ABSTRACT
If there is any lesson that the study of rhetoric, and of Black rhetoric especially, should make clear, it is that hagiographic, exemplar-driven studies of rhetoric are never sufficient. Even when it is necessary to build from examples, no matter how instructive they might be, those examples are never enough for accounting for the range of aims, audiences, arguments, appeals, and aesthetics that we find in even a single day of Black rhetorical production, much less in an era of information overload. Thus, any study, even with methods and theoretical commitments that focus on broad communities and masses instead of simply notable individuals, can only be suggestive rather than definitive, can only be a call that hopes for response. In a closing reflection, the authors make explicit the call that their book issues, identifying future directions for the study of African-American rhetoric.
