Ring Out Freedom The Voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement

• Main Author: Sunnemark, Fredrik
• Format: eBook
• Language: English
• Published: Bloomington Indiana University Press 2004
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: 1929-1968; 20th Century; African American Studies; African Americans; Civil rights; Civil rights movements; Discourse analysis; English language; Ethnic Studies; HISTORY; History and criticism; King, Martin Luther; Language; Oratory; Political and social views; Political aspects; Rhetoric; SOCIAL SCIENCE; Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States
• ISBN: 0253343763; 9780253343765

Martin Luther King, Jr. was more than the civil rights movement's most visible figure, he was its voice. This book describes what went into the creation of that voice. It explores how King used words to define a movement. From a place situated between two cultures of American society, King shaped the language that gave the movement its identity and meaning. Fredrik Sunnemark shows how materialistic, idealistic, and religious ways of explaining the world coexisted in King's speeches and writings. He points out the roles of God, Jesus, the church, and the Beloved Community in King's rhetoric. Sunnemark examines King's use of allusions, his strategy of employing different meanings of key ideas to speak to different members of his audience, and the way he put into play international ideas and events to achieve certain rhetorical goals. The book concludes with an analysis of King's development after 1965, examining the roots, content, and consequences of his so-called radicalization.