HERBERT W.
SIMONS
Patterns of Persuasion
in the Civil Rights Struggle
"p ECENTLY, Newsweek magazine published the re-
sults of a second comprehensive national poll by
Louis Harris on racial attitudes among Americans. For
those of us who were disheartened by the apparent
white bigotry and Negro hopelessness reflected in the
1963 poll, the 1966 survey was not too encouraging.
Among Negroes, 15 per cent say they would join a riot.
For every one who believes that the Negro cause has
been weakened by Watts-like rioting, two believe that
it has been helped. Among whites, 64 per cent insist
that Negroes "are asking for more than they are ready
for," 43 per cent assert that the Negro wants to "live
off the handout" and 70 per cent think that the Negro
is "trying to move too fast." These figures for whites,
all up from 1963, also suggest an increasing polariza-
tion of attitudes between the two races. A further
indication of the racial schism is the finding that
73 per cent of the Negroes judge demonstrations to be
helpful while almost as many whites (63 per cent) see
them as being harmful.
Perhaps as a reflection of these statistics, the Negro
leadership stands in what liayard Rustin has called
a "valley of confusion." Divided over whether to shoot,
pray or litigate and over whether to remain aligned
with white liberals or disaffiliate under the banner of
"Black Power," the leadership at least shares the un-
happy experience of having been cursed and spat upon
by members of both races. They have wisely turned
within to reformulate goals and techniques.
Cursory examination suggests that the Negro lead-
ership confronts an essentially rhetorical problem.
What combinjition of leadership style and message
appeal is likely to evoke constructive self-effort by
This article Is based on a paper presented at the
Pennsylvania Speech Association convention, October
21, 1966.
VOLUME 15, NUMBER I, FEBRUARY, 1967
Temple University
slum-dwelling Negroes? What brand of oratorical wiz-
ardry can make a weak housing discrimination bill
palatable to white senators or reverse the view held 25
by three out of five low-income whites polled by
Harris that Negroes "smell different?"
Rhetoricians will not find magical answers to these
questions in their bag of tricks. But from their store-
house of research and theory, they may at least shed
light on the problem. Whatever his personal biases
on the issue of civil rights strategy, the rhetorician is
obliged to examine the race relations drama profes-
sionally, if for no other reason that it may provide an
important test of his speech principles. It is in the
context of communication theory that an examination
of Negro leadership strategies will be undertaken in
this paper.
Any communication model must necessarily be ab-
stract and thereby oversimplify. With this qualifica-
tion stated let us begin our map of contemporary
civil rights rhetoric by plotting the principal actors
and their corresponding styles of persuasion.
The leaders of the movement have ranged, in Gil-
bert Cantor's words, from those who "come on sweet
and strong like a saint" to those who "come on fierce
and ferocious like a Mau Mau." Near the one extreme
are the business-suited legalists like Whitney Young
and Thurgood Marshall. Near the other extreme are
the fast-talking local hipsters of tbe North like Cecil
Moore of Philadelphia and tlie slow-iirawling Snick-
sters of the South carefully uniformed in faded over-
alls. Walking a tight-rope between are the disciples
of non-violence such as Rustin, Randolph, and King
who themselves disagree over the demonstration tac-
tics and tone.
Alongside this scale of leadership militancy let us
classify the methods of Negro influence into two broad
categories: (1) peaceful persuasion and (2) coercive
persuasion. The former mode of influence is best ex-
emplified by the rhetoric of the courtroom and the
conference-table; the embodiment of reason in verbal
interaction. But it is also the more strident and im-
passioned rhetoric of at least the early sit-ins and pro-
test marches; the dramatic appeals to conscience by
conservatively attired college students and ministers.
If peaceful persuasion is addressed to the mind and
the heart, coercive persuasion is the rhetoric of direct
pressure, including the threat or employment of force.
It ranges from the more militant exercises in non-
violence as in the marches last summer in Chicago to
the massive retaliations against white injustice mani-
fested by economic boycotts, rent strikes, riots and
Black Panther Parties.
Peaceful persuasion is the method rhetoricians un-
derstand and characteristically prescribe. Textbooks
tell us that persuasion must take place on the listener's
terms, that the speaker must adapt to his auditor's
needs, wants and values. It is axiomatic, we are told,
that effective communication requires a shared frame
of reference and a common set of symbols in an atmos-
phere free from fear and threat. By all of our schol-
arly yardsticks, the effectiveness of the civil rights
advocate ought to be a direct function of his psycho-
logical proximity to white audiences.
In keeping with this postulate, non-militants such
as Roy Wilkins, writing in New York Times Magazine,
argued that the "prime, continuing racial policy look-
ing toward eradication of inequities must be one of
winning friends and influencing people among the
white majority." Championing the peaceful protest,
Wilkins asserted that "this type of demonstration acts
as a powerful persuasive upon the national conscience,
especially so in race relations where the merest school-
boy knows the Negro has been grievously mistreated."
A MATTER OF VULNERABILITY
However successful the method of peaceful persua-
sion ought to be, however much it may seem theoret-
ically that the method is the only effective alternative,
the very endurance of other rhetorics is evidence that
this is not so. The reasons for this anomaly may be
suggested by an expansion of our model to include
the audiences addressed by the civil rights leaders.
In the context of a polarized Negro minority seek-
ing change from an equally polarized majority, white
audiences can be profitably categorized into (!) "pow-
er-vulnerables" and (2) "power-invulnerables." Per-
sons vulnerable to coercive persuasion are those in
public or quasi-public positions whose effectiveness de-
pends upon acceptable public postures and whose pro-
fessional survival may be at stake. They include elected
and appointed government officials who may be re-
moved from office or given an unfavorable press,
church leaders who are obliged to express socially sanc-
tioned public attitudes, and corporation executives
whose businesses are susceptible to loss oi income.
"Power-invulnerables" are those who have little or
nothing to lose by publicly voicing their prejudices
and acting on their self-concerns. They are the mass
of white Americans who are largely unaffected by rent
strikes and boycotts and who have so far defended
their neighborhood sanctuaries or have physically and
psychologically withdrawn to the suburbs. The aver-
age American may fear riots but he can escape from
them. He may or may not approve of boycotts and
demonstrations but in either case he is largely unaf-
fected by them. He is subject to legislation but in
most cases until now he has been able to circumvent
it. Only through communications aimed at a change
in his attitudes or through carefully foniiulated and
tightly enforced government policies can his actions be
appreciably modified.
If the foregoing analysis of white audiences is ac-
curate, it should help to explain why peaceful and
coercive civil rights persuasions have both been able
to endure. Each is effective with a different audience
and neither is effective with both.
The dilemma facing the Negro leadership is agon-
izing in the extreme. Should they strike militant pos-
tures, they are likely to actuate "power-vulnerables"
but at the same time magnify the backlash among
those invulnerable to coercive persuasion. Should they
plead reasonably and protest peacefully they are likely
to win adherents among the white masses but be in-
effective with those vulnerable to power.
The reason some Negro leaders have risked a back-
lash is that in order to wrest changes from whites in
public positions they have had to build a sizeable
power base among the Negro masses. And in order
to secure massive Negro support they have at least had
to strike militant pc^es. In the face of Negro impa-
tience and hostility, a segment of the leadership is
convinced that psychological proximity to whites is
political suicide. They argue that the more moderate
and peaceful the leader's appeals, tlie more likely he
is to find himself a leader without a following.
Some support for this theory is reluctantly provided
by opponents of coercive persuasion. Cabinet mem-
ber Robert C. Weaver has lamented that "today, a
publicized spokesman may be the individual who can
devise the most militant cry and the leader one who
TODAY'S SPEECH
can articulate the most far-out position." And Loun-
don Wainwright of Life Magazine has written:
". . . if the recent rioting has illuminated anything, it has
illuminated the fact that desperate people, trapped without
hope in their ghettos, are beyond listening to promises
they've heard many times before. It is this fact which ac-
counts for the precariousness of Negro leadership, especially
in the North; on the critical questions of more job oppor-
tunity, better housing, fully integrated school systems, the
established leaders have not been able to deliver, and num-
bers of oppressed people might prefer to listen lo the
'riot-mongers' who preach hale for 'Whitey.'"
What emerges from this analysis is a pattern of per-
suasion which defies our communication theorists; one
which mobilizes and solidifies a Negro mass with little
to lose in order to cajole an entrenched white leader-
ship with a great deal to lose. Rather than adapt to
whites by speaking the language of moderacy and
restraint, militants have elected to increase their psy-
chological distance from whites by voicing the angry
epithets of their followers.
The espousal of a militant position is a necessary
condition for obtaining massive Negro support. But
this does not mean (in 1966 at least) tliat the Negro
people are ready to accept the more extreme militants.
According to the Newsweek poll, "black power" advo-
cates Floyd McKissick and Stokely Carmichael are still
among the least popular competitors for rank-and-file
allegiances. \
KING AND T H E VULNERABLES
As of now it appears that tight-rope walker Martin
Luther King is most capable of drawing upon Negro
support to effect changes from vulnerable whites. King
has managed to be sufficiently militant in his tactics
to suit Negroes while at the same time preaching a
doctrine of love which has won white sympathies. Tbe
Southern Christian Leadership Conference whidi he
heads has not been averse to coercive techniques but
it has been buttressed by an ethos of dignity and
religiosity which white attackers have found it difficult
to combat. King's standing with Negroes was found
by Louis Harris to be as high as ever, a respectable
88 per cent.
Whether King maintains his popularity will de-
pend on the results he can achieve. As his movement
has spread northward to confront the more sensitive
urban issues of open housing and full employment
King has found it necessary to risk losing white sup-
porters by relying less on pleading and more on poli-
tical pressure. And as his philosophy of non-violence
has been challenged by "black power" advocates he
VOLUME 15, NUMBER 1, FEBRUARY, 1967
has had to compete for Negro support by speaking in
more strident tones.
In the last analysis the comparative effectiveness of
peaceful and coercive methods of persuasion will vary
with the issues involved. The former method, for ex-
ample, will probably be more effective in persuading
white teachers to volunteer for work in Negro slums
while the latter will probably effect a breakthrough
on the issue of housing discrimination. Coercive per-
suasion can be combatted if whites become sufficiently
united in anger to impose their majority power against
the Negro. Or it can be rendered unnecessary if be-
lief differences between the two races can be bridged.
Negroes are at present unwilling to rely on the good
will and compassion of whites. So long as fear of going
to hell remains less compelling a motive for "power-
vulnerable" whites than loss of income or the threat 27
of removal from office, advocates of coercive persua-
sion will find enthusiastic supporters.
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT OF SPEECH
COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS
Undergraduole and Graduate Program*
leading to Bctchetor of Arit, Mofter of
AtH, Doctor of Philosophy degree*:
• Rhetoric and Public Address • Speech Education
• Dromatie Theory • Speech and Hearing Science
• Speech Pathology • Audiology • General
Semantics • Linguistics and Communication Theory
FaciliHei: Speech and Hearing Center and
cooperative progroms with the Temple
University Health Sciences Center.
Speokers Union — Debate, Oiscuiiion,
Student Speakers Bureau. |
FOR IttfORMATION WRITE:
Chairman, Department of Speech
Temple University
Philadelphia, Pa, 19132