Crafting Equality

America's Anglo-African Word

Author: Celeste Michelle Condit
Secondary Author: John Louis Lucaites
ISBN: 9780226114651

Philosophers and historians often treat fundamental concepts like equality as if they existed only as fixed ideas found solely in the canonical texts of civilization. In Crafting Equality, Celeste Michelle Condit and John Louis Lucaites argue that the meaning of at least one key word—equality—has been forged in the day-to-day pragmatics of public discourse. Drawing upon little studied speeches, newspapers, magazines, and other public discourse, Condit and Lucaites survey the shifting meaning of equality from 1760 to the present as a process of interaction and negotiation among different social groups in American politics and culture. They make a powerful case for the critical role of black Americans in actively shaping what equality has come to mean in our political conversation by chronicling the development of an African-American rhetorical community. The story they tell supports a vision of equality that embraces both heterogeneity and homogeneity as necessary for maintaining t

Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publish Date: 1993-05-15

Subjects: History / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies), Political Science / General, Political Science / Civil Rights, Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Theory/Praxis (THRY))