Abstract:
Stephen Biko was a black leader in South Africa who
died in police custody on September 12, 1977. Biko's death
echoed within the Republic of South Africa and around the
world, showing that racial tensions in that country were
severe. At his death he was a hero to the black majority
and a threat to the white minority.
The rhetoric that survives reveals Biko's dominant
themes. Biko worked to create an awareness among blacks
that it was possible to combat white suppression. Four main
themes, I argue, emerge from a study of his rhetoric. They
are Black Humanity, Black Unity, Black Courage, and Black
Self-Reliance. These themes became part of the ideology
behind the Black Consciousness Movement and stood in
opposition to four themes of white dominance:
dehumanization, separation, fear, and control.
In his work on rhetoric and the construction of social
reality, Ernest G. Bormann suggests that certain "fantasy
themes" within a group's rhetoric "chain-out" and become the
"rhetorical vision" that a group holds in common. The
fantasy themes, and in turn the rhetorical vision, can
motivate the group to action.
The purpose of this study, then, is to analyze the
fantasy themes within Biko's rhetoric to learn more about
the role of rhetoric in social movements and in the
constitution and reconstitution of Black Consciousness.
