The sources I use for this study are primarily those written by Martin. This is particularly the case since there is limited scholarly attention to him. Martin certainly began writing before the 1930s when his first published texts become available. His writings continue until 1994 and cover civil rights progress in America. While my study is focused mainly on his speeches, his articles and editorials also provide contextual information relevant to my study.
1.2.1 Written Words
Louis Martin was a highly productive journalist. Martin began his writing career early, starting his high school newspaper, and continued to perfect his talent writing for other
publications, including the Savannah Journal, the Michigan Chronicle, the Chicago Defender, as well as scholarly journals and publications released by national organizations such as the
NAACP. These texts are remarkable not only for their content but also for their decidedly pointed commentary on then-existing conditions in African American communities. I rely on these documents to provide evidence of the consistent themes throughout Martin’s writings.105
1.2.2 Spoken Words
The texts I plan to analyze in this project106 include, foremost, his unpublished
speeches.107 Carroll C. Arnold “has noted that spoken rhetoric—as a packaged suasory force—is uniquely an amalgam of verbalization and personality.”108 Thus, while Martin’s numerous other publications are certainly worthy of analysis and I do include some of them here, I choose to focus on his speeches specifically because of the way they might offer a more comprehensive view of how Martin worked on various communities using language. By surveying his speeches we identify components of the rhetorical situations109 which served as the genesis for his words. By interpreting his discourse, we are better able to understand Martin and the contexts in which he did his rhetorical work.110 To flesh-out the context, supplemental writings of the time by both Martin and others are also necessary. I have assembled more than fifty complete and partial speeches written by Martin which range from 1961 to 1990. As part of this exercise in rhetorical recovery, I am also briefly surveying Martin’s other writings including newspaper articles, magazine articles, journals, interviews, and memoirs. Combined, these documents compose a
106
This project may be categorized primarily as a rhetorical history, but it also has characteristics of a rhetorical biography. For information about and examples of rhetorical biography, see Bernard J. Brommel, Eugene V. Debs: Spokesman for Labor and Socialism (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1978).; Carl R. Burgchardt, Robert M. La Follette, Sr.: The Voice of Conscience (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992).; Ruth Gonchar and Dan Hahn, “Rhetorical Biography: A Methodology for the Citizen Critic,” Communication Education 22.1 (1973): 48-53.; Roderick Hart, “Absolutism and Situation: Prolegomena to a Rhetorical Biography of Richard M. Nixon,” Communication Monographs 43 (August 1976): 204-228.; and Robert E. Terrill, Malcolm X: Inventing Radical Judgment (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2004). Burgchardt writes in the introduction that his book and others “chronicle and explain the accomplishments of representative American leaders as orators” and that the method of such a project is to highlight “the creation, transmission, and reception of persuasive, public discourse.” Carl R. Burgchardt, Robert M. La Follette, Sr.: The Voice of Conscience (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992) x, 3.
107 See Appendix A for a chronological list of Martin’s speeches. 108
Cited in Roderick P. Hart, “Absolutism and Situation,” 205.
109 I pay particular attention to the exigencies and audiences for these speeches. For information about the rhetorical situation see Lloyd Bitzer, “The Rhetorical Situation,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 1.1 (Winter 1968): 1-14. For evolving thoughts on this concept see also, Richard E. Vatz, “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 6.3 (Summer 1973): 154-161.; and Barbara A. Biesecker, “Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation from Within the Thematic of Différance,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 22.2 (Spring 1989): 110-130.
complete package of Martin’s thinking on race relations and African American politics spanning over sixty years of U.S. history.
By studying Martin’s texts, which have not been analyzed by rhetorical critics like those of other, more well-known rhetors such as Martin Luther King, we are not “missing out on … important texts that gird and influence local cultures.”111 Martin’s speeches may have reached fairly sizeable audiences at the time, particularly given his association with presidents, but they did not receive nearly the attention of other leaders of civil rights working in the 1960s and beyond. While Martin, himself, was relatively privileged in that he traveled in important circles, we can still look to his speeches to see how he used the “rhetoric of the oppressed”112 to
communicate his message of political inclusion to African Americans and, ultimately, other minority constituents.
1.2.3 About Louis Martin
In addition to the written and spoken texts by Louis Martin, I rely on other accounts of his activities. The critical resource for this study is Poinsett’s biography about Martin, Walking
with Presidents; however, I have also assembled information about Louis Martin from
journalistic sources—often from the publications for which he wrote and edited. Naturally, there was a flurry of writing about Martin at the time of his death in January of 1997.113 Martin also repeatedly made the news while he was working in various capacities in news reporting,
government, in higher education, and in a private communication firm, Calmar Communications, headed by his sister-in-law. The files at the Library of Congress are full of articles picturing a
111 Kent A. Ono and John M. Sloop, “The Critique of Vernacular Discourse,” Communication Monographs 62 (March 1995): 19.
112 Ibid., 20. 113
See, for example, Ofield Dukes, “President Clinton, friends pay tribute to Louis Martin at L.A. Funeral Service,” New York Amsterdam News 08 February 1997: 2+. See also “Louis E. Martin, 84, Black Political Pioneer, Dies,” Jet 82.26 (17 Feb. 1997): 8.
smiling Martin with various dignitaries and heads of state, and often with his wife, Gertrude Martin. The archives also include documentation about awards and honors he earned.114 These secondary texts provide context and commentary useful for analyzing Martin’s speeches.