“Nothing less than the canon of African American eloquence! The speeches in The Will of a People brilliantly articulate the immense moral authority of the freedom struggle. They reveal much about America’s changing conceptions of hierarchy, equality, caste and class, and our national obsession with race.”—Andrew King, Hopkins Professor of Communication, Louisiana State University

“Professors Leeman and Duffy have once again brought together a selection of important rhetorical artifacts. This volume will be required reading for all students and scholars of the theory, history, and criticism of public address who are interested in the transformative powers of the spoken word.”—Mark Lawrence McPhail, author of The Rhetoric of Racism Revisited: Reparations or Separation?