Surviving the Jim Crow South: “The Talk” as an African American Rhetorical Form

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article contends that “The Talk” about racism and police brutality that Black parents have with their children is an intergenerational rhetorical form that not only addresses the behaviors of Black youth in the presence of law enforcement officers but also encourages Black adolescents to develop racial consciousness about how notions and acts of white supremacy impair Black identities. Focusing primarily on the Jim Crow era and the experiences of Charles Evers, Medgar Evers, and Emmett Till, this article explains how The Talk consistently responds to a history of racial violence against Black people and reveals how tenets of rhetoric, memory, and narration frame African American survival practices.