Abstract
Chapter 3 presents a critical interpretation of the King Memorial, assessing its rhetorical form and force. Based primarily on the author’s own encounter with the site, the chapter offers a composite reading of the site’s textual composition and visual design. Additionally, this chapter attends to supplementary materials produced by the National Parks Service including pamphlets and guidebooks distributed on-site and a free mobile phone app. By analyzing the site and its supplementary texts, I call attention to which memories are included in the site and which are forgotten or ignored. In the chapter, I also discuss the King Memorial’s surrounding physical landscape (e.g., the National Mall and other nearby attractions) and cognitive landscape (e.g., the experiences and memories that visitors bring with them to the site) in order to demonstrate the ways in which traveling to the site impacts its rhetorical effect.
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Notes
Michael Calvin McGee, “Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary Culture,” Western Journal of Speech Communication 54, no. 3 (1990): 283. Emphasis in original.
Cicero, On the Ideal Orator (De Oratore), trans. James M. May and Jakob Wisse (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 2.299—2.300 (206).
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See also Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation (New York: Random House, 2001); and Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg (Universal City, CA: DreamWorks SKG and Paramount Pictures, 1998).
Brett Zongker, “Disputed Inscription Removed from MLK Memorial,” AP, accessed February 6, 2015, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/disputed-inscription-removed-mlk-memorial.
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Dominique Browning, “Michelle Obama’s ‘American Grown,’ and More,” New York Times (June 1, 2012), http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/books/review/ michelle-obamas-american-grown-and-more.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
The reunion was later canceled. Rachel Cooper, “Black Family Reunion 2012 in Washington, DC,” About.com, accessed January 22, 2013, http://dc.about.com/od/specialevents/a/BlackFamilyReun.htm.
Kent A. Ono and Derek T. Buescher, “Deciphering Pocahontas: Unpackaging the Commodifcation of a Native American Woman,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 18, no. 1 (2001): 24.
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© 2016 Jefferson Walker
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Walker, J. (2016). The Rhetorical Form and Force of the King Memorial. In: King Returns to Washington: Explorations of Memory, Rhetoric, and Politics in the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137589149_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137589149_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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