Whiteness and the Rhetorical Genres of Freedom Summer Lindsey Ives
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository English Language and Literature ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 7-12-2014 Case Not Closed: Whiteness and the Rhetorical Genres of Freedom Summer Lindsey Ives Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds Recommended Citation Ives, Lindsey. "Case Not Closed: Whiteness and the Rhetorical Genres of Freedom Summer." (2014). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds/26 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Language and Literature ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Ives i Lindsey Ives Candidate English Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Michelle Hall Kells, Chairperson Kadeshia L. Matthews Chuck Paine Jamal Martin Krista Ratcliffe Ives ii CASE NOT CLOSED: WHITENESS AND THE RHETORICAL GENRES OF FREEDOM SUMMER by LINDSEY IVES B.A., ENGLISH, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY, 2003 M.A., ENGLISH, UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, 2008 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ENGLISH The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico MAY 2014 Ives iii DEDICATION In memory of Dad. This dissertation is dedicated to my dad, Brian Ives, who gave me the curiosity, tenacity, and humor necessary to complete it. Ives iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks are due to my committee members for their valuable feedback on this project, and especially to Dr. Michelle Hall Kells, my advisor and dissertation chair, for the consistent encouragement, guidance, and constructive criticism that she has given me throughout my graduate career. Additional thanks are due the UNM English Department’s graduate students, faculty, and staff for creating a departmental culture that is cooperative rather than competitive. In particular, I would like to thank Dan Cryer, Christine Garcia, Janna Goodyear, Brian Hendrickson, Mellisa Huffman, Vondell Jones, Anna Knutson, Erin Murrah-Mandril, and Tom Pierce for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this project. Thanks also to my first academic mentor, Hector Torres, for teaching me how to think like a scholar. I am grateful to UNM’s Office of Graduate Studies for providing me with the funding necessary to conduct archival research in Mississippi through the Graduate Research Supplement Grant. Many thanks also to Jennifer Ford and the University of Mississippi Archives and Special Collections staff, and to Cindy Lawler and the University of Southern Mississippi Historical Manuscripts and Archives staff for their valuable assistance with my archival research. I appreciate the support of my friends and family, especially my mom and sister, Beth and Kelly Ives. Finally, I am most thankful for my husband, Andy Frostman. Without your unwavering love and faith in me I would not have made it through this project. Ives v CASE NOT CLOSED: WHITENESS AND THE RHETORICAL GENRES OF FREEDOM SUMMER by Lindsey Ives B.A., English, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2003 M.A., English, University of New Mexico, 2008 Ph.D., English, University of New Mexico, 2014 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the role of whiteness and its relationship to identification in rhetorical representations of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. Texts examined at length include recruitment materials, media coverage, pamphlets, and letters produced during the project, as well as retrospective representations of Freedom Summer in popular films and literature. Drawing upon Walter Beale’s pragmatic theory of rhetoric and Krista Ratcliffe’s concept of rhetorical listening, it analyzes five perspectives on the hundreds of volunteers, most of whom were white college students, who traveled to black communities across Mississippi that summer in order to register voters, teach in Freedom Schools, work in community centers, and engage in other special projects. Analyzing the perspectives of white volunteers, black activists, white southerners, national media, and history, this dissertation reveals that the volunteers are variously constructed as admiring outsiders, neo-abolitionists, pseudo- scientists, community members, critical pedagogues, cherished children of the privileged Ives vi classes, communist invaders, soldiers, missionaries, inconsequential extras, and catalysts for critical reflection. It concludes by suggesting ways in which contemporary teachers of rhetoric and composition might use selected Freedom Summer texts in the classroom in order to generate conversations about topics such as community engagement, interracial advocacy, and college students’ writerly agency. Ives vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Word Choices.............................................................................................................. 4 Freedom Summer in the Humanities and Social Sciences ............................................ 7 Methods ...................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter Summaries ................................................................................................... 16 CHAPTER 1: From Expert to Novice and Back Again: How the Volunteers Constructed Themselves............................................................................................. 20 From the Ivies to the Swamps.................................................................................... 20 The Volunteers’ Epistolary Rhetoric.......................................................................... 22 Disoriented Newbies: Volunteer Orientation ............................................................. 26 Neo-Abolitionists, Pseudo-Scientists, and Expatriates of the White Middle Class: The Influence of Antecedent Genres................................................................................. 32 Soldiers for the Cause, Harried Librarians, and Critical Pedagogues: The Volunteers Find their Work in the Movement.............................................................................. 54 Expatriates of the White Middle Class: The Volunteers Become Part of the Black Community ............................................................................................................... 58 Subjects and Agents of an Exploitive Society: Reflections on the South, the Struggle, and the Self ............................................................................................................... 63 CHAPTER 2: Cherished Children: How Black Activists Constructed the Volunteers ..................................................................................................................................... 76 Inventing Freedom Summer: The Opportunities and Limitations of an Integrated Movement ................................................................................................................. 80 Volunteer Vetting: Tools become Agents ................................................................ 101 Dramatizing Disidentification: Volunteer Orientation and the Infamous Film Incident ................................................................................................................................ 105 Actions and Outcomes: Volunteer Participation in Mississippi ................................ 112 CHAPTER 3: Outside Agitators: How White Southerners Constructed the Volunteers ................................................................................................................. 119 The “Southern Way of Life”: Historical Trauma and White Supremacy .................. 121 The Yankees Invade Again: Civil Rights Activism as Civil War.............................. 134 Communism: The Devil Term in Southern White Rhetoric...................................... 137 “Sow-Belly and Cornpone”: White Southerners Respond to the “Invasion”............. 150 Ives viii Exploited Innocents: The Black Perspective According to White Mississippi .......... 167 Behind Closed Doors: White Southerners Listen Rhetorically ................................. 171 Unexpected Identifications: Religion and Patriotism................................................ 174 CHAPTER 4: Eyes of the Nation: How National Media Constructed the Volunteers ................................................................................................................................... 178 “Into Another Country”: Mississippi as a Foreign Territory..................................... 181 America’s Children: Building National Support ...................................................... 192 The Troops: Volunteers as Soldiers for Freedom ..................................................... 202 Spreading the Word: Missionaries of Freedom ........................................................ 208 CHAPTER 5: Freedom Summer Fifty Years Later: How History Constructs the Volunteers ................................................................................................................. 211 Mississippi Burning: Black Activism Takes a Back Seat ......................................... 213 Murder in Mississippi: Recognizing Grassroots Resistance ..................................... 221 Neshoba: