Page xi →Series Editor’s Preface

The University of South Carolina series “Movement Rhetoric/Rhetoric’s Movements” builds on the Press’s long-standing reputation in the field of rhetoric and communication and its cross-disciplinary commitment to studies of civil rights and civil justice. Books in the series address two central questions: In historical and contemporary eras characterized by political, social, and economic movements enacted through rhetorical means, how—and with what consequences—are individuals, collectives, and institutions changed and transformed? How, and to what extent, can analyses of rhetoric’s movements in relation to circulation and uptake help point the way to a more equal and equitable world?

In this well-researched and beautifully written book, Sara C. Vander-Haagen examines the powerful role of Black women who used memory as a form of activism during the period between Reconstruction and the New Negro Movement. VanderHaagen defines “memory work” as the deliberate, public efforts by individuals or groups to use rhetoric to preserve, create, revise, deploy, and circulate accounts of the past to strengthen community bonds and effect change. She skillfully reads Black women’s memory practices in their historical contexts and also in conversation with contemporary Black feminist thought and activism. As a result, Community and Critique provides readers a historically grounded and contemporarily relevant examination, one that foregrounds the intersectional experiences of Black American women and illuminates their substantial intellectual and strategic contributions to contemporary rhetorical praxis.