ABSTRACT
The authors address writing instruction in American colleges and universities to the extent that such instruction has intersected with the practice of African-American rhetoric. The chapter speaks to the historical presence of African-American instructors and scholars in the field of writing studies, both forerunners such as elocutionist, activist, and educator Hallie Quinn Brown and historian Carter G. Woodson as well as recent figures such as Geneva Smitherman, Kermit Campbell, Vershawn Young, Carmen Kynard, Eric Darnell Pritchard, Keith Gilyard, and Adam Banks. The authors indicate that much of the current practice of African-American teachers, given their usual concerns with linguistic diversity and democratic practice is a response to the language activism of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly the landmark resolution, “Students’ Right to Their Own Language,” adopted in 1974 by the Conference on College Composition and Communication, which is a group within the National Council of Teachers of English.
