians? Simply put, are Obama’s uses reflective of

rhetorical strategy or Scriptural unfamiliarity? If his uses are strategic, then he is

perverting or postmodernizing prophetic language, decontextualizing it so that it serves

his own ends in the present moment, no longer part of an uninterrupted chain (meta-

narrative) of sin and repentance and forgiveness. On the other hand, maybe he’s just an

incompetent prophet. By confusing the way he uses Jericho (is it America? Is it what

America is trying to overcome?), could it be that he simply doesn’t know the capital T
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“Truth” and therefore is unable to use it as King did? Is he banking on the

cultural/spiritual illiteracy of an audience at Ebenezer or in the broader culture who might

vaguely recognize “walls tumbling down” and “Jericho” as something they should know

about, but who don’t have the critical thought or the power of concentration to think

carefully about the connections he implies? At the very least, I view Obama’s

interpretation as a strategic attempt to draw on the legacy of King as a means of

bolstering his prophetic identity and political constituency.

In the next chapter, I draw specific attention to the ways in which Obama’s

interpretation of the Exodus led to criticism from prominent African American leaders

throughout his first term. The criticism that he received from prominent leaders

highlights the fact that the Exodus endures as a crucial battleground for meaning,

identity, and purpose in the African American community.

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CHAPTER 9. OBAMA: MOSES OR PHARAOH?

9.1 Introduction

As Barack Obama’s second year in office began, there were rumblings in the

African American community that the president was not doing enough to combat

economic, educational, and health disparities among African Americans (H. R. Harris,

2010b; Hutchinson, 2010). In response to these rumblings, Tavis Smiley convened a

gathering of noted African American politicians, intellectuals, activists, and religious

leaders to discuss the need for President Obama to develop a Black agenda to combat

persistent disparities. The belief that Obama needed a Black agenda was not universally

affirmed by African American leaders (H. R. Harris, 2010a). Rather, it surfaced

following many controversial debates among African American leaders concerning the

most expedient way for African Americans to exercise their political agency in the age of

Obama.

Throughout his 2008 campaign, Obama presented himself as an extension of

King’s prophetic legacy. He positioned himself as Joshua to King’s Moses: “I thank the

Moses Generation; but we’ve got to remember, now, that Joshua still had a job to do”

(Obama, 2007, para. 23). Rhetorically, this situated Obama as the long awaited prophetic

deliverer to America and especially African Americans into the Promised Land of

freedom, justice, and equality. For African Americans who had been marginalized
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throughout history, his historic election was a source of hope (Drash, 2009; Hutchinson,

2010). In the African American community, the Exodus is shorthand for the prophetic

tradition (Glaude, Jr., 2000; Raboteau, 1994; Selby, 2008). That is, the story functions as

shorthand for a form of protest politics by which minority groups seek to hold dominant

power structures accountable for the exercise of power in various sociopolitical contexts

(Walzer, 1986, 1996). For example, King led marches to protest the ways in which

African Americans were denied certain constitutional rights such as the right to vote in

the 1950s and 60s (Branch, 1999; Chappell, 2005). As I argued in an earlier chapter, the

prophetic tradition is not opposed to political powers in society. The prophetic operates

as a counterpart to political powers by calling on them to govern in a manner consistent

with the sacred values of society. The relationship between prophetic figures and

political powers has been important in seeking to address issues facing the African

American community in American history:: Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln

debated the future of slavery (Oakes, 2008), Franklin Roosevelt and A. Philip Randolph

debated the integration of the military (Bynum, 2010), and Martin Luther King, Jr. and

John F. Kennedy debated the need for policies to address Jim Crow laws (Branch, 1989).

Whether it was abolition, integration of the military, or addressing the refusal of civil

rights from people of color, the relationship between prophetic figures and elected

official influenced the outcome of activists’ efforts. Within these relationships, prophetic

figures were instrumental in pressuring politicians to adopt policies that advanced sacred

values. For example, King (1967) called on the Johnson administration to end the

conflict in Vietnam he viewed the war as the “enemy of the poor” (para. 7). He operated

from a set of sacred values that held that the poor were close to the heart of God;
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therefore, it was his responsibility to speak against the Vietnam War, given the

disproportionate amount of suffering that the conflict caused among the economically

disadvantaged: “I believe that the Father [God] is deeply concerned, especially for His

suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them” (para. 14).

The prophetic-political relationship has been the foundation of African American

political engagement since slavery (Feiler, 2009; Glaude, Jr., 2000). However, during the

age of Obama, the relationship between the prophetic and the political became

complicated. Throughout his campaign, Obama maintained his belief that prophetic

figures of the past such as King would not “endorse” his candidacy (qtd. in CNN, 2008).

Instead, King would have sought to hold Obama “accountable” (qtd. in CNN, 2008). In

spite of this apparent disclaimer, the numerous ways in which Obama discursively linked

himself with King through metaphoric uses of the Exodus, prophetic language, and

symbolic gestures situated his candidacy with an implied endorsement from King’s

prophetic legacy (Gitell, 2008; Murphy, 2011). In Obama, the prophetic and political

traditions were wed in the way that complicated the African American prophetic tradition

of holding political powers accountable to the exercise of power. From the standpoint of

certain African American leaders, Obama has constrained African American political

agency due to the popularity of his presidency in the community and the ways he linked

himself with the prophetic tradition (Watkins, 2012). By African American political

agency, I refer to ways in which African Americans sought to engage in democratic

struggle for rights and equality. As a minority group, they utilized the story of the

Exodus and the values of the prophetic tradition to situate their minority position with

divine legitimacy. They spoke against power believing that God would fight against all
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powers that dared to violate the sacred values of the tradition. However, Obama

constrained this form of political agency by situating himself as a divinely ordained

bureaucratic prophet. That is, Obama identity as a prophet left African Americans

without a clear power structure to battle against. His prophetic status required loyal not

criticism.

During Smiley’s forum, panelist Michael Eric Dyson attempted to reframe

Obama’s significance within the context of the Exodus. In this chapter, I analyze how

Dyson utilized the Exodus metaphorically to articulate and negotiate the constraints of

the age of Obama on African American political agency. Specifically, I argue that

Dyson’s metaphoric use of the Exodus suggests that African Americans had a mandate to

maintain a critical stance toward the president as a means of keeping alive the prophetic

tradition and the sacred values on which it was based. While this task was necessary with

any president, Dyson and others felt that African Americans were giving Obama a pass

on prophetic accountability due to his racial identity (F. C. Harris, 2012a, 2012b; H. R.

Harris, 2010b; West, 2011). In his comments, Dyson challenged the notion that Obama

was a contemporary deliverer and sought to reposition his presidency as the very power

structure that African Americans must hold accountable to sacred values. That is, they

must challenge Obama to be true to the sacred values of the prophetic tradition as a

means transforming America into a more just and equitable nation. When Obama was

elected, civil rights activists James Lawson articulated a prophetic perspective of

Obama’s election:

Economic exploitation, greed, sexism, violence, racism: we have not dismantled

those forces yet in our midst. Obama represents that a change has come, but if you
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do not deal with the socioeconomic, political forces that inhibit people and create

torture and cruelty, you can't make progress [toward] King's understanding of this

society as [one] of liberty, equality and justice for all. (qtd. in Time, 2009).

Obama’s election represented potential. However, the potential would only be realized as

people pressured him to be true to the values of the tradition.

To accomplish the goals of this chapter, I will first situate Smiley’s forum within

the historical context in which discontent with Obama’s policy agenda for African

Americans, or lack thereof, emerged. Next, I will draw from the discussion at the event

to highlight how Dyson utilized the Exodus at the event to resituate Obama within the

interpretive framework of the narrative. This rhetorical move, I argue, was central in

Dyson’s attempt to articulate Obama’s significance in a way that would not constrain

African American political agency. The perceived constraint was at the heart of the

controversy that arose in the first place.

9.2 Background: Discontent with Obama

When Obama took office, the nation was reeling from a devastating economic

recession, soaring health care costs, and war on two fronts. Rising debt and

unemployment were crippling people throughout the nation. Building on the work of his

predecessor, Obama moved swiftly to pass legislation to address America’s economic

woes. He worked with Congress to pass the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act,

a stimulus bill designed to alleviate the financial pain that many Americans were feeling.

In the months following the passage of the $787 billion stimulus, studies revealed that

the bill failed to address the disproportionate levels of poverty and unemployment in
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minority communities (Padgett, 2009). While the stimulus contributed to an initial slight

decline in national unemployment levels, job loss rates in African American and Hispanic

communities continued to rise steadily (Kirwan Institute, 2010b). Researchers found that

stimulus money was not being directed to those communities hit hardest by the recession

(Kirwan Institute, 2010a). The failure of the government to effectively address

disparities in minority communities contributed to national poverty rates that were

actually higher than rates during the Civil Rights Movement (Tough, 2012). Granted,

these high statistics could also be interpreted as a sign of the success of the stimulus

based on an assumption that the numbers would have been much higher without it.

Nevertheless, these alarming statistics attracted the attention of many leaders in the

African American community, causing many leaders to question whether or not Obama

was doing enough to eliminate powerful structures of inequality in society (Padgett,

2009).

Obama’s status as the nation’s first African American president at first shielded

his administration from criticisms for a lack of progress on combating inequality in the

African American community. Those who dared to raise concerns with Obama’s policy

were met with fierce opposition and even social ostracism (Terry, 2010). Supporters of

the president called on the discontent to be patient (Hutchinson, 2010). Obama, his

supporters argued, encountered daily opposition to his agenda from Republicans and an

increasingly vocal Tea Party. What he needed most from African Americans was support

and protection from those seeking to derail his agenda. African Americans had invested

a great deal of hope in Obama’s ability to lead them to the Promised Land (Drash, 2009).

This investment led to what some began to call Obama’s “racial pass” (Hutchinson,
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2010). That is, many African Americans trusted Obama so much that they did not see the

need to hold him accountable to the values of the prophetic tradition. For two centuries,

the prophetic tradition provided African Americans with political agency to challenge

dominant powers to be true to a system of sacred values. Now, in the age of Obama, his

status as a bureaucratic prophet led many in the community treat him as a sacred cow,

avoiding public criticism of him.

News of the failure of the stimulus to effectively combat the severe effects of the

recession in the African American community revived the complaints of Obama’s critics

in the community (Terry, 2010; Tough, 2012). Activists, intellectuals and even members

of the Congressional Black Caucus demanded that the Obama administration do more to

deal with economic disparities by taking action in the form of legislation such as a jobs

bill targeting communities being underserved by the stimulus (Cooper, 2010; National

Public Radio, 2010). At the heart of their complaints and recommendations was the

belief that current policy did not effectively acknowledge and address structural

inequalities. The disproportionate levels of poverty, they argued, demanded specific

policies to address the unique needs of the African American community. In their

opinion, the president needed a “Black agenda” (Terry, 2010). Obama faced what New

York Times writer Sheryl Stolberg (2010) called, “a balancing act” (para. 4). The

challenge of this act was to satisfy multiple constituencies without appearing to privilege

any.

While all candidates are challenged to please multiple constituencies, minority

candidates face unique challenges in representing diverse populations. In order to ascend

to national leadership, minorities are pressured to appeal to mainstream sensibilities,

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avoiding issues local to individual minority groups so as to avoid the appearance of being

“only” a minority candidate. The national stage presents tension for minority candidates.

On the one hand, they do not want to appear to pander to minority voters. However, on

the other hand, they face expectations from minority candidates to address minority

issues in ways that mainstream candidates have not. Obama was by no means the first

African American candidate or elected official to face this pressure. From presidential

candidates such as Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson to big city majors such as Harold

Washington and Andrew Young, African American leaders have wrestled to maintain

credibility in the community that produced them without alienating other constituencies

(Condit & Lucaites, 1993; Glass, 1997; F. C. Harris, 2012a). For his part, Obama

defended his policy agenda with a political philosophy that developing effective policies

would help all Americans equally. That is, he argued that he was the president of all

Americans and that policies tailored to specific groups were unnecessary (Stolberg, 2010;

Terry, 2010). As Michael Eric Dyson explained, “He [Obama] doesn’t want to tarnish

his achievement as a race-transcending figure” (Glanton & Skiba, 2010, para. 14). This

approach gained widespread approval from the president’s supporters who viewed it as

smart political strategy (H. R. Harris, 2010a, 2010b; Stolberg, 2010). From their

standpoint, Obama’s historic election required a departure from protest forms of political

pressure that were at the heart of African American political agency in the past. That is,

the prophetic mode of political engagement (speaking truth to power) was devalued in

favor of a political focus on compromise, expediency, and the impact of various

decisions. Political savvy must take over as the mode of African American political

engagement in the age of Obama.

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Differences over the adequacy of Obama’s policy agenda generated numerous

debates among African American leaders. The debates culminated in a heated exchange

between and Tavis Smiley and Al Sharpton on Sharpton’s radio show in February of

2010. Sharpton had been quoted in a recent New York Times article as saying that the

president was “smart not to ballyhoo ‘a black agenda’” (Stolberg, 2010, para. 15).

Smiley took this statement as evidence that certain African American leaders were giving

the president a pass on issues facing the community. When the topic came up on

Sharpton’s radio show, the two argued over the need for Obama to have a “Black

agenda” and whether or not the president’s Black supporters, such as Sharpton, were

failing to hold him accountable for his policies.

The debate divided African American leaders who maintained sharp

disagreements on the need for the president to have a Black agenda. For challenging the

president, Smiley and those like him received ample criticism in the African American

community (Coley, 2010; H. R. Harris, 2010a; The Chicago Defender, 2010). People felt

as if their criticisms were unproductive at a time when Obama was fighting conservative

bias against health care reform legislation. Challenging the president’s policy agenda,

from this perspective, advanced the agenda of the political right. Smiley and other critics

were cast as disloyal traitors motived by envy. Some might even argue that critics of the

president such as Tavis Smiley and Cornel West were motivated by personal bitterness

against Obama. Previously, Smiley had expressed frustration that Obama had

consistently failed to attend his State of the Black Union forum (H. R. Harris, 2010a,

2010b). Cornel West, observers argued, was motivated by anger over the president’s

failure to invite him to the 2008 inauguration after West made over 50 campaign
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appearances for Obama (Gitell, 2008; Touré, 2011; Watkins, 2012; Watson, 2012; West,

2011). It is conceivable that criticisms of Obama’s policies could be pretexts actually

arising from personal issues with Obama. But I believe that the discussion over Obama’s

policy agenda, or lack thereof, in the African American community goes much deeper

than petty squabbles. In Obama, critics such as Tavis Smiley perceived a potent threat to

the prophetic legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. That is, the criticism, sincere or not,

presented the argumentative premise that “the age of Obama has fallen tragically short of

fulfilling King’s prophetic legacy” (West, 2011, para. 7). As critics, the goal of people

like Smiley and West was to hold the president accountable and to keep the prophetic

tradition alive.

In light of the “long-simmering debate” in the African American community over

Obama’s policy, Smiley organized the We Count Too! forum as a space for dialogue and

discussion on the need for and nature of a Black agenda (Wickham, 2010, para. 1). At

the forum, all of the panelists made significant contributions to the dialogue. However,

Dyson’s use of the Exodus provided keen insight into the specific challenges that

Obama’s presidency presented to the prophetic tradition of the African American

community. Critiques of the president were not solely about critiquing the president as

much as they were about keeping alive a legacy.

9.3 We Count Too!: Demands for a Black Agenda

With Smiley as moderator, the forum feature eleven guests including religious

leaders (Louis Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson), public intellectuals (Michael Eric Dyson,

Michael Fauntroy, Julianne Malveaux, Ronald Walters, and Cornel West), corporate

CEOs (Angela Glover Blackwell and Tom Burrell), an activist turned politician
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(Dorothy Tillman), and a current college student (Raven Curling). The event lasted

approximately three hours and featured a robust discussion on whether or not the

president needed a Black agenda, what that agenda should look like, and the nature of

African American political agency in the age of Obama. Smiley began the forum by

framing the discussion as an expression of love for the president and love for oppressed

members of society who were struggling under the weight of inequality and injustice.

That is, Smiley immediately attempted to dispel the notion that the ongoing discussion

had ever been motivated by bitterness. As the discussion went on, the panelists sought to

defend their insistence on a Black agenda with the idea that a Black agenda served the

best interests of the nation. They sought to restore African American political agency

where they perceived it had been lost in the age of Obama. Finally, they expressed love

and support for the president in the face of strong opposition and even death threats.

Midway through the conversation, Smiley (2010) turned the conversation to Michael Eric

Dyson with the question, “What about the question that Obama is the first Black

president…and there is only so far down the field that he can push the ball? Maybe our

expectations of him are unreasonable.” This question and Dyson’s response gets to the

heart of Obama’s significance in the African American community and what African

Americans should expect of him as a bureaucratic prophet. In addition, I will draw on the

original Exodus narrative to situate Dyson’s comments within the discursive context from

which they emerged. In his comments, Dyson articulated several metaphoric

relationships from the Exodus that he perceived in African American discussions about

Obama, his significance, and his policy agenda.

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9.3.1 Obama as Moses

In his response to Smiley’s question, Dyson expressed his belief that African

Americans have misunderstood the importance of Obama’s historic election: “You think

Obama is Moses.” To Dyson, the common assumption in the African American

community, “Obama is Moses,” was dangerous because it prevented African Americans

from holding him accountable for the policies that he advanced and their impact on

various communities. This simple statement is loaded with assumptions. Dyson’s use of

the metaphor, Obama is Moses, is different than the metaphor that I highlight throughout

Obama’s rhetoric, Obama is Joshua. My interpretation is not at odds with Dyson’s.

Rather, we highlight different aspects of Obama’s perceived significance. My use of the

Joshua label highlights how Obama sought to position himself as an extension of King’s

prophetic legacy. Dyson’s use of the metaphor, Obama is Moses, highlights how Obama

sought to position himself within the African American imagination as a deliverer in the

prophetic tradition. My focus is on how Obama seeks to tie himself to the past. Dyson

focused on how African Americans received Obama. However, the point being brought

out is the same. Both Obama’s rhetorical practices and African American

reception/perception evidence a perspective of Obama as a prophetic deliverer.

In the original Exodus, Moses and the children of Israel challenged Pharaoh’s

authority out of obedience to a higher power. To put it more clearly, prophetic authority

functioned to hold political authority accountable. Political authority received power

from the people, while prophetic authority received power from God. The position that

Obama occupied as a contemporary deliverer in the mold of Moses rendered African

Americans unable to exercise their political agency to advocate for causes important to
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the community. As a prophet, Obama was immune to criticism. In ancient Israel,

prophets spoke as God’s representatives among the people (Baker, 1996). As the

children of Israel left Egypt, several leaders among the people objected to Moses’s

policy, leadership, and decisions. When the journey became difficult, leaders of Israel

demanded that Moses take the children of Israel back to Egypt:

Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the

wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?...It would

have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.

(Exodus 14:11-12)

Throughout the journey to the Promised Land, Moses faced multiple challenges to his

leadership from a variety of leaders in Israel. By highlighting the fact that African

Americans held Obama to be a contemporary Moses, Dyson situated Obama as the

natural recipient of criticism as a part of his prophetic office. However, Dyson also

implied that this persona shields Obama from these criticisms and delegitimizes those

who would seek to hold the president accountable for the policies that he advances. That

is, metaphoric linkages of Obama to Moses wedded the prophetic and political in a way

that marginalized the political agency of African Americans to critique the Office of the

President. To criticize one of God’s prophets was to incur the wrath of God.

Like all authentic Old Testament prophets, Moses’s calling was divine in origin

(Baker, 1996; Heschel, 2010). God sent Moses to lead Israel. Therefore, when leaders

attempted to challenge Moses’s authority, they received harsh punishments for their

rebellion. When Israelite leaders Korah, Dathan, and Abiram challenged the legitimacy
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of Moses’s leadership over Israel, Moses responded with the perspective that his

legitimacy, indeed his very calling, came from God:

Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and that it

has not been of my accord. If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited

by the fate of all mankind, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates

something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all

that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol [the grave], then you

shall know that these men have despised the Lord. (Numbers 16:28-30)

After Moses’s pronouncement, as the account in the book of Numbers explains, the

ground opened up and swallowed up Moses’s critics. They died because they dared to

challenge God’s prophet.

Granted, it is not likely that all African Americans had the Numbers account in

mind when considering Obama’s prophetic status. However, the Exodus, as a metaphoric

source of political agency, has functioned as a discursive lens for African Americans to

use in interpreting the material world. Within the context of the Exodus, Obama’s ethos

and legitimacy as a divinely appointed prophet were secure. With prophetic status, there

was no need to challenge him because he was the one with the task of challenging power

structures. The dual nature of his identity as a prophet-politician insulated him against

criticism for inaction on racial battlegrounds. Just like the children of Israel needed to be

patient during the trek to the Promised Land, African Americans needed to be patient as

their Moses led them to the Promised Land of freedom, justice, and equality.

Additionally, this discursive lens positioned critics like Dyson, Smiley, and West

as contemporary manifestations of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. That is, they were cast as
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jealous leaders motivated by their own interests, not the sacred values of the prophetic

tradition (Coley, 2010; The Chicago Defender, 2010). The dual nature of Obama’s

prophetic-political identity holds another important implication: it suggests that African

Americans must reimagine prophetic modes of political engagement. If Obama is Moses,

then they cannot criticize him. However, speaking truth to power has been the dominant

form of African American political engagement since slavery. Within the framework of

the Exodus, the people of Israel earned God’s favor when they supported the prophets

that he sent. Prophetic engagement, in the age of Obama, required that African

Americans utilize their prophetic energies to supporting Obama, not critiquing him. It

was almost as if questioning the prophetic leader was blasphemy. This perspective

manifested itself in the racial pass that many African Americans appeared to give Obama

(Hutchinson, 2010). Simply put, Obama’s Moses persona removed the foundation of

African American political engagement. That is, the perception that Obama was Moses

left African Americans without a voice in the public square—they had their divinely

appointed leader, and they should trust him to do the work of upholding sacred values.

Silence and obedience, not engagement, was what the age of Obama called for in the

African American community. In this way, prophetic forms of political engagement were

constrained within a framework in which challenging Obama was discouraged as

inappropriate. Dyson attempted to address this constraint by challenging the very

prophetic identity that seemed to stifle dissent and debate.

9.3.2 Obama as Pharaoh

Dyson utilized the Exodus as a means of divorcing Obama from the prophetic

persona that had been linked with his presidency. In response to the perspective that
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Obama was Moses (or even Joshua), Dyson offered a counter narrative: “You think

Obama is Moses. He is not Moses; He’s Pharaoh!” This harsh statement was met with a

chorus of boos from the crowd. However, Dyson responded to audience with the

statement, “I’m just talking about his office.” In calling Obama Pharaoh, Dyson was not

trying to disparage or delegitimize the president as much as he was seeking to rearticulate

a perspective how African Americans should view him. Pharaoh, as King of Egypt, sat

on the seat of power in the ancient story. He was the target of Moses’s prophetic

pronouncements, supplications, and condemnations. Moses, as God’s prophet, pressured

Pharaoh to liberate Israel from bondage. Within the interpretive framework of the

Exodus, Dyson’s purpose was to argue that Obama’s primary position was that of a

politician. As a politician, he was not above criticism or accountability. In a sense,

Dyson was seeking to locate rhetorical resources to keep alive the prophetic tradition in

the age of Obama. As long as Obama was viewed through the lens of Moses, prophetic

forms of political engagements were threatened. As Moses, Obama was protected from

criticism. However, the metaphor “Obama is Pharaoh” placed responsibility on

contemporary prophets to hold him accountable to the sacred values of the prophetic

tradition. Dyson’s goal seemed to be to dissociate Obama from the prophetic legacy of

King:

Black people think that Obama is Martin Luther King, Jr. Excuse me! Martin

Luther King, Jr. shed blood in Memphis. From that blood and the soil in which

that blood was mixed sprouted every ability of Black people in a post-King era to

survive….So don’t tell me you stencil his [Obama’s] face next to King’s and

they’re the same.

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The age of Obama witnessed numerous attempts to link the prophetic and the political in

the person of Obama (Gitell, 2008; Hawthorne, 2008; James, 2009; Smiley, 2013; West,

2011). At numerous points during his comments, Dyson was careful to contextualize his

critique of the president against the backdrop of his love for him: “When you talk to Mr.

Obama, I love him. I love him like my brother because I’m so proud of him.” His

affirmations suggest that his motivation was not to castigate the president but rather to

resituate his importance within the African American political imagination—even to

empower African Americans to provoke Obama to follow his prophetic calling. Dyson’s

use of the Exodus suggests that King and Obama operate from completely different

political ideologies. King, as a prophet, operated from the standpoint that God’s primary

focus was on the oppressed. He sacrificed his life for sacred values that society had

abandoned:

I choose to identify with the underprivileged. I choose to identify with the poor. I

choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose to give my life for those who have

been left out of the sunlight of opportunity. I choose to live for and with those

who find themselves seeing life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit sign.

This is the way I'm going. If it means suffering a little bit, I'm going that way. If

it means sacrificing, I’m going that way. If it means dying for them, I’m going

that way, because I heard a voice saying, “Do something for others.” (qtd. in

Garrow, 1986, p. 524)

Obama, as a politician, privileged expediency, compromise, and popularity as key factors

in developing a policy agenda. His decisions were calculated and measured. King, as

prophet, rejected the status quo as immoral. Obama, as politician, received his power
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from the status quo. While African Americans had every right to be excited and proud

about Obama’s historic election, Dyson warned them not to “mistake cultural pride for

political accountability.” Therefore, he utilized the Exodus to create a discursive space in

which African Americans could still be excited about Obama’s historic election while at

the same time recognizing their responsibility to hold him accountable to the sacred

values of the prophetic tradition. Accountability, from Dyson’s standpoint, was crucial to

pushing Obama in a direction consistent with the prophetic tradition. The idea that the

leader needed help was not dissimilar to the original Exodus. Moses required help and

support from people such as his father-in-law (Exodus 18). His father-in-law took time

to instruct Moses on ways that he felt his son-in-law needed to adapt his leadership to

meet the needs of a nation like Israel. Anecdotes such as this provide an alternate way of

conceiving input that Obama, as deliverer, received from the Black community apart

from being condemned as blasphemous.

The importance of this accountability is that speaking truth to power had been the

dominant mode of African American political agency throughout the nation’s history.

Now, in the age of Obama, this agency was threatened by the perspective that Obama, as

Moses, was not to be criticized. The purpose of this association, then, had very little to

do with communicating a message to the president and very much to do with preserving

the prophetic roots of African American political agency that might be threatened by

perspectives that linked Obama with Moses and Martin Luther King, Jr. By decentering

or reducing Obama’s prophetic identity, Dyson sought to restore African American

political agency. As he argued, “Black leadership is about reinterpreting the fundamental

premises of American democracy so that the ideals after which they aim can be embodied
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and the noble goals that they articulate can be lived up to.” From this standpoint, Dyson

sought to generate a greater sense of African American responsibility in terms of the

exercise of political agency when it comes to Obama by superseding the metaphor

“Obama is Moses” with the metaphor “African Americans are Israel.”

9.3.3 African Americans as Israel

Identifying Obama as Pharaoh empowered African Americans with responsibility

to confront him on persistent injustices in society, contemporary Egypt:

It is time to say to Pharaoh…let our resources go. Let that money go. Let that

love flow. I know White folk don’t want you to love us, but you came from us.

Before they knew you, we loved you. We birthed you. We gave you acceptance.

You were biracial, but Black folk made you a Black man in America. (Dyson qtd.

in Smiley, 2010)5

In situating his comments within the interpretive framework of the Exodus, Dyson

repositioned Obama as the rightful recipient of criticism. The goal of situating Obama as

Pharaoh was not to segregate him from African Americans but to locate a point of

identification with his historic presidency in a way that did not rob African American

leaders of their political agency.

The notion of a Black agenda was controversial because of the perception that it

privileged one group of people over others. However, leaders like Dyson were operating

from a prophetic tradition that is fundamentally concerned with the oppressed members

5
Interestingly enough, Dyson uses the language of Jeremiah 1:5 in pleading with Obama not to ignore the
African American community: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I
consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” The significance of this passage is that this is
the passage were the Lord called Jeremiah to be a prophet. In a sense, Dyson is contradicting his argument
that Obama is not a prophet by his allusions to this verse.
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of society. The Exodus and the prophetic tradition teach that society is only as strong as

its weakest members. Therefore, this configuration allowed Dyson and others to situate

their calls for a Black agenda as an attempt to “express…ultimate patriotism.” That is,

the interpretive framework of the Exodus fostered an understanding that America would

only grow strong if the nation took action to strengthen its weakest citizens, eradicating

structures of oppression. This belief was at the heart of calls for a Black agenda.

Therefore, when reports began to surface that African Americans and Hispanics

continued to suffer under the intense weight of economic recession, leaders like Dyson

were quick to call for additional reforms and policies to address the specific issues that

those communities were facing. Within the framework that Dyson provided in the

Exodus, African Americans were not wrong to hold Obama accountable. As Dyson

argued, they were only treating him in a manner consistent with every other president:

I tell you Mr. Obama, to deal with the Black agenda is what every president

before you had to do. How (sic) you going to be any different? Abraham Lincoln

had to deal with race. George Washington had to deal with race. LBJ had to deal

with race. How come you the first president that ain’t (sic) got to deal with

race?...If you want to be great, deal with the Negro question.

Dyson argued that those who reject the notion that the president needed a Black agenda

failed to see that the basis of democratic engagement was to be found in different groups

pressuring the president to act on issues facing specific groups through policy: “Latinos

asking him for something; they got it. Gay and Lesbians asked him, ‘deal with Don’t

Ask, Don’t Tell’; dealt with it….All of those are specific entities…why is it when it

comes to Black folk, we are persona non grata?” Therefore, Dyson grounded African
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American identity within the context of the Exodus, situating Obama as Pharaoh and

African Americans as Israel to position them with a legitimate claim to dissent and to

advocating specific policies devoted to improving their condition in the nation.

9.4 Conclusion

From the standpoint of his critics, Obama’s election has been a blessing and a

curse. It has been a blessing in that his historic election (and re-election) has served as a

source of great pride in the African American community. However, it has also been a

curse in that it has constrained African American political agency due to Obama’s by

allowing his identity as a [bureaucratic-]prophet to override his vulnerability to Black

critique as a politician. In this chapter, I explored how Michael Eric Dyson utilized the

Exodus metaphorically at Tavis Smiley’s forum to dissociate Obama from the legacy of

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the prophetic tradition. Dyson’s use of the Exodus to discuss

Obama’s relationship and responsibility to the African American community highlights

the fact that the story continues to influence the political and cultural imagination of the

African American community. Dyson’s rearticulation of Obama’s identity as Pharaoh

demonstrates how metaphoric shifts function in rhetoric to alter perspectives and to

advance agendas within various sociopolitical contexts. By identifying Obama as

Pharaoh, Dyson created a discursive space for African Americans to exercise the

prophetic forms of political engagement that characterized the Civil Rights Movement.

He also removed Obama’s status as divinely legitimized by characterizing him as

Pharaoh. His use of the Exodus demonstrates the importance of dominant cultural

metaphors in articulating, negotiating, and debating various views and perspectives in the

public square.
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From Dyson’s standpoint, Obama’s status as a deliverer in the Exodus/prophetic

tradition was of great danger to the African American community. In the original Exodus

story, Moses had the opportunity chose between political leadership as king of Egypt and

prophetic leadership as God’s prophet to Israel. His decision to choose the prophetic

over the political is hailed throughout the Scriptures as to be a prophetic leader over a

political leader:

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's

daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy

the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth

than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. (Hebrews 11:24-26)

His decision to side with Israel was hailed as the right decision because God was on the

side of the oppressed.

This anecdote from the original Exodus highlights the danger that leaders such as

Smiley, West, and Dyson perceived in Obama’s identity as a prophetic deliverer. Obama

had chosen political leadership instead of prophetic leadership. To hail him as a

prophetic deliverer while he occupied political spaces restricted the Black community

from holding him accountable to the sacred values of the prophetic tradition. As long as

Israel failed to recognize the difference between Pharaoh and Moses, there was no way to

exit freedom because that would mean granting prophetic status to the very one

reinforcing structures of oppression in society. The task that these African American

activists are undertaking is one restricting Obama’s identity within the Black community

as a means of generating steady pressure on Obama to be true to the sacred values that he

claims to espouse.
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CHAPTER 10. CONCLUSION

10.1 Unit One: Interrogating the Metaphoric Uses of the Exodus

Obama’s election was celebrated as the dawn of a new day in the African American

community (Drash, 2009). He was viewed as the heir of King’s prophetic legacy with the

mission of finishing the work left undone during the Civil Rights Movement. However, not all

celebrated Obama as the prophetic leader destined to lead African Americans into the Promised

Land of freedom, justice, and equality. In this dissertation, I have analyzed how Obama and

others framed his candidacy and election in relationship to the Civil Rights Movement through

metaphoric uses of the Exodus.

Within the context of individual and collective life, metaphors function as “interpretive

frameworks” (Smith & Eisenberg, 1987, p. 368). As interpretive frameworks, metaphors are

laced with epistemological, ontological, and axiological commitments. That is, metaphors tell

people what they know, who they are, and what they believe. Certain metaphors become useful

as interpretive frameworks in a wide variety of sociopolitical contexts. Michael Osborn (1967)

has called these “archetypal metaphors.” Archetypal metaphors function across cultural,

generational, and political boundaries. They are (re)articulated within different contexts as

interpretive frameworks, albeit with different meanings. The Exodus story has functioned

archetypically throughout American history as a key interpretive framework within the context

of migrations, revolutions, and elections (Feiler, 2009). While the Exodus is a narrative and not

an individual metaphor, I have treated the Exodus as an interpretive framework from which

individual details become metaphors that operate within historical and contemporary American

discourse.
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This project builds on previous research on metaphor, the prophetic tradition, and

constitutive rhetoric by examining the differences between King’s uses of the Exodus and

Obama’s. Obama’s rhetorical uses of the Exodus suggest ideological solidarity with

Martin Luther King, Jr. in ways that do not materialize in Obama’s policy agenda.

Specifically, Obama’s uses of the story are inconsistent with King’s. Obama’s uses of

the Exodus demonstrate the potential for archetypal metaphors to evolve in meaning over

time, to be co-opted in different sociopolitical contexts, and to structure frameworks that

(de)legitimize various political agendas.

10.2 Unit Two: The Exodus, Prophetic Tradition, & African American Rhetorical

History

Throughout American history, the Exodus has been a crucial source of sense-

making. Whether it was English settlers crossing the ocean to the New World, Mormons

migrating West in search of religious freedom, or even American-Jewish comic book

writers developing the Superman series, the Exodus has served the rhetorical needs of

people in a wide variety of contexts (Bennett, 2009; Bercovitch, 1978; Feiler, 2009). The

uses of the narrative extend beyond any one historical context or people group (Feiler,

2009). This project concentrates on the ways that the Exodus has been utilized

metaphorically in the African American community. In unit two, I problematize African

American uses of the Exodus. While scholars recognize the frequent and consistent uses

of the Exodus (Glaude, Jr., 2000; Long, 1997; Mintz & Price, 1997; Raboteau, 1994),

few have explored the origins of African American uses of the narrative. Since slavery,

the Exodus has arguably been the most important story in the African American

community (Feiler, 2009; Glaude, Jr., 2000; Raboteau, 1994). Therefore, understanding
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how the narrative has been utilized metaphorically in discourse provides key insight into

the epistemological, ontological, and axiological commitments that shape social life in

the community.

A variety of historical, social, and cultural conditions fostered widespread

adoption of the narrative as an interpretive framework to view the world during slavery.

Given the frequent uses of Christian doctrine to justify the institution of slavery, there is

little reason expect slaves to turn to a popular Christian story to make sense of their

world. Yet in a nation that told them they were less than human, that God intended for

them to be slaves, and that continuing in slavery was their ultimate destiny, African

slaves found the resources in the Exodus to establish collective identity as God’s

children, to develop political agency as agents of God’s divine will, and to anticipate a

future in which they would be treated as equals in the nation of their enslavement.

African slaves drew on the narrative’s various elements metaphorically as a crucial

source of identity, political agency, and purpose. To slaves, the Exodus offered hope of a

Promised Land in which they would be free and treated with equality.

Besides demonstrating the roots of African American uses of the Exodus, this

project also has explored the relationship between the Exodus and the emergence of the

African American prophetic tradition. The prophetic tradition is a theologically

influenced political ideology based on the premise that God sides with the oppressed in

the society just like he sided with the Israelites against Egyptian imperialism (Darsey,

1999). The tradition views justice, freedom, and equality as sacred values to be defended

in society. These values serve as the foundation for a righteous society (Heschel, 2010).

As a rhetorical genre, the prophetic tradition operates as a societal call to repentance.

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That is, prophetic voices operate within sociopolitical contexts to call society to readopt

sacred values that have been forgotten or ignored. Within the context of the Civil Rights

Movement, King sought to argue that America was not being true to the values on which

the nation was built.

This dissertation has extended previous work by exploring how the rhetoric of

prophetic tradition, as first theorized by Darsey (1999), relates to the rhetoric of the

political tradition, theorized by Hariman (1995). The prophetic tradition operates from

the fringes of society as the counterpart of the political tradition. The prophetic tradition

seeks to hold political structures accountable to the exercise of power, whereas political

structures seek to maintain power in society. The prophetic tradition measures a

politician’s accountability by his or her consistency with the sacred values of that

particular society. For example, the values found in the Declaration of Independence and

the Constitution operate as sacred values in America. In holding political structures

accountable, the prophetic tradition operates as an ideological counterpart to the political

tradition.

10.3 Unit Three: The Exodus, Prophetic Tradition, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Meaning within metaphor is contextual (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). That is, the

epistemological, ontological, and axiological assumptions derived from metaphors arise

from the use of the metaphor within particular historical, political, and cultural contexts.

Therefore, as Smith and Eisenberg (1987) argued, meaning within metaphor evolves in a

dynamic manner. The intersecting relationship between metaphor, meaning, and context

explains why different groups appropriate the Exodus in vastly different manners. Over

time, the initial attraction that slaves experienced toward the narrative evolved into stable
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relationship where the Exodus served as the foundation for a dominant mode of political

agency in the community known as the prophetic tradition. Drawing on the Exodus as an

interpretive framework, the prophetic tradition taught that God was opposed to modern

forms of oppression such as segregation and would eventually liberate the oppressed

(Darsey, 1999). The tradition was not inherently religious, as many non-believers

adopted prophetic stances, but the assumptions of the tradition were drawn largely from

religious sources (Chappell, 2005). The political agency that the Exodus equipped

African Americans with was most clearly manifest during the Civil Rights Movement

with Martin Luther King, Jr. as exemplar. His willingness to speak truth to power, to

stand against oppression, and to give his life in defense of what he considered to be

sacred values position him in the African American imagination as a powerful example

of the prophetic tradition in action (King, 1986; Safi, 2012; West, 2011).

To King, the Exodus was the heart of his prophetic pulse. That is, the story of

Moses leading the children of Israel through the wilderness shaped King’s outlook on the

movement, as evidenced by his rhetoric (Selby, 2008). His use of the Exodus revealed a

dialectical perspective of history that structured his understanding of nature of political

agency in the present. History, from King’s reading of the Exodus, did not naturally

progress towards a more just and equitable society. Rather, the disruptive practices of

prophetic voices rejecting oppressive status quos put society on the pathway to a future

Promised Land. Therefore, the past, from King’s perspective, placed responsibility on

people in the present to intercede on behalf of the oppressed as means of transforming the

future.
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The interpretive framework of the Exodus influenced the scope of King’s

prophetic concern. Unlike some of his contemporaries who limited their focus to the

affairs of the colored peoples of the world, King (1965) drew on the Exodus to express

concern for all humanity, the oppressed and the oppressors. While his fundamental

objective was to root out oppression, he stated that his goal within an American context

was not to “defeat or humiliate the White man, but to win his friendship and

understanding” (para. 34). The Promised Land, according to King, was not a place where

equality prospered apart from integration. Instead, King viewed the Promised Land as a

Beloved Community where people of different backgrounds embraced one another in a

spirit of humanity. Rooting out oppression was a necessary prerequisite to this dream

becoming a reality. That is, the sacred values of the prophetic tradition had to be

affirmed before the sacred blessings of the Promised Land could be realized.

During the Civil Rights Movement, King’s pursuit of the Promised Land

materialized in the form of protest politics characterized by nonviolent marches, sit-ins,

and boycotts (Branch, 1989, 1999, 2006; Chappell, 2005). While these forms of political

agency dominated the landscape of the Civil Rights Movement, the political arm of the

prophetic tradition was not limited to them. In his reading of the Exodus, as I explored in

chapter six, King understood that different stages of the journey to the Promised Land

call for different forms of political activism. The political vision he articulated in his uses

of the Exodus was not a relic of a particular historical context but a political strategy of

liberation designed to adapt to an ever-changing sociopolitical context. From this

standpoint, King’s political vision for America was not limited in relevance to the Civil
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Rights Movement. Instead, it continues to be relevant for a nation in pursuit of the

Promised Land.

The chapters of unit three highlighted the nature of King’s commitment to the

prophetic tradition as revealed through his uses of the Exodus. Specifically, I highlighted

the fact that King’s uses of the Exodus suggested that history called those in the present

to disrupt structures of oppression in society, that the children of Israel he was leading to

the Promised Land encompassed all people, and that the prophetic tradition was not

limited in influence to a particular context but was a guiding ideology apart from

particular manifestations of political agency. That is, the prophetic tradition to King was

a Theo-political ideology rooted in the Exodus that viewed God as siding with the

oppressed (Thurman, 1949). The mission of the prophet was to proclaim freedom to the

oppressed and call an unjust society to repentance (Heschel, 2010). For King, the sacred

values that served as the basis of his societal call to repentance came from the Exodus

and America’s foundational documents. From the standpoint of the prophetic tradition,

sacred values served as the locus of power in society (Darsey, 1999). That is, the

strength of society depended on adherence to or rejection of sacred values.

10.4 Unit Four: Obama as an Extension of King’s Prophetic Legacy

King’s prophetic commitment as articulated in his metaphoric uses of the Exodus

is the foundation, then, for the heart of my analysis: contrasting King’s uses of the

Exodus with Obama’s. Obama’s use of the Exodus suggests solidarity with King’s

prophetic legacy that exists in language alone. During a 2008 debate in the Democratic

primary, the panelists asked the three candidates (Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John
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Edwards) if they thought that Dr. King would endorse their candidacies. Obama’s

response is telling provides a useful frame for this unit:

I don't think Dr. King would endorse any of us. I think what he would call upon

the American people to do is to hold us accountable, and this goes to the core

differences, I think, in this campaign. I believe change does not happen from the

top down. It happens from the bottom up. Dr. King understood that. (qtd. in CNN,

2008)

In his response, Obama suggested that King’s commitment to the prophetic tradition was

focused on accountability, not endorsing candidates for office. However, in the speeches

that I analyze, Obama positions himself with an implied endorsement from King through

his metaphoric uses of the Exodus. His appropriation of the Exodus contradicts his

statement that King would not endorse his candidacy.

At Selma, Obama (2007) utilized the Exodus to position himself as Joshua to

King’s Moses. In the Old Testament, Moses died before he was able to lead the children

of Israel in to the Promised Land, leaving Joshua to complete the unfinished work. By

situating himself as Joshua, Obama proclaims himself as the anointed [bureaucratic]

prophet ordained to complete the work that King and the rest of the Moses Generation

had left undone. His articulation of the Moses-Joshua connection served two primary

purposes. It situated him and his candidacy as an extension of King’s prophetic legacy.

In addition, it legitimized the fact that he, as a politician, was completely different than

King, as a minister—it provided an explanation, if not an excuse, for him to be less than

transformational as a leader. During the Civil Rights Movement, the most prominent

leaders were non-elected members of the clergy (Morris, 1984). Obama did not fit this
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mold at all. Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness.

Joshua faced a completely different task in leading the people on a military campaign of

the Promised Land. In using Joshua’s character metaphorically, he was able to argue that

the differences in his task required a different type of leadership than that required of

King. His metaphoric use of the Exodus at Selma allowed him to position himself as the

legitimate heir to King’s prophetic legacy, while accounting for the numerous differences

that limited his appeal in the African American community. For Obama, the Exodus was

a means of introducing an interpretive framework in which he could be received with

legitimacy in the community.

Obama’s use of the Exodus did not only allow him to argue for his legitimacy as

an heir of King’s prophetic legacy. It also allowed him to rearticulate sacred values in a

manner consistent with the competing demands of political expediency. That is, Obama

utilized the Exodus to accommodate ideological differences within his broad-based

coalition, apart from the rigid commitments typical of the prophetic tradition. Obama’s

coalition depended on his ability to transcend traditional racial battlegrounds. However,

many issues such as economic, educational, and health disparities still operated along the

lines of race in society. This is not to say that African Americans or Hispanics were the

only ones who faced economic, education, or health issues. Rather, these groups faced

them disproportionately. From the standpoint of King’s prophetic tradition, Obama must

speak forcefully against dominant power structures in society that supported various

forms of oppression. Speaking truth to power was a key value of the prophetic tradition.

But speaking truth to power threatened to dismantle Obama’s coalition, which (in order

to be victorious) had to include people in powerful positions. In this chapter, I drew on

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postmodern theory to argue that Obama utilized the Exodus to rearticulate the values of

the prophetic tradition in a way that did not threaten the diversity of his political coalition

by emphasizing change or “sin” that might be controversial or divisive.

Contrasting King’s use of the Exodus with Obama’s reveals several differences.

King used the Exodus as shorthand for a prophetic tradition that led him to challenge

dominant power structures in society as a means of establishing a more just and equitable

society. References to the Exodus dominated King’s rhetoric from the beginning of his

career to his untimely death (Selby, 2008). In short, the Exodus in conjunction with the

prophetic tradition provided the essential interpretive framework from which King

operated. While I cannot pretend to know Obama’s thought processes in deploying the

narrative, his uses of the Exodus appear to be strategic in securing the support of the

African American community and integrating them into his broad based coalition. That

is, Obama uses the Exodus for political gain instead of prophetic intent. For example,

poverty levels in minority communities during Obama’s first term were higher than they

were during the Civil Rights Movement (Tough, 2012). From the president who has

metaphorically positioned himself as the inheritor of King’s prophetic legacy, one would

expect the president to speak out against poverty and other forms of oppression more

forcefully. But Obama has been uncharacteristically silent for one who claims to be a

contemporary Joshua. The original Joshua, while a different type of leader than Moses,

remained committed to the sacred values of the prophetic tradition inherited from Moses,

even to the point of threatening to separate from those who failed to adopt the same

values:
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And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will

serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the

gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we

will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15)

The absence of critical dialogue concerning poverty from the Obama White House has

been noted by the media and by observers of the African American community (F. C.

Harris, 2012a, 2012b; H. R. Harris, 2010b; Smiley & West, 2012; Tough, 2012; West,

2011).

In the absence of critical dialogue concerning the issues that were at the very heart

of King’s use of the Exodus, Obama co-opts the prophetic legacy of King as a means of

reinforcing his legitimacy and identity in the African American community. In chapter

nine, I explored how this identity was perceived by contemporary African American

leaders such as Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Michael Eric Dyson as a threat to the

prophetic legacy of King (Gitell, 2008; Smiley, 2013; West, 2011).

Prior to concluding this project with a brief afterword, I need to raise an important

issue in this final section. I have argued that Obama’s use of Exodus is actually

inconsistent with the prophetic legacy of King. However, this argument is built on the

assumption that it is possible for Obama, a politician, to engage in the kind of prophetic

tradition articulated by King. King (activist/prophet) and Obama (bureaucrat/politician)

occupy fundamentally different offices that are in tension rather than being

complementary. That is, the prophet seeks to hold the politician accountable to the

exercise of power in society. Is it possible for Obama to occupy both of these offices

simultaneously? The role of the prophet is to critique powers and hold them accountable
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(Darsey, 1999; Heschel, 2010). From this standpoint, I concede that it is not possible for

Obama to occupy the same prophetic stances as King. Politicians and prophets hold

different commitments and receive their authority from different sources, as I argued in

chapter three. Yet, it is possible for politicians to have what I call “prophetic moments.”

I define “prophetic moments” as times in which politicians respond to prophetic voices

by fighting for policies that emerge from prophetic urgency, not political calculation.

Examples of prophetic moments include when Abraham Lincoln, for a complicated set of

reasons, set southern slaves (not even a bloc of voters) free (Oakes, 2008). Lyndon B.

Johnson’s support of the Selma March and delivery of the “We Shall Overcome” speech

(Branch, 1999) provides another example of what I call a prophetic moment. The

differences between prophets and politicians must be acknowledged. It is not fair to

expect Obama to be King. However, a politician, with the prophetic framework, is not

exempt from the prophet’s admonition to lead society back to sacred values that had been

forgotten. Obama’s rhetoric implies a consistency with King’s prophetic legacy that has

not been demonstrated in his policies. No, Obama as President does not occupy a

“radical” stance in society (Murphy, 2011, p. 389). However, to draw on the Exodus is to

position himself as being in harmony, even from a political standpoint, with the values of

the prophetic tradition.

Obama based his 2008 campaign on the idea of hope. Rhetorically, he utilized the

metaphor, Obama is Joshua, to position himself as an extension of King’s prophetic

legacy. To King, the prophetic tradition was a call to embrace a radical lifestyle in

defense of sacred values. This tradition motivated his willingness to endure social

ostracism, beatings, and even death. For many African Americans, Obama’s candidacy
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and election inspired hope that he would complete the journey to the Promised Land that

King began during the Civil Rights Movement. Unlike King, Obama has failed to

critically engage pressing issues such as poverty, the mass incarceration of minorities,

and continued disparities in education. To King, critical engagement with pressing social

issues was a necessary prerequisite to the realization of the “Beloved Community.” The

absence of dialogue on these issues in the age of Obama hindered the realization of

King’s prophetic dream. Thus far, Obama’s uses of the Exodus, while linguistically

similar to King’s, have failed to translate into meaningful policies that advance the

agenda of the prophetic tradition. He deployed the Exodus strategically to reinforce his

African American identity and establish his legitimacy as a bureaucratic prophet.

Unfortunately, his uses of the Exodus have not served as evidence of a deeper prophetic

commitment that materialized in policies designed to combat contemporary forms of

oppression.

Despite the unrealized dreams, hope is not lost. My argument is that Obama has

failed to live up to the prophetic identity that he has created for himself through

metaphoric uses of the Exodus, not that he is unable to fulfill his prophetic potential. For

Obama to reach his prophetic potential, prophetic voices must consistently hold him

accountable to the legacy that he claims to represent as a means of generating prophetic

moments in which he listens to the call and advocates for policies consistent with the

prophetic tradition. This project has been an attempt to highlight disconnect between

King and Obama from a prophetic standpoint with the goal of opening a discursive space

to hold the president accountable to the sacred values of the prophetic tradition. There is

prophetic potential in the idea of a Joshua to succeed Moses; after all, the culmination of
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the Exodus was not Moses going to the mountaintop and seeing the Promised Land—it

was the actual possession of the land, led by Joshua. But for Obama to truly take on the

mantle of Joshua, to legitimately claim the legacy of the Exodus and King, the substance

of the prophetic tradition, and not just the language, must guide the oppressed,

marginalized, the voiceless, to the Promised Land.

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AFTERWORD: THE RHETORICAL (IN)ADEQUACIES OF THE PROMISED LAND

Now Joshua was old and advanced in years,

And the LORD said to him,
“You are old and advanced in years,
And there remains yet very much land to possess.”
Joshua 13:1

In his article on Obama’s use of the Exodus, Murphy (2011) argued that Obama’s

“discourse induces us to examine anew the possibilities offered by the Exodus” (p. 389).

This brief afterword is an attempt to offer a starting point for this undertaking. Within

the wide variety of sociopolitical contexts, the Exodus has been utilized as a metaphoric

interpretive framework at several crucial points in American history (Bennett, 2009;

Boyarin, 1992; Feiler, 2009; Glaude, Jr., 2000). Metaphoric uses of the Exodus

constitute people individually and collectively within the broader narrative framework

that the Exodus story offers. By that, I mean that it positions people with the framework

of the story toward a certain end. When King constituted African Americans as the

children of Israel in his rhetoric, he was positioning them to pursue the Promised Land.

Narrative frameworks, according to Charland (1987), position people with an expected

end and the opportunity within the framework to pursue closure.

The Promised Land of Canaan, in the Old Testament, was a divine gift to Israel.

It was described as “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 33:3). God promised
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Abraham, the patriarch of Israel, that his descendants would receive it over 500 years

prior to the actual Exodus (Genesis 13:14-17). God used the appeal of the Promised

Land to recruit Moses to lead Israel (Exodus 3:17). When Israel rebelled against God,

Moses used the promise of bringing Israel into the Promised Land to call on God to avert

his wrath (Exodus 32:13). In addition, the prophet drew on the splendor associated with

the Promised Land to call Israel to be faithful to God (Deuteronomy 6:3). The frequent

uses of the Promised Land position it as the central goal of the Exodus in the Old

Testament.

Metaphoric uses of the Exodus continue the tradition of privileging the Promised

Land as the goal to be reached. Within rhetoric it is linked with the primary goal of the

struggle. For example, English settlers identified America as a contemporary Promised

Land (Bercovitch, 1978). Mormon settlers migrated west in search of a new Promised

Land (Bennett, 2009). African slaves imagined the Promised Land as a reality free of the

constraints of their enslavement (Glaude, Jr., 2000; Raboteau, 1994). Rhetorical uses of

the Exodus within these contexts offered subjects hope that if they followed the

prescribed course of action, they would reach the Promised Land as it had been

configured within that interpretive framework. Scholars across disciplines have affirmed

the rhetorical utility of the Exodus and Promised Land in constituting people with a sense

of identity, political agency, and purpose (Feiler, 2009; Glaude, Jr., 2000; Hanson, 1996;

Raboteau, 1994; Walzer, 1986). That is, the narrative was powerful in shaping the

consciousness of people within various sociopolitical contexts.

Despite the power assumed to be associated with visions of the Promised Land, I

question its rhetorical adequacy. In particular, I argue that existing scholarship on uses of
 223

the Exodus has overlooked a fundamental inadequacy of the narrative: Israel never fully

accomplished the goals of the Exodus in relationship to the Promised Land. The

narrative promises much but does not actually offer subjects closure in the completion of

a goal. Rather, it offers them a framework of promises left unrealized. In a sense, using

the Exodus narrative metaphorically to position people to take possession of a metaphoric

Promised Land is like using the phrase “Remember the Alamo” to predict a military

victory. This reality is not supported by the narrative. Based on the original Exodus, I

will offer three reasons why the “Promised Land” metaphor of the narrative might be

surprisingly inadequate.

11.1 Israel’s Failure to Capture the Promised Land Completely

When Israel embarked on its military campaign of the Promised Land, there were

many notable military victories against enemies at Jericho (Joshua 6), Ai (Joshua 8), and

Gibeon (Joshua 10). However, Joshua, at his advanced age in the book, was unable to

lead the people to total victory in the Promised Land. Toward the end of his life, Joshua

allots the rest of the land to the people with the command to be faithful in taking

possession of the land (Joshua 13:1-7; 23:4-5). However, this never happened. The book

of Judges (follows Joshua) records Israel’s failure to take possession of the land (Judges

1:27-36). Their failure to take possession of the Promised Land led to the second reason

for the rhetorical inadequacy of the narrative. The original land that God promised to

Israel was much greater than the land that they were actually able to capture during the

military campaign in Canaan. In fact, the whole second half of the book of Joshua is

dedicated to highlighting all of the land that Israel failed to secure.

 224

11.2 The Promised Land Required Constant Obedience to Sacred Values

God’s blessing was dependent on Israel’s obedience to him. When Israel failed to

take possession of the whole land or to drive out completely the people in that land, they

began to grow discontent with serving their God, becoming attracted to those of the

nations around them. This rebellion, according to the Old Testament account, resulted in

God punishing them with foreign enslavement (Joshua 2:1-15). And so the Promised

Land did not turn out to be the glorious utopia that it was envisioned to be when the

children of Israel first departed from Egypt. The dreams in the “land of milk and honey”

were not realized due to the inability to take possession of the land and the people’s

failure to be faithful in the land that they did occupy.

11.3 The Failures of the Past Necessitated a New Deliverer

Throughout the remainder of the Old Testament, Israel constantly repeated the

cycle of deliverance, disobedience, and bondage. That is, the people were constantly

looking for a Moses-like deliverer to deliver them from bondage. Upon being delivered

from bondage, they would eventually disobey again and end up back where they started.

From this standpoint, the idea of the Exodus was not linear, but cyclical. It did not offer

closure; rather, it offered a new beginning destined to result in a new kind of bondage.

Every failed attempt to take possession of the Promised Land (or be true to its agreement

or covenant) necessitated a new quest.

11.4 Articulating the Inadequacies of the Exodus

Despite its status as one of the most frequently utilized narratives within

American culture (Feiler, 2009), its usefulness may well be limited due to the

inadequacies present in the interpretive framework that the story offers. People like King
 225

have used it effectively to equip African Americans with political agency, but the

narrative does not offer closure to those constituted within its framework. The Promised

Land was never secured in its entirety. What the children of Israel did secure was not

maintained. The inability to maintain it then necessitated new Exoduses—not just a

Joshua generation, but deliverers like Gideon (Judges 6), Ehud (Judges 3:12-30),

Sampson (Judges 13-16), and Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1). Though the Exodus had a happy

ending, it was a happy ending tempered by its incompletion and short duration. King

(1968) cemented his status as the preeminent civil rights leader of his generation with his

legendary Mountaintop address the night before he died. But for all its power, this

speech highlights the rhetorical inadequacies of the narrative. The basic point that he

argued in the speech is that he, as a leader, had been unable to lead them into the

Promised Land. He argued that they would eventually get to the Promised Land.

However, this is no different than Moses. Prior to his death, he argued with full

confidence that the children of Israel would eventually take full possession of the

Promised Land (Deuteronomy 30:1-31:8). Yet the children of Israel never did take full

possession of the Promised Land, nor were they able to maintain what they did secure.

The numerous uses of the Exodus in society demonstrate the utility of the narrative in

constituting subjects with hope and purpose. However, when it comes to the interpretive

framework for hope to be realized and purposes to be accomplished, the Exodus is

inadequate. Murphy (2011) was right in suggesting that contemporary uses of the

Exodus should lead rhetorical scholars to reexamine the implications of its use. I offer

this afterword as an initial inquiry in this reexamination process. While he maintained a

skeptical outlook on religion, Langston Hughes’ poem “Promised Land” best illustrates
 226

my argument on the rhetorical inadequacy of the narrative. I conclude this project with

his words.

The Promised Land

Is always just ahead.
You will not reach it
Ere you’re dead.

But your children’s children

By their children will be led
To a spot from which the Land –
Still lies ahead.
(Hughes, 1994, p. 592)
 227

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 244

VITA

Theon E. Hill
Brian Lamb School of Communication
Purdue University

Education
Ph.D. (in progress) Purdue University, ABD, Ph.D. anticipated May 2013.
Brian Lamb School of Communication
Major Area: Rhetoric & Social Change
Minor Areas: Organizational Leadership & Communication
The Sociology of Social Movements
Dissertation Title: In search of the Promised Land: Tracing the
evolution of the Exodus in African American rhetoric
GPA: 3.95
Prospectus Defended: February 28th, 2012
Advisor: Josh Boyd
Committee Members: Cornel West, Sam McCormick, Stacey
Connaughton, and Beverly Davenport Sypher.

M.A. Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC

Division of Communication
Major Area: Rhetoric & Public Address
Minor Area: Health Care Reform Rhetoric
Thesis Topic: Finding the missing thread: Reforming the American
health care system
Advisor: Jeanine Aumiller
Degree Awarded: May 2009
GPA: 4.0

B.A. Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC

Major: Religious Studies
Minor: Composite Speech
Degree Awarded: May 2007
 245

Honors: magna cum laude

GPA: 3.8

Academic Appointments
Graduate Lecturer, Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University, Dec. 2011
– present
¾ Served as the primary instructor and assistant for various course offerings within
the Lamb School of Communication. The lecturer appointment is conferred upon
the completion of doctoral preliminary exams.
Graduate Coordinator, Project Impact, Purdue University, Dec. 2011 – Sept. 2012
¾ Assisted former U.S. Ambassador, Presidential speechwriter, and NY Times
Political Editor Carolyn Curiel in her Purdue Initiative, Project Impact. This
initiative strives to foster engagement between Purdue students and the American
political system.
¾ Responsibilities included organizing visits for various VIPs who spoke at Purdue
about various aspects of American politics, leading marketing efforts for these
political forums, supervising Project Impact’s student planning committee
composed of 15 undergraduate students, and contributing to curriculum
development for and helping to execute a two week practicum for undergraduate
students in Washington, D.C. hosted by C-SPAN.
Assistant Course Director, Fundamentals of Presentational Speaking, Brian Lamb School
of Communication, Purdue University, Aug. 2011 – present
¾ Served as the assistant course director of a class that approximately 6,000 students
take every year.
¾ Responsibilities include training new teaching assistants, curriculum
development, mentoring new TAs who struggle in the classroom, and dealing
with student-teacher conflicts.
Teaching Assistant, Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University, Aug.
2009 – Dec. 2011
¾ Served as the primary instructor and assistant for various course offerings within
the Lamb School of Communication.
Research Assistant, College of Engineering, Purdue University, Jan. 2011 – July 2011
¾ Served as a research assistant as part of an interdisciplinary effort to design and
implement a new web-based diversity certificate program for faculty, staff, and
graduate students in the College of Engineering.
¾ My responsibilities included researching existing diversity training programs in
higher education, designing diversity training modules, and exploring options for
the electronic delivery of training modules.
 246

Teaching Assistant, Division of Communication, Bob Jones University, Aug. 2007 –

May 2009
¾ Served as the primary instructor for three sections per semester of the basic
speech course.

Research Interests:
I have broad interests in social movements, political communication, and religious
rhetoric. Specially, I am interested in studying historical and contemporary uses of
rhetoric within various social, political, and religious movements to constitute ideology,
(de)construct reality, legitimize, and pursue collective identity. My research focuses on
movements dealing with issues of social justice, race/ethnicity, public policy, and
religion.

Research
Refereed publications
Hill, T. E., & Holyoak, I. C. (2011). Dialoguing difference in joint ethnographic research:
Reflections on religion, sexuality, and race. Cultural Studies<=>Critical
Methodologies 11(2): 187-194.

Clair, R. P., Holyoak, I., Hill, T. E., Rajan, P., Angeli, L. L., Carrion, M. L., Dillard, S.,
Kumar, R., Sastry, S. (2011). Engaging cultural narratives of the ethnic restaurant:
Discursive practices of hybridity, authenticity, and commoditization. Studies in
Symbolic Interaction 37: 135-161.

Submitted Manuscripts
Hill, T. E. (under review). From Tragedy to Comedy: A Pentadic Analysis Contrasting
Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Reform Rhetoric from 1993-1994 and the 2008
Presidential Campaign. Submitted to B. Crable (Ed.), Transcendence by
perspective: Honoring the work of Kenneth Burke.

Manuscripts in Preparation
Hill, T. E. (in preparation). Reflexivity and the Prophetic Tradition. Manuscript to be
submitted to Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.

Hill, T. E. (in preparation). Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dialectical view of history & the
struggle for civil rights. Manuscript to be submitted to Philosophy & Rhetoric.

Hill, T. E. (in preparation). Deconstructing Constantinian Christianity: A postcolonial

analysis of Romans 2. Manuscript to be submitted to the Journal of
Communication and Religion.
 247

Hill, T. E. (in preparation). Jesus is integrated: Root metaphors of Civil Rights Movement
rhetoric. Manuscript to be submitted to the Quarterly Journal of Speech.

Hill, T. E. (in preparation). (Re)articulating difference: Constitutive rhetoric, Christian

identity, and discourses of race as biology. Manuscript to be submitted to Rhetoric
& Public Affairs.

Hill, T. E. (in preparation). True believers: Legitimacy and American fundamentalism.

Manuscript to be submitted to the Southern Journal of Communication.

Hill, T. E. (in preparation). Two men, two movements: Collective action and brokerage in
the SCLC and the Billy Graham Crusades. Manuscript to be submitted to
Mobilization.

Convention papers
Hill, T. E. (Accepted). GIFTS: Teaching students the process of theory building. Paper
under review for presentation at the 2013 convention of the International
Communication Association, London, England.

Hill, T. E. (2012, November). Jesus is integrated: Root-metaphors of Civil Rights

Movement rhetoric. Paper to be presented at the 98th annual convention of the
National Communication Association, Orlando, FL.

Hill, T. E. (2012, November). Maintaining a voice: The fight for legitimacy in American
fundamentalism. Paper to be presented at the 98th annual convention of the
National Communication Association, Orlando, FL.

Hill, T. E. (2012, November). Constitution at the intersections of identity negotiation and

ideological interpellation. Paper to be presented at the 98th annual convention of
the National Communication Association, Orlando, FL.

Hill, T. E. (2012, November). Prophet as cultural critic: The prophetic tradition in

rhetorical theory. Paper to be presented at the 98th annual convention of the
National Communication Association, Orlando, FL.

Hill, T. E. (2012, November). Effective style: Teaching students to capture the power of
language. Paper to be presented at the 98th annual convention of the National
Communication Association, Orlando, FL.
 248

Hill, T. E. (2011, November). (Re)articulating difference: Constitutive rhetoric, Christian

identity, and discourses of race as biology. Paper presented at the 97th annual
convention of the National Communication Association, New Orleans, LA.

Hill, T. E., & Holyoak, I. C. (2010, November). Teaming with the ‘other’: An
autoethnography of field research. Paper presented at the 96th annual convention
of the National Communication Association, San Francisco, CA.

Sastry, S., Angeli, E., Carrion, M., Dillard, S., Hill, T., Holyoak, I., & Kumar, R. (2010,
March). Engaging culture through food: An ethnographic study of community
identity in ethnic restaurants. Paper presented at the 12th Annual Chicago
Ethnography Conference hosted by DePaul University, Chicago, IL.

Hill, T. E. (2010, March). Constitution at the intersections of identity negotiation and

ideological interpellation. Paper presented at the 1st annual convention of the
Communication Student Government Association hosted by Purdue University,
West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2008, June). Triumph over tragedy: A pentadic analysis contrasting Hillary
Clinton’s health care reform rhetoric from the 1993-1994 campaign and 2008
presidential campaign. Paper presented at the 7th Triennial Conference of the
Kenneth Burke Society hosted by Villanova University, Villanova, PA.

Professional Presentations/Workshops/Lectures
Hill, T. E. (2013, March). Living with meaning during the college years. A keynote
lecture delivered at the induction ceremony for Alpha Lambda Delta Phi Eta
Sigma National Honors Society at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, November). (De)constructing race: Root metaphors on difference. An

invited lecture delivered at Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL.

Hill, T. E. (2012, November). The rhetoric of equality. An invited lecture to

undergraduate students in the class Messages, Influence, and Culture at Wheaton
College, Wheaton, IL.

Hill, T. E. (2012, October). Preparing students in the freshman course for successful
group presentations. A training workshop for new teaching assistants in the Brian
Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
 249

Hill, T. E. (2012, September). Insight into graduate student life at Purdue University. An
invited presentation to the advisory board for the Brian Lamb School of
Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, September). Effective communication for the emerging professional.

An invited lecture to student interns in the College of Health and Human Sciences
at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, September). Teaching students how to select strong topics in the basic
freshman course. A training workshop for new teaching assistants in the Brian
Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, September). Effectively handling special speaking situations. An

invited lecture to students in the class Advanced Public Speaking at Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, August). How to handle the first day of class. A training workshop for
new teaching assistants in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, August). Utilizing active learning techniques in the classroom. A

training workshop for new teaching assistants in the Brian Lamb School of
Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, August). Effective classroom management. A training workshop for

new teaching assistants the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, August). How to introduce your first speech assignment. A training
workshop for new teaching assistants in the Brian Lamb School of
Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, April). Communicating perspectives on the economy in the 2012

presidential election. An invited lecture to undergraduate students in the class
Politics, Media, and the 2012 Election at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
 250

Hill, T. E. (2012, April). Communicating health care reform: Competing approaches.

An invited lecture delivered to undergraduate students in the class Politics, Media,
and the 2012 Election at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, March). Communicating information technology to university faculty.

An invited lecture to information technology employees in the College of Liberal
Arts at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, March). Social media, communication, and the 2012 election. An
invited lecture delivered to undergraduate students in the class Politics, Media,
and 2012 Election at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2012, February). Effective communication for the emerging professional. An

invited lecture to student interns in the College of Health and Human Sciences at
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2011, October). Race, religion, and rhetoric. An invited lecture delivered to
undergraduate mass media students in the Brian Lamb School of Communication
at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2011, September). Critical and rhetorical theories of communication. An

invited lecture delivered to undergraduate students in the class Introduction to
Communication Theory in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2011, September). Identity: Rhetorical and critical approaches. An invited

lecture to undergraduate students in the class Introduction to Communication
Theory in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University, West
Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2011, September). Exploring the intersections of culture and communication.

An invited lecture delivered to undergraduate students in the class Intercultural
Communication in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2011, September). Effective communication for the emerging professional.

An invited lecture to student interns in the College of Health and Human Sciences
at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
 251

Hill, T. E. (2011, August). How to handle the first day of class. A training workshop for
new teaching assistants in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2011, August). Utilizing active learning techniques in the classroom. A

training workshop for new teaching assistants in the Brian Lamb School of
Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2011, August). Effective classroom management. A training workshop for

new teaching assistants in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2011, April). 4 pillars of communication for the emerging professional. An

invited lecture to graduate students at Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen,
Denmark.

Hill, T. E. (2011, February). Interdisciplinary approaches to communication research. An

invited lecture to undergraduate students at Copenhagen Business School,
Copenhagen, Denmark.

Hill, T. E. (2010, August). How to handle the first day of class. A training workshop for
new teaching assistants in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2010, May). Strategies for effective workplace communication. A

presentation to the Greater Will County Chapter of the International Association
of Administrative Professionals, Romeoville, IL.

Hill, T. E. (2010, May). Homeschooling education and public school sports. A

presentation delivered to the Minooka School Board, Minooka, IL.

Hill, T. E. (2010, March). Tracing the influence of emerging forms of media on political
communication in the 20th century. An invited lecture delivered to undergraduate
students in the class Rhetoric in the Western World in the Brian Lamb School of
Communication at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
 252

Hill, T. E. (2010, February). Jesus and the parable of the sower: A model of
communication. A lecture delivered to undergraduate students in the class
Rhetoric in the Western World in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Hill, T. E. (2009, April). Developing and accomplishing yearly goals in leadership. An

invited lecture delivered to undergraduate student leaders at Bob Jones
University, Greenville, SC.

Hill, T.E. (2008, October). Hillary Clinton, Kenneth Burke, and the unfolding drama of
health care reform in American rhetoric. An invited lecture to undergraduate
students in class Political Communication in the Division of Communication at
Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC.

Hill, T. E. (2007, September). How to effectively engage in community service during

your undergraduate years. An invited lecture during freshman orientation at Bob
Jones University, Greenville, SC.

Hill, T. E. (2007, April). Understanding and evaluating the message of hip-hop music.
An invited lecture to students at Wade Hampton High School, Greenville, SC.

Hill, T. E. (2006, September). How to effectively engage in community service during

your undergraduate years. An invited lecture during freshman orientation at Bob
Jones University, Greenville, SC.

Hill, T. E. (2005, September). How to effectively engage in community service during

your undergraduate years. An invited lecture during freshman orientation at Bob
Jones University, Greenville, SC.

Hill, T. E. (2004, November). Integrating character and athletics. An invited lecture to

student-athletes at Romeoville High School, Romeoville, IL.

Hill, T. E. (2004, September). How to effectively engage in community service during

your undergraduate years. An invited lecture during freshman orientation at Bob
Jones University, Greenville, SC.
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Professional Development
2011 National Communication Association’s Annual Doctoral Honors Seminar, North
Dakota State University, Fargo, ND.
I was competitively selected from a pool of doctoral student applicants to
participate in this annual seminar in which noted communication scholars from
around the nation gather with doctoral students to mentor them in the areas of
research, teaching, and professional development.
2009 Center for Instructional Excellence. Designing a course from scratch. A
workshop presented at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
2009 Center for Instructional Excellence. Writing effective syllabi. A workshop
presented at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
2009 Center for Instructional Excellence. Developing a solid teaching portfolio. A
workshop presented at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.

Awards and Honors

2013 H. H. Remmers Memorial Award
Each year the African American Studies and Research Center at Purdue
University recognizes an outstanding African American PhD student for
excellence in academics, professional development, and leadership potential.
2013 Committee for the Education of Teaching Assistants Teaching Award
Committee for the Education of Teaching Assistants, Purdue University, West
Lafayette, IN.
2013 Honorary Lifetime Membership, Alpha Lambda Delta National Honors Society
2013 Honorary Lifetime Membership, Phi Eta Sigma National Honors Society
2013 Pamela Cooper Award (Nominated)
Central States Communication Association
I was nominated by the Brian Lamb School of Communication for the Pamela
Cooper Award. The Cooper Award is named after former CSCA President
Pamela J. Cooper and is presented annually to one M.A. level graduate teaching
assistant and one Ph.D. level graduate teaching assistant who each demonstrate
excellence in teaching.
2013 Bruce Kendall Excellence in Teaching Award
Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University, West
Lafayette, IN.
This highly competitive award is presented annually to an outstanding graduate
instructor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication for excellence in teaching,
departmental service, and research. Award recipients are selected from a pool of
80-100 graduate students.
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2012 Top Five Paper in the Student Section

National Communication Association convention, Orlando, FL.
2012 Program of Distinction, Basic Course Division
National Communication Association convention, Orlando, FL.
The Basic Course Division of NCA recognized the Basic Program at Purdue as
one of distinction based on materials the course director and four assistant course
directors, a position I currently fill, developed and submitted to the division for
review.
2012 Alan H. Monroe Scholar, Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN.
This award is highly competitive, is indicative of excellence in scholarship, and is
awarded to relatively few graduate students each year.
2012 Nominated by the Brian Lamb School of Communication for the H. H. Remmers
Memorial Award, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
2011 Graduate certificate in Organizational Communication & Leadership from the
Department of Intercultural Communication and Management at Copenhagen
Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark.
2010 Received a Study Abroad Travel Grant for $1000 from the Office of International
Programs at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
This grant was used to fund research in organizational communication &
leadership that I completed at Copenhagen Business School.
2010 Earned the Graduate Teacher Certificate from the Center for Instructional
Excellence at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
2009 Excellence in Teaching Award
Selected by the Division of Communication as the outstanding graduate teaching
assistant at Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC.
2007 Capstone American Legion Award
Selected by the Bob Jones University administration as the outstanding graduating
senior. The award is conferred on the basis of observed character, community
service, academic excellence, and campus involvement. Bob Jones University,
Greenville, SC.
2007 Christian Character Award
This award is conferred by the university administration. It is presented annually
to six graduating seniors who exemplify outstanding character, love for others,
and excellence in campus leadership throughout their undergraduate career. Bob
Jones University, Greenville, SC.
2007 Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges
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2006/7 Elected Men’s Student Body President, Bob Jones University

I was elected by the student body as the first African American male to serve in
this position in the 80 year history of the university. Bob Jones University,
Greenville, SC.
2005 Presidential Volunteer Service Award
This award is conferred by the U.S. Government to individuals who complete
over 2,000 hours of voluntary community service with a charitable organization
recognized by the U.S. Government. I completed my 2,000 hours by mentoring
troubled youth from underprivileged backgrounds.

Teaching Experience
Courses Taught
Primary Instructor
SP 101 - Fundamentals of Speech
¾ Emphasis is placed on basic principles of public speaking. Students learn to
develop and demonstrate organizational and communication skills through the
preparation and delivery of speeches to inform, to persuade and to inspire.
COM 114 – Fundamentals of Presentational Speaking
¾ This course prepares students to effectively perform the role of the public speaker.
Toward this end, students learn principles of communication theory and how to
apply principles to the management of speaking situations both individually and
in group presentations.
COM 114H – Dean’s Scholars Learning Community Presentational Speaking
¾ This course is similar to the basic course, but learning community format allows
the instructor to customize content to meet the needs of advanced students. Also,
the instructor explores interdisciplinary opportunities to work with instructors of
other disciplines to design innovative in-class and out-of-class assignments
activities that will enhance students’ understanding and ability to utilize the
principles from the classroom in real life situations. Instructors receive a budget
from the university to support out-of-class activities for students.
COM 114Y – Fundamentals of Presentational Speaking (Distance Learning)
¾ This course is similar to the basic presentational speaking course except that it is
taught online.
COM 114BOP – Business Opportunity Program Presentational Speaking
¾ This course utilizes the basic framework of presentational speaking. However, it
is customized for incoming minority business students who are among the first in
their families to receive a college education. As this course is taught to business
students over the summer, the traditional format and assignments are redesigned
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to meet the needs of students who will make careers in business, law, sports
management, and medicine.
COM 204 – Critical Perspectives on Communication
¾ Critical Perspectives on Communication is a large lecture course of approximately
150 students. It is required of all communication majors at Purdue. The course is
divided into four units focused on critical thinking, rhetoric, qualitative methods,
and worldviews (i.e., Marxism, Modernism, Postmodernism, Feminisms, and
Race). This writing-intensive course teaches students to write a cogent and
cohesive argument about communication, distinguish among qualitative methods
of communication research, and explore relevant questions about a given sample
of communication using multiple methods and perspectives. Currently, I
supervise this course along with another Ph.D. candidate. Together, we lead class
lectures and recitation sections.
COM 314 - Advanced Presentational Speaking
¾ In this course, students build on skills gained in the basic freshman course. In
particular, students learn to identify features of engaging presentations, apply
various strategies of effectively organized presentations, improve abilities related
to presentation creation and execution, and demonstrate proficiency in evaluating
and performing presentations.
Teaching Assistant
COM 312 - Rhetoric in the Western World
¾ This course centers on major theoretical issues and philosophical concepts in the
history of rhetoric. Relationships between rhetoric and a variety of cultural and
interpersonal circumstances are explored. Teaching assistants for this course
grade written assignments, help create quizzes and tests, reinforce large lectures
during smaller recitation sections.
COM 204 - Critical Perspectives on Communication
¾ This course teaches students to write a cogent and cohesive argument about
communication, distinguish among qualitative methods of communication
research, and explore relevant questions about a given sample of communication
using multiple methods and perspectives. Teaching assistants are each
responsible for grading for 75 students in a writing intensive class.
COM 102 - Introduction to Communication Theory
¾ This course attempts to foster students’ capacity as citizens and communicators to
analyze, apply, and synthesize theories of communication and to promote
engagement in the theorizing of communication in understanding specific social
problems and in seeking to solve them. Students learn to understand the process
by which theories are developed, to critique existing theories, develop their own
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theories, and utilize theorizing in addressing social, political, and economic

problems faced within various geo-political contexts. Teaching assistants serve to
create quizzes and tests, develop lectures, and teach smaller recitation sections
that build on lecture content.
COM 495/POL 429 – Politics, Media, and the 2012 Election
¾ This course examines the relationship between politics and media in the context
of the 2012 presidential election. Coursework focuses on studying the impact of
media -- print, TV, radio and the Internet -- on political discourse, the role of
media relations in politics, the development of political messages and
communication strategies, the use and impact of paid media, viral marketing,
grassroots and constituency outreach, and the impact of political communication
techniques on democratic institutions. Teaching assistants assist with grading,
developing class lectures, and work with the professor to ensure that learning
outcome goals are met.
COM 491 – Washington, D.C Maymester
¾ This course serves to introduce undergraduate students to the workings of the
American political system. Students along with the professor and teaching
assistants journey to Washington, D.C. for two weeks. In Washington, D.C., the
class is hosted by C-SPAN, where a variety of policy makers, journalists,
government officials, and think tanks join them to discuss various policy issues.
The class also makes stops for briefings at key locations such as the White House,
State Department, Capitol Building, Supreme Court, and NY Times (Washington
Bureau). Teaching assistants assist in coordinating the class schedule, grading
student work, and handling the logistics of the practicum.

Assistant Course Director

COM 114 – Fundamentals of Presentational Speaking

Professional Service
Judge, Original Oratory, High School Festival & Preaching Conference, 2007, Bob Jones
University, Greenville, SC.
Judge, Dramatic & Narrative Literature, High School Festival & Preaching Conference,
2007, Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC.
Judge, Preaching, High School Festival & Preaching Conference, 2007, Bob Jones
University, Greenville, SC.
Judge, Humorous Interpretation, American Association of Christian Schools’ 2008
National Finals, Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC.
Judge, Original Persuasive Oratory, American Association of Christian Schools’ 2008
National Finals, Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC.
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Judge, Oral Reading of Scripture, High School Festival & Preaching Conference, 2008,
Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC.
Judge, Original Oratory, High School Festival & Preaching Conference, 2008, Bob Jones
University, Greenville, SC.
Judge, Extemporaneous Speaking, American Association of Christian Schools’ 2009
National Finals, Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC.
Judge, Debate, American Association of Christian Schools’ 2009 National Finals, Bob
Jones University, Greenville, SC.

Association Membership
Kenneth Burke Society (2007-2011)
National Communication Association (2008-present)
Southern States Communication Association (2012-present)