Stokely Carmichael in 1966: Civil Rights Laws Enforce Rights that Already Exist

“It is ironic to talk about civilization in this country. This country is uncivilized. It needs to be civilized. It needs to be civilized.”

So said the always-shocking civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), speaking at the University of California Berkeley on October 29, 1966. That was about two years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was at that time only sporadically enforced. Carmichael, a former Freedom Rider and the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, wanted his audience to look in a mirror and see the opposite side of their well-meaning but self-centered viewpoint.

Carmichael reidentified the civil rights problem. That is, he refocused his audience’s attention. The larger question that Carmichael implied (but never fully answered) was, can the United States reform racist practices? Those practices might have included Jim Crow, Voting rights? Lynching? Housing discrimination. He left the answer to history. Indeed, he left the question to history.

One of the civil rights movement’s more polarizing figures, Carmichael was, like Martin Luther King, Jr., shadowed by the FBI as a potential subversive. Although he shared King’s nonviolent approach, his speeches carried a bit of sting. 

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"The Law Can't Change the Heart, but It Can Restrain the Heartless:" Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech about Churches and the Struggle for Justice

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How did Carmichael argue for his point? All arguments start with premises. Here are two possible premises about the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. At the most, only one can be true.

Premise #1: The regular idea, right out of the history books, says that civil rights laws gave rights to minority people.

Premise #2: Carmichael instead insisted that everyone already has rights, while civil rights laws merely help white racists control their behavior.

If, like many of us today in 2024, we think the problem is Premise #1, we still put white people in charge. Only if we see Premise #2 do we understand universal civil rights. Do we believe in #1? Or #2? Not an easy question! If it is #1, the majority generously (or grudgingly) shares its rights. Suppose, however, that we agree with the United States of America’s Founders that rights are universal, given by God: “endowed by their Creator,” as the Declaration of Independence says, “with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That would be Premise #2. Right?

Conventional Analysis:

In other words, Carmichael reversed our conventional vision. The conventional view says that civil rights laws opened doors that had blocked minority individuals from making economic, political, and social progress. As the History Channel explains:

“The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement.”

Lyndon Johnson Signs Civil Rights Act of 1964

See the point? In this dramatic photo, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with an almost entirely white entourage. Now, by the conventional analysis, civil rights laws expanded human rights, protecting minority groups from oppression. “Ended segregation,” it says, and “banned employment discrimination.” We often think of civil rights legislation as a case of the majority voters, who were, in the mid-1960’s, mostly white, generously turning loose of their control and granting voting rights and other rights to African Americans and other minority groups. 

Carmichael, however, utterly denied that analysis. He said that those rights already existed.


Carmichael’s Analysis

Looking at the mirror image of civil rights, Carmichael’s point was that Black people—all people, actually—already have rights. After reviewing a vast intellectual tradition, including the founders of the American Republic and existentialist philosophers, Carmichael insisted that we all have rights by virtue of being human. We don’t, Carmichael insisted, have rights just because someone passed a law granting us rights that otherwise would escape us. That, he said, was a contradiction:

“The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question whether or not a man can condemn himself.”

Carmichael said no. Carmichael said that it makes no sense to think that a white racist society could pass laws condemning its own nature. Instead, he explained that society would never, could never, condemn itself.

A Horrifying Example

To illustrate that point, Carmichael gave a stark example from 1964’s infamous “Mississippi burning” case. In that horror (two short years before Carmichael’s speech), vigilantes, with unofficial support from the Neshoba County, Mississippi government, had murdered three civil rights workers. Carmichael showed that the people who elected a racist sheriff would never condemn that same sheriff for doing the evil things that they elected him to do:

“On a more immediate scene, the officials and the population—the white population—in Neshoba County, Mississippi—that’s where Philadelphia is—could not—could not condemn [Sheriff] Rainey, his deputies, and the other fourteen men that killed three human beings. They could not because they elected Mr. Rainey to do precisely what he did; and that for them to condemn him will be for them to condemn themselves.”

And Carmichael had a point! After the Mississippi trial, the judge gave the killers light sentences, commenting that “They killed one n*****, one Jew, and a white man. I gave them what I thought they deserved.”

In that example, racism vanquished justice, and the judge made a ruling that fit his racist beliefs.


Carmichael Sided with Thomas Jefferson!

That is why Carmichael said the nation was “uncivilized.” His harsh idea was not new. Thomas Jefferson, his words now engraved on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC, stated:

“Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?”

Likewise, said Carmichael, it was white people who needed a civil rights law, precisely to restrain racist behavior:

“You need a civil rights bill, not me. I know I can live where I want to live.” [italics added]

Sometimes, an exceptional speaker like Carmichael, like Jefferson, turns a controversial issue around, showing us a new light, giving us a new way to think.

Black people, Carmichael insisted, already understood the issue:

“I knew that I could vote and that that wasn’t a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried, I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill for white people to tell them, ‘When a Black man comes to vote, don’t bother him.’ That bill, again, was for white people, not for Black people; so that when you talk about open occupancy, I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want to live.”

Yet, Carmichael pointed out the contradiction: civil rights laws, passed by a white majority, could never condemn the people who wrote and passed them. So, could civil rights laws, in any important sense, undo racism’s basic wickedness? Or is it Carmichael, who, wrapped up in his existentialist pessimism, could not see the nation make progress? As we work through the year 2024, those vital questions remain on the books. 


Don’t Civil Rights Already Exist?

So, didn’t that Mississippi burning judge miss the point? For, if Carmichael was right, if the Declaration of Independence is correct, if the 14th Amendment is still valid, Black people already had rights. This led Carmichael to call civil rights legislation incoherent to the core. For, he insisted, American society could never turn against itself:

“So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn’t because of Black Power, isn’t because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it’s not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities. It is incapability of whites to deal with their own problems inside their own communities. That is the problem of the failure of the civil rights bill.”

Was Carmichael’s attitude cynical to the extreme? Obviously yes. But the real question is, do we in 2024 have a better attitude? Is there a way to move forward toward the United States of America’s ideals of freedom without ripping down the entire system, as Carmichael threatened to do? I certainly hope so, but Carmichael’s challenge has not been answered, not conclusively, even today, has it?


Do We Still Ask the Same Questions?

Is Premise #1 true? Or is it Premise #2? For it cannot be both. Do we agree with Premise #1, smugly saying that freedom is a gift, generously bestowed by the laws that benevolent rulers adopt? Or do we side with Premise #2, that we all have rights? That is the challenge that Stokely Carmichael offered in this dramatic speech.

And that, I suppose, is why Carmichael concluded his speech with two opposing prongs. He offered a prong of hope:

“We are tired of trying to explain to white people that we’re not going to hurt them.”

Then, he ended with a prong of threat:

“Will white people overcome their racism and allow for that to happen in this country? If that does not happen, brothers and sisters, we have no choice but to say very clearly, ‘Move over, or we’re going to move on over you.’”

So many speakers over the centuries offer simple, glib solutions to overwhelming problems. Can simple, glib solutions solve our civil rights problems? Given the Donald Trump revolution, I have my doubts. The Republican Party’s ongoing battle against what they call “woke” policies and diversity initiatives suggests ongoing negative attitudes. The Trump-era brings back the question of whether nonwhite people have rights, too.

The key problem is that, if we govern by Premise #1, the country can take away people’s rights as easily as it grants them. Is there a solution? Voters elected Donald Trump in 2016 and might elect him again in 2024. Will Trump’s voters condemn themselves for Trump’s actions? Carmichael would say that it would be impossible for Trump’s voters to condemn him, for they would have to condemn themselves.

Carmichael’s speech didn’t offer solutions. Instead, he stated stark problems in stark terms. He asked people to think. He challenged his audience. The answers to his challenge are the answers to the United States’ future.

By William D. Harpine

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Earlier Civil Rights Posts:

Malcolm X at the University of California: Striking at America's Myths

James Baldwin's 1963 Speech Ripped Away Two American Myths

Fannie Lou Hamer, "Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired," Gave a Voting Rights Speech in Narrative Style

Copyright © 2024, William D. Harpine

Image: Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office, public domain

George Whitefield's Sermon about the “Flaming Preacher”

George Whitefield

“Enoch,” preached Anglican priest George Whitefield in the mid-1700’s, “in all probability was a public person, and a flaming preacher.” 

Often credited as one of the Methodist movement’s founders as well as among the first American evangelicals, Whitefield mixed historical information with fiction to persuade his audience to “walk with God.” However, if we mix fact with fiction, what lesson have we learned? What does it mean to walk with God? For the idea of a “flaming preacher” is for raw, flaming, emotion to leave logic and tradition equally in its wake. Doing so, Whitefield set the stage for the 21st Century’s emotion-driven evangelical speaking. The reader might ask, is that good, or bad? Or some of both? As Whitefield’s emotional outburst, which evoked strong feelings while he stretched biblical devotion past any reasonable limit, offers the reader little functional guidance.

In his sermon “Walking with God,” Whitefield highlighted the obscure biblical character Enoch, a “flaming preacher.” Maybe, however, it was Whitefield himself who was the flaming preacher! Whitefield spun a moral narrative around a stunningly imaginative depiction of Enoch. Forsaking a scholarly exposition, Whitefield’s sermon resembled a modern infotainment program, in which he randomly intermixed documentable points with wild speculation, while making little effort to distinguish one from the other. Just as modern media often intermix fact with fiction, so Whitefield created a make-believe version of Enoch to make a point. Accordingly, the listener learns to “walk with God,” but never learns just what that means in their own lives.

Whitefield, a major figure of the Great Awakening in England and North America, preached heartfelt, energetic sermons to enormous, often outdoor crowds.

In “Walking with God,” Whitefield's theme was, ‘And Enoch walked with God’ (Genesis 5:24 KJV). By creating a metaphorical image that believers should “walk with God,” Whitefield personalized what could otherwise have become a dry, well, shall we say, “preachy” kind of sermon. Since the Bible says little about Enoch, Whitefield felt free to expand poetically to show how a fictionalized Enoch could symbolize the believer’s righteous path.

Tyler Perry at the 2019 BET Awards: "Helping Someone Cross" as a Metaphor for Reaching Out to Help


Enoch’s Imaginative Path

Right from the outset, Whitefield expounded on Enoch’s obscurity, while simultaneously creating a biography for him:

“Who this Enoch was, does not appear so plainly. To me, he seems to have been a person of public character; I suppose, like Noah, a preacher of righteousness. And, if we may credit the apostle Jude, he was a flaming preacher.” [italics added]

“I suppose?” “I suppose?” So, Enoch became, in Whitefield’s powerful imagination, a symbol of how believers can “walk with God.” Lacking evidence, Whitefield created Enoch as a dramatic character. Nothing prevented Whitefield from admitting the obvious, which is that almost nothing is known about Enoch. That, however, would be stunningly unimaginative. Whitefield chose a different, far more creative rhetorical path! For, instead of analyzing what the Bible says, Whitefield preached on what he supposed. Oddly, that tactic seemed to work.

Indeed, to make his point clear, to assuage those listeners who were anxious to live a Christian life, Whitefield showed how Enoch demonstrated, in his own life (about which the Bible says almost nothing), how piously walking with God is the way to heaven:

“… there is a heaven at the end of this walk. For, to use the words of pious bishop Beveridge, ‘Though the way be narrow, yet it is not long: and though the gate be strait, yet it opens into everlasting life’. Enoch found it so. He walked with God on earth, and God took him to sit down with him for ever in the kingdom of heaven.”

On the one hand, yes, Whitefield is expounding on Enoch’s obscure story to the extent of near-fabrication. That is, from the brief statement that Enoch “walked with God,” a brief mention in the biblical Letter of Jude, and the account in Hebrews that Enoch ended up in heaven (Hebrews 11:5), Whitefield derived an important moral principle for his listeners. That principle is that we should walk with God. On the other hand, although the argument is strained, Whitefield’s premise does imply a certain amount of internal logic: 1) The Bible teaches a Christian life, and, 2) Enoch got to heaven. Whitefield reached a speculative conclusion from those two clues. Whitefield’s conclusion seemed so reasonable, at least to believers, that a listener could easily overlook his failure to offer meaningful textual evidence.


Personalizing the Doctrines

As his exposition reached its end, Whitefield continued to personalize Enoch, developing from Enoch’s character a lesson of Christian devotion:

“I observed at the beginning of this discourse, that Enoch in all probability was a public person, and a flaming preacher. Though he be dead, does he not yet speak to us, to quicken our zeal, and make us more active in the service of our glorious and ever-blessed Master? How did Enoch preach! How did Enoch walk with God, though he lived in a wicked and adulterous generation! Let us then follow him, as he followed Jesus Christ….”

The imaginative speculations with which Whitefield started have now, astonishingly, become moral principles. Was Enoch a preacher at all? Much more, was he “a flaming preacher?” The Bible seems to be strangely silent on those questions. Instead, Enoch’s personality was, in large part, a speculative creation of Whitefield’s creative impulses.

Yet, Whitefield was not preaching as a scholar. His method was to preach to, and from, the heart. He wanted his listeners to “walk with God.” From two simple biblical points, that Enoch walked with God and then went to heaven, Whitefield created a narrative frame, a character study, if you will, to inspire his listeners. Whitefield’s fictionalized Enoch seemingly helped listeners grasp his moral, religious perspective, with accuracy being, at best, a minor inconvenience.

In particular, it is astonishing for Whitefield to say, that Enoch “followed Jesus Christ,” when there is no scriptural support whatsoever for that claim. Indeed, I suspect that many rabbis would rightly find that connection to be obscure, if not offensive. In his conclusion, however, Whitefield was more concerned to inspire his audience, and less committed to informing them.

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Here are two present-day evangelical preachers. Does the reader see similarities to Whitefield, in their enthusiasm, or their tendency to speculate? Or not? 

Paula White Prayed against Trump's Enemies and Gave a Lesson in How to Shut Down Reasoned Debate

Franklin Graham Prays for the Divine Right of (Republican) Presidents: Religion Becomes a Political Tool

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Conclusion

So, Whitefield personalized his theological narrative by spinning out a semi-fictionalized version of an obscure person from the Hebrew scriptures. In Whitefield’s sermon, Enoch became a character in a moral drama. Interesting. Controversial. Emotional. Probably quite convincing. Strongly suggestive of preaching techniques that sometimes crop up in the present day. As we listen, today, to the preaching of Franklin Graham or Paula White, or the prosperity preachers, we still experience the Great Awakening’s rhetorical techniques.

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Two other preachers from the Great Awakening

John Wesley’s Sermon against Bigotry

Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God:" Proof-Texting as a Rhetorical Tactic

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By William D. Harpine

Historical Note: Although Whitefield never left the Church of England, he often counts as one of the founders of the modern-day Methodist Church, and, later in his career, the American divisions of the Presbyterian Church. It might be more accurate to suggest that Whitefield rarely tied himself to any one religious authority. Indeed, “Walking with God” also presages the Dispensationalist perspective that would come to influence evangelical theology in the next century. In colonial America, Whitefield was known for operating an orphanage. Good for him. Although he insisted that slaves should not be treated harshly, Whitefield enslaved Africans on his American properties. How cruel. Moral complexities are nothing new, are they?

Biblical Note: Jude 1:14-16 KJV in the Bible says only this about Enoch, never mentioning a “flaming preacher:”

“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.”  

However, an ancient writing called the First Book of Enoch, which is not in the Bible, talks repeatedly about “flaming” (“Its ceiling also was flaming fire;” “The flaming fire was round about Him;” “And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire,” etc.). That may account for Whitefield’s claim that Enoch was a “flaming preacher.” Who knows?

Copyright © 2024, William D. Harpine

Image, public domain, from Project Gutenberg

Kamala Harris Gave a Simple Message about Keeping Children Safe from Guns. Is It Enough?

Kamala Harris

Warning of the horrors of gun violence that America's children face daily, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “let’s understand how many people in our country, including the children, are experiencing profound trauma.”

A simple message bears repeating. Needs repeating. 

Harris visited Eastway Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina on January 11th, 2024, to host a Roundtable Discussion on Gun Violence Prevention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

After meeting privately with a group of students, Harris delivered a brief, thoughtful speech in which she thanked community leaders for trying to protect our children from being shot. She gave the kind of straightforward message that jaded audiences tend to ignore. Can Harris give her simple message more force?  Yes, of course she can, but there is a “but.” The “but” is that they need to repeat their messages, over and over, because, as the saying goes, quantity has a quality all its own. Harris’ speech, by itself, gained little attention, but a speaking tour might. So, after discussing Harris’ comments, I’ll go back in history to show how a politician can gain attention by calmly repeating a message.


A Simple, Profound Message

Now, during her brief speech, Harris gave her key point in one simple, stark, quotable statement:

“…in the United States of America today the number one killer of our children in America is gun violence — not car accidents, not some form of cancer. Gun violence is the number one killer of the children of America.”

That simple fact should, in principle, fill parents with fear. Yes, parents might worry instead about what books their children read, what clothes they wear in school, and who they make friends with. Some parents are terrified that children might see a drag show or learn about Jim Crow laws. We have become so numb to school shootings and random drive-bys that we easily forget that the main danger that children face in the United States is that someone will shoot them. Harris focused squarely on that simple fact.

Harris used the power of her office to remind all of us of one basic, fundamental danger. She calmly made a positive point about community involvement and children’s safety. She stated the simple fact that gun violence is the greatest threat to children. Will that be enough?

Harris’ speech received some attention in the press, although not as much as the issue deserves. While the nation grows breathless over migrant crossings at Eagle Pass, drag shows, or Donald Trump’s latest rant, why do we pay so little attention to the gun violence that poses, by far, the greatest threat to our nation’s youth? “Ho, hum,” Americans say, “a dozen children were shot dead yesterday. Ho, hum.” For, although the issue remains important, Harris does not try to draw all of the air out of the room by spreading hysterical conspiracy theories. Will her message have a long-term effect? If she and other advocates pound away on this issue often enough, will the public begin to take it more seriously? 


How McKinley Did It

Yet, simple messages can succeed if the speaker is persistent. History teaches this lesson. In 1899, with the Spanish-American War safely in the history books, President William McKinley faced the daunting task of convincing the United States to become a world imperial power by annexing the Philippine islands. Many Americans, especially in the conservative South favored letting the Filipinos have their own government. McKinley went on a series of speaking tours through the nation, particularly in the hostile South (McKinley was a Union Civil War hero!), to sell his ideas. He avoided startling language. His policy discussions were vague and safe. His speeches were calm and dignified. He gave his respects to dead Confederate soldiers. He often traveled with General Joseph Wheeler, a southerner who was a hero of both the Civil War and the Spanish American War. Even Southerners who didn't like McKinley cheered for Wheeler. McKinley's tours gained public support and the Senate ratified the treaty.

I'll write some more about McKinley in the future. In the meantime, here are the lessons:

1. A speaker can gain attention without screaming like a lunatic.

2. A speaker who wants to sell a contentious idea can't just talk to supporters. A speaker also needs to reach out to unfriendly audiences. That takes determination.

3. Traveling not only gives the speaker new audiences, but also access to the local press. More local papers (today, more local TV coverage)—more attention!

4. It is rare for one speech, no matter how good, to do the job. Persistence means success.


Back to Harris

So, it is fine for Harris to give calm, safe, speeches. Democrats don’t need to act like Republicans. Harris just needs to give more calm, reasoned speeches, and to give them in more places to more audiences. Sadly, few Americans even know that she went there. However, people would eventually notice if she toured many middle schools to talk about gun violence.

Overall, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are giving good speeches to good audiences, and they are making good points. They just aren't doing it enough. Speakers do not need to draw all the oxygen out of the room. They don't need to scream conspiracy theories. They just need to make sense, over, and over, and over again. As much as anything, speakers need to be persistent. 

After all, when Harris said that, “the number one killer of our children in America is gun violence,” that powerful statement should terrify any parent. But to say it only once, or only a few times? Never enough. Why isn’t she giving three or four speeches a week about gun violence, across the country, including at least some speeches at events and schools in the gun culture regions? A speaker needs to be heard.
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Earlier Post: Kamala Harris' Speech at West Point: Tradition and Innovation

Earlier Post: Kamala Harris' College Speech: Voting is the Way

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Conclusion

Still, Harris focused—and focused precisely—on the danger that firearms pose to children. That represents a step toward raising public interest in the threat. Will the nation listen? Or not?

By William D. Harpine

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Research note: I discussed McKinley’s speaking tours in a chapter of Before the Rhetorical Presidency, edited by the late Martin J. Medhurst. Available new or used from Amazon, and can be read in large research libraries. (Disclosure: I do not get royalties from this one, but I was proud to write the chapter.) 

Also, here is a full text of a convention paper that I presented about McKinley’s speaking tours. 

Click “William D. Harpine’s Publications” at the link above for more of my writing about McKinley. 

Copyright © 2024, William D. Harpine

Image: Official White House photo

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech about Mountains

Metaphors push people to see hidden insights, to uncover difficult truths, to investigate our own minds. As people, we can move away from old mountains and build mountains. People face challenges and sometimes abandon traditional evils. Speaking at Temple Israel Hollywood, a Reform Jewish synagogue, on February 26, 1965, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about the mountains we all face. In this sermon, King’s metaphor of mountains told us about challenges that the world faces, obstacles that humanity needs to overcome, magnificent goals to seek, and triumphs to achieve, as, King explained, people work toward a biblical Promised Land of love and justice. This magnificent speech presaged 1968’s triumphant culmination, “I Have Been to the Mountain Top.” 

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Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Mountaintop in Memphis, Tennessee: A Speech for the Ages

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Mount Sinai

A skilled rhetorician, King used the mountain metaphor to make one point after another. He posed moral challenges that still confront us, as too many Americans seek to turn back to the old mountains of oppression and indignity.

King’s thesis connected his powerful metaphor to the scriptural story of Israel escaping from Egypt, a story that reminded the congregation of their shared history of human bondage:

“Tonight I would like to have you think with me from the subject, Keep Moving from this Mountain. I would like to take your minds back many, many centuries into a familiar experience so significantly recorded in the sacred Scriptures. The Children of Israel had been reduced into the bondage of physical slavery.”

Let us look at all the twists King gave to the mountain metaphor.

First, mountains pose terrible obstacles, which must be faced and overcome. As they fled slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel, King said they:

“… had to realize that before they could get to the Promised Land, they had to face gigantic mountains and prodigious hilltops.”

This challenge divided the people into three camps. The first two groups feared the challenges:

“One group said in substance that ‘We would rather go back to Egypt.’ They preferred the flesh pots of Egypt to the challenges of the Promised Land. A second group that abhorred the idea of going back to Egypt, and yet they abhorred the idea of facing the difficulties of moving ahead to the Promised Land and they somehow wanted to remain stationary and choose the line of least resistance.”

The third group, however, after the Promised Land was spied out, decided, according to King, that the land would be a difficult goal to reach, but they could achieve it all the same:

“There was a third group…who admitted that there were giants in the land but who said, ‘We can possess the land.’”

That last group saw the challenges, but determined to overcome them:

“This group said in substance that ‘We will go on in spite of...,’ that ‘We will not allow anything to stop us,’ that ‘We will move on amid the difficulties, amid the trials, amid the tribulations.’”

By now, King was not just talking about physical mountains, but about dangers and conflicts that awaited the people. The metaphor had grown.

Second, King explained that people sometimes must stop climbing one mountain and turn to another:

“The first chapter of the book of Deuteronomy said, ‘Ye have been in this mountain long enough. Turn you and take your journey and go to the mount of the Amorites.’”

In King’s interpretation, God always wants us to look ahead, not behind. This means to face new and different mountains:

“Whenever God speaks, he says, ‘Move on from mountains of stagnant complacency and deadening pacifity.’ So this is the great challenge that always stands before men.”

Third, advancing on the Hebrew scriptures, King talked about mountains that America faced in his own time:

“Tonight, I would like to suggest some of the symbolic mountains that we have occupied long enough and that we must leave if we are to move on to the promised land of justice, peace, and brotherhood.”

Toward that end, King said that, instead of pursuing crass materialism and greed, we must aim at spiritual goals:

“We must move on to that mountain which says in substance, ‘What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world of means -- airplanes, televisions, electric lights -- and lose the end: the soul?’”

Moving toward the mountain that leads us to our souls? That might be the steepest of all climbs. We must, he said, move away from the “mountain of racial injustice:”

“Now the other mountain that we’ve occupied long enough, and certainly it is quite relevant to discuss this at this time when we think of brotherhood -- we’ve been in the mountain of racial injustice long enough. And now it is time for us to move on to that great and noble realm of justice and brotherhood.”

King then spun the globe to discuss world-wide injustice. He found yet another mountain that faced the world: “the mountain of indifference:

“And we’ve been in the mountain of indifference too long and ultimately we must be concerned about the least of these; we must be concerned about the poverty-stricken because our destinies are tied together.”

Nearing his sermon’s end, King said that we must leave “the mountain of violence and hatred.” He said that “violence is both impractical and immoral.” Indeed, he warned, “We’ve been in the mountain of violence and hatred too long.”

Returning to scriptural themes, King concluded by quoting the prophet Isaiah. The prophet said that every mountain must be leveled, and every plain must be raised. Metaphorically, everything evil that society praises must be laid down, and justice must rise, and only then will be see God’s glory:

“Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain and the crooked places straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

King’s metaphors pushed his audience to face deep, even frightening, moral challenges. He spoke of how people move away from old mountains; people build mountains; people face challenges, and, most important, how people can abandon traditional evils. In this speech, King challenged the world’s moral foundation (or lack thereof). Such powerful truths. Truths that emerged from the metaphor of mountains. Is it any wonder that so many people hated and feared the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? For truth is the most terrifying threat of all.

Quotations from this speech are from AmericanRhetoric.com, an outstanding website established by my  former classmate, the late Martin J. Medhurst. Marty was one of the top scholars in the history of United States public speaking, and his remarkable contributions are deeply missed. 

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Earlier Posts about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Rhetoric 

Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Made Biblical Morality a Public Imperative

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech, "Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience:" The Civil Rights Movement’s Philosophical Foundation

Did Donald Trump Turn Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. into a Conformist Right-Wing Fanatic? I Don’t Think So, but He Tried. Let’s Look at the Mount Rushmore Speech

"The Law Can't Change the Heart, but It Can Restrain the Heartless:" Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech about Church and the Struggle for Justice

For a complete list, enter "Martin Luther King" in the search box on the right. 

By William D. Harpine

Copyright © William D. Harpine

Image: photo by Mohammed Moussa, Creative Commons license, not edited 

Trump's Speech of January 6, 2021: A "Firehose of Falsehood"

Trump speaking on January 6, behind protective glass

On January 6, 2021, a speech resonated across the Washington, D.C. Ellipse that changed the United States forever. A speech that changed the United States for the worse.

Just before the 2021 Capitol riot, President Donald Trump sprayed a “Firehose of Falsehood” to a huge, screaming crowd of his supporters. To set the public agenda, Trump unloaded a torrent of lies and misdirection to convince his devoted audience that the 2020 election was fraudulently stolen from him. The torrent of lies was so enormous and powerful, so utterly obsessive, as to overwhelm rational thought. He said:

“And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It’s a disgrace. There’s never been anything like that. You could take third-world countries. Just take a look. Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we’ve been going through in this country. It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.”

That was just a question, and questions prove nothing. Of course, no one stole the election. In November 2020, PolitiFact wrote that, “Since Election Day, PolitiFact has fact-checked more than 80 misleading or false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election. Federal agencies, state election officials and technology experts have all said this year’s election was among the most secure in American history.” 

Trump continued by attacking the press and absurdly claiming that the crowd numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Then, Trump stated his thesis:

“Big tech is now coming into their own. We beat them four years ago. We surprised them. We took them by surprise and this year they rigged an election. They rigged it like they’ve never rigged an election before.” [italics added]

Pointedly, Trump made this assertion after his own Acting Deputy Attorney General, Richard Donoghue, had already told Trump that the election was not stolen:

“I said something to the effect of, ‘Sir, we’ve done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews. The major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed. We’ve looked at Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada. We are doing our job. Much of the info you are getting is false.’”

Nevertheless, in response to Trump’s speech, thousands of Trump’s supporters marched to the Capitol and many of them broke in, often with considerable violence. More than 100 police were injured during the attack, and a number of officers died shortly after. The January 6th rioters responded with enthusiasm to Trump’s speech, which consisted of a stream of falsehoods.

There is a name for Trump’s rhetorical technique: what RAND researchers Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews call the “Firehose of Falsehood.” Trump simply spewed out more lies than anyone had time or energy to question, much less refute. One lie after another, an overwhelming stream of lies, with little or no proof. Since he felt no need to support his claims, Trump simply spewed them out, like a firehose, drowning out all opposition. His stream of lies seized the public agenda. Even his opponents talk endlessly about Trump’s endless lies. His firehose would never have fooled a thinking audience, of course, for reasons that we’ll cover later in this post.


The Firehose

Trump’s speech rambled ceaselessly—and seemingly aimlessly—from one unsupported or false accusation to another, and then on to the next, with no effort to prove any of them. He overwhelmed his audience, and the public, with questions, conjectures, and wild accusations: a continuous spout of nonsense. The speech’s incoherence was a feature, not a flaw; for Trump’s entire argument was to drown his audience in falsehoods.

Here are just a few of the claims he shouted at the crowd:


#1, Trump claimed that the election was stolen

What Trump Said:

“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they’re doing. And stolen by the fake news media.”

Did Trump disprove Biden’s vote total? No. He just asked a question and made an accusation.

The Facts:

Ballotpedia found, with all states and the District of Columbia certified, that:

“In the national popular vote, Biden received 81.2 million votes and Trump received 74.2 million votes.”

Trump ignored a statement issued on November 2020 by Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security:

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.”

#2, Trump Claimed That the Vice President Can Overturn the Election

What Trump Said:

Having claimed but not proven that the election was stolen, Trump then turned to Mike Pence to overturn the results. Trump stated falsely that the vice president had the authority to overturn the Electoral College votes and send them back to the states. He cited an unnamed lawyer (possibly Kenneth Chesebro or John Eastman) to that effect:

“Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it.”

The Facts:

Pence, of course, did not have that right. His largely ceremonial role was to count the Electoral College votes. Former Vice President Dan Quayle told him privately that, “'I do know the position you're in. I also know what the law is. You listen to the parliamentarian. That's all you do. You have no power.'"


#3, Trump Claimed That Votes Have Not Been Counted

What Trump Said:

Instead of proving that Pence had authority to overturn the election, Trump switched gears in a flash and launched into more falsehoods. That’s the firehose technique. Trump uttered a bizarre claim that the vote totals had still not been determined.

“They still don’t have any idea what the votes are.”

I have no clue where that claim came from. Apparently, neither did Trump, since he neither explained nor supported his claim. One quick sentence, a brief assertion that the votes were a mystery, and Trump’s firehose moved to a new target.

The Facts:

In any case, as noted above, the vote count was complete by December 2020, when all states and the District of Columbia had certified their election results and the Electoral College voted. So, yes, the votes had been counted. 


#4, Trump Connected the Coronavirus with Election Fraud

What Trump Said:

Trump turned the coronavirus pandemic into a conspiracy to cheat him out of his election. Now, yes, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, some states encouraged absentee voting to reduce contagion. Trump turned that simple precaution into an undocumented accusation:

“But this year, using the pretext of the China virus and the scam of mail-in ballots, Democrats attempted the most brazen and outrageous election theft and there’s never been anything like this.”

That is, Trump blamed the virus on the Chinese government (a common conspiracy theory), and assumed, again giving no argument, that mail-in ballots are fraudulent. Why are mail-in ballots a scam? He never said.

The Facts:

Chris Krebs, a security expert with Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security, explained that mail-in ballots are highly secure because they are easy to double-check:

"Auditability is a key tenet of ensuring you can have a secure and resilient system. … Really what we're talking about here is that if you're able to detect any sort of anomaly or something seems out of the ordinary you want to be able to kind of roll back the tape. If you've got paper, you've got receipts, and so you can build back up to what the accurate count is." 

In other words, there is no reason to think that mail-in votes are fraudulent or inaccurate.


#5 Trump Bragged about the Economy

What Trump Said:

Why would conspirators overturn Trump’s supposed election? Well, Trump told his audience that they were jealous of his accomplishments. Toward that end, Trump falsely (and briefly) claimed that his economy was a great success:

“We’ve created the greatest economy in history.”

The Facts:

Since unemployment in January 2021 was a staggering 6.4%, Trump’s claim was, to say the least, dubious. Did he give reasons to believe that he had “created the greatest economy in history?” No. Did his false claim about the economy in any way show that the election was stolen? No. He just zoomed to the next irrelevant falsehood.

Also, the investigative team at ProPublica noted that Trump left behind “the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch.” 

So, the facts fail to support Trump’s boast that he had “the greatest economy in history.”


#6, Complained Vaguely About President Biden’s Son, Hunter Biden

What Trump Said:

What Joe Biden’s drug-using son, Hunter Biden, had to do with election fraud, I cannot imagine. Nevertheless, Trump ranted about Hunter (a favorite target of Republicans) anyway:

“But Hunter Biden, they don’t talk about him. What happened to Hunter? Where’s Hunter? Where’s Hunter?”

And that was all he had to say about Hunter Biden. What did Trump prove? Nothing; questions are not proof.

The Facts:

Yes, Hunter Biden had personal problems. Trump was vague precisely because his comments about Hunter Biden were irrelevant.

#7, Trump Complained That Late Votes Went for Biden

Anomalies, however innocent, often trigger conspiracy theories. Trump noted, correctly, that many votes that were counted late swung toward Biden. The obvious explanation is that mail-in votes, which tended toward Biden, were often counted last.


What Trump Said:

But Trump instead implied that late votes mysteriously flip-flopped:

“That election, our election was over at 10 o’clock in the evening. We’re leading Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, by hundreds of thousands of votes.”

The Facts:

Trump was right that he led battleground states early, but that was before the large cities and mail-in ballots were fully counted. I’ll talk about that below.


#8, Trump Claimed that Hillary Clinton Wishes Her Defeat Had Been Defrauded

What Trump Said:

“And the only unhappy person in the United States, single most unhappy, is Hillary Clinton. Because she said: ‘Why didn't you do this for me four years ago? Why didn't you do this for me four years ago? Change the votes, 10,000 in Michigan. You could have changed the whole thing.’ But she's not too happy. You know, you don't see her anymore. What happened? Where's Hillary? Where is she?”

The Facts:

There is no record of Hillary Clinton saying any such thing, and the alleged quotation is certainly not in her speaking style. Trump imagines two points: one, that Hillary Clinton agrees that Trump was cheated in 2020, which is something she is not on record to have said, and, two, that she wishes she had been elected fraudulently. He then fabricated a quotation and attributed it to her. This statement arises entirely from Trump’s imagination. Hillary Clinton did make some poorly substantiated claims of irregularities in the 2016 election, but that is not equivalent to wishing that the election had been rigged in her favor. 


#9, Were There More Ballots than Voters in Pennsylvania?

What Trump Said:

“There were over 205,000 more ballots counted in Pennsylvania. Think of this, you had 205,000 more ballots than you had voters. That means you had two. Where did they come from? You know where they came from? Somebody's imagination, whatever they needed.”

The Facts:

Trump referred to an obviously false claim that circulated on social media and Republican officials’ statements. As the Patriot-News, the major newspaper serving Pennsylvania’s capital points out: 

“Those claims are easily debunked. In Pennsylvania, for example, there were nearly 7 million votes cast. The total number of registered voters in 2020 was just over 9 million.”

Since 9 million is a larger number than 7 million, Trump was obviously wrong. 


Many Lies, a "Firehose of Falsehood"

Many lies. But the above list merely samples the torrent. Trump made many cursory, hostile, often irrelevant, and quite unsupported claims. A series of false claims. A firehose of dubious, unproven claims.

Can Trump Be Refuted?

Let us play make-believe and pretend that a Democrat had the same amount of time to speak to the same crowd. What could that person say? A general reality of debate is that a speaker needs more time to refute an argument than to make the original point, especially if the initial argument has no proof. (Since to prove something takes longer than merely to assert it.)

Suppose that our Democratic speaker wanted to counter Trump’s claim that vote counts switched to Biden overnight. To understand the switch, we would need to remember that absentee and mail-in ballots broke heavily for Biden, and they were thus counted later in the process than the electronically recorded, in-person ballots. We might also note that large cities, which tend to be more liberal, need more time to count their votes. As Reuters notes about Wisconsin: 

“There was a jump in votes for Biden on the night of Nov. 3 to Nov. 4, but this was because Milwaukee County, home to the largest city in the state of Wisconsin, reported its 170,000 absentee votes, which were overwhelmingly Democrat.” 

Similarly, statistical researchers at FiveThirtyEight found that absentee votes broke heavily for Biden, largely because of the coronavirus pandemic. Our Democratic speaker could quote FiveThirtyEight’s explanation word for word:

“It’s not hard to see why Trump, then, in his desperation to hold onto power, claimed that Democrats used mail ballots to steal the election from him. Biden indeed would not have won without mail votes, but there is no evidence that a significant number of these votes were cast fraudulently. Rather, the increase in their use was a response to the pandemic — one that was even encouraged by most election officials — and the fact that these votes were so Democratic is very likely due to Trump himself.”

So, Trump’s claim can be conclusively refuted, but it cannot be quickly refuted. In the meantime, the Firehose of Falsehood can rage on.

___________

Liz Cheney's Courageous Speech Asking Republicans to Reject Trump's False Election Claims 

Trump and Fact-Checking at the May 10, 2023 CNN Town Hall: Who Needs Facts, Anyway?

___________

A Rhetorical Dilemma

Now, do we see the problem? To refute just one of Trump’s most outrageous claims required research and explanation. Yet, Trump had spewed out his falsehood in a few seconds each. To refute all his unsupported false claims would occupy far more time than Trump used to state them. The result would be a speech of refutation that would drone on for many hours, and to which no one would listen.

I have often pointed out that the winner of the debate is almost always the side that sets the agenda. If Trump’s Firehouse of Falsehood set the agenda, and it did, refutations would just sound like excuses. The Firehose overwhelmed reality.

___________

Trump, the "China Virus," and the Art of Controlling the Agenda by Misdirection

___________

So, Trump accomplished quite a lot of persuasion while offering scant evidence, but no truth.


A Rhetorical Disaster?

Obviously, Trump’s persuasive methods could only convince an audience that was not only fully committed and grossly uninformed, but also uninterested in critical thinking.

In contrast, a more serious audience would want to hear evidence. A psychological theory, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) helps to explain the audience’s irrational responses. ELM says, among other things, that listeners who are unable or unwilling to analyze a message might, among other things, believe the message that makes the largest number of points. Trump also violated a basic principle of debate, which is that the person who makes a point is obligated to prove it. I’ll try to write more about those issues in the next few days.

The rhetorical outcome was simple: Trump shaped powerful persuasive goals—and most (not some—most!) Republicans still wrongly believe that the election was stolen. Trump’s Firehose of Falsehood worked. He set the agenda. Trump’s false outline, his cascade of untruthful claims, still occupies our national discourse. It’s the main thing politicians still talk about. Even his opponents incessantly talk about Trump’s falsehoods. And to what end? Stop one falsehood, and five others quickly replace it. That’s the firehose technique.

Our nation is in trouble, and the hard work of critical thinking is the only cure.

by William D. Harpine

Copyright © 2024 William D. Harpine

Image: Voice of America, via Wikimedia Commons