Memorializing the Civil Rights Movement: African American Rhetorics and the International Civil Rights Center and Museum

Despite a tradition of theorizing rhetorical aspects that have only recently become popular in the field (for example, embodiment, materiality, spatiality, ecologies), African and African American rhetorics (A/AAR) are infrequently invoked in the U.S. Four tenets of A/AAR-that rhetoric is ecological, communal, embodied, and generative-capture dynamic and often overlooked qualities of public memory places. The International Civil Rights Center and Museumin Greensboro, North Carolina employs these tenets to create a powerful experience and encourage visitors' social engagement. A/AAR counter hegemonic rhetorical traditions and rearticulate public memory as integral to social justice.