This is an introductory course for undergraduates on African American women's rhetoric. The corresponding website for the course is: http://blackwomenrhetproject.org

1. Black Women’s Rhetoric Project
http://blackwomenrhetproject.org

2. Imagine… it is 1968 and you could be the first
black woman who has ever been elected to
congress. What would your campaign entail?
What would you promise? How would you
convince people to believe in your capacity to
“Unbought&Unbossed”: make changes in their lives? A black woman
Learning, Researching, doing something they had never seen a black
and Thinking about Black woman do? In 1968, the Brooklyn-native and
daughter of Barbadian parents, Shirley
Women's Discourses and Chisholm, did indeed become the first black
Lives woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Her
campaign was organized around her now
famous slogan: “Fighting Shirley Chisholm---
A course taught by Unbought and Unbossed.” That slogan will be
Carmen Kynard, Ph.D. used as a kind of map for our seminar that will
guide our study of how Black women have
http://carmenkynard.org used rhetorical means in their unique struggle
to encounter, re-imagine, and transform their
worlds. In other words, what has it looked
like, sounded like, and felt like to be
“Unbought and Unbossed” for black female
poets, essayists, orators, comedians, activists,
MCs, b-girls, DJs, musicians, designers, and
artists?

3. Unit One
Rhetoric&Black
Women:
“Giving You Props,
Respect and Dignity”
In the first days, we spend
our time exploring and
framing our own definitions
of rhetoric and literate
practices in the lives of black
women.

4. Unit Two
“While the Water Is
Stirring, I Will Step
into the Pool”: 19th
Century Black
Women’s Activism
There is no better way to
introduce these weeks of
study other than to repeat the
first lines of chapter one in
Shirley Wilson Logan’s book:
19th-century African
American women were full
participants in the verbal
warfare for human dignity.

5. Unit Three
“You Done Listen to
My Story &Ev’ry-thing
Come Out True”:
Discourse, Power,
&Blueswomen
In these weeks, we will work on
listening to the blueswomen
more deeply---to the lyrics and
into the songs’ meanings. In
other words, when black
women are talking about
another man who done did ‘em
wrong, what social and political
realities are they speaking
about and into that extend far
beyond heterosexual/romantic
love? When black women get
deep and blue, what is the
world they reveal?

6. Unit Four
“Sick and Tired of
Being Sick and
Tired”:Black
Women’s Civil Rights
Movement
What we have today is a history
that has largely written black
women out of the Civil rights
Movement. But scan the historical
images of the civil rights
movement and you will SEE that
black women and little girls are
everywhere: from the protesters
being hosed down, to the sit-ins
and demonstrations by students
at historically black colleges, to
the teenagers of Little Rock Nine.
THAT history is our charge.

7. Unit Five
“Unbought and
Unbossed”: Black
Congresswomen’s
Rhetorics of Equality
and Democracy
We will spend this time
working at three points of
rhetorical study for Chisholm:
her campaign for congress,
her campaign for presidency,
and her autobiography. From
there, we will go on to the
speeches and talks by other
prominent black female
congresswomen.

8. Unit Six
“I Write to Keep in
Contact with Our
Ancestors and to
Spread Truth to the
People”: From Black
Power to Black Arts
In this week we are
connecting three points of
black women’s intellectual
and aesthetic history: the
Black Power movement, the
Black Arts Movement (BAM)
that was the sister to Black
Power, and contemporary
spoken word artists.

9. Unit Seven
“While You’re
Imitating Al Capone,
I’ll Be Nina Simone”:
Black Female MCs
and Hip Hoppers
Our intellectual and political
point of departure will come
from Marcyliena Morgan
these weeks: “hip hop
performers use discursive
strategies to transform the
notion of ‘real’ American
womanhood through public
performances that become
resources for racial and
feminist identity---and for
ongoing political
contestation.”

10. Closing
“My Soul Looks Back
in Wonder at How I
Got Ovuh”: Spirit,
Vision, and New
Futures
What we need now is some
inspiration--- a re-charge to
take us into the week of final
exams. So we will end with
black women who
deliberately use ministry to
uplift the masses.

11. To Visit the Course Website:
http://blackwomenrhetproject.org
To Visit Carmen Kynard’s Personal Website:
http://carmenkynard.org
Contact: blackwomenrhetproject@gmail.com