In 1925, Carter G. Woodson published a collection of speeches delivered by African Americans titled "Negro Orators and Their Orations." While Woodson’s work was the focus of my talk at #PAC2022, he wasn't the first one to address Black oratory in a more structured way. 
One of the earliest treatments we have on oratory from an African American is from William G. Allen, who served as a professor of rhetoric at Central College in McGrawville, New York.
In his lecture on June 22, 1852, titled “On Orators and Oratory,” according to Carolyn Calloway Thomas, Allen becomes the first African American to leave a record of intellectual probing into the operation of the ancient art of oratory.” jstor.org/stable/3885318
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, we see African American treatments of the art of elocution and oratory. For example, W.E.B. Du Bois gave at least two lectures on the subject—An essay on Oration in 1888 credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums…
and a Lecture on Rhetoric in 1891. credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums…
The Rev. E. R. Carter delivered The Negro in Oratory in 1894 before the Teachers Association in Georgia books.google.com/books?id=CKv18…
Professor W. S. Scarborough’s “Negro Folk-Lore and Dialect” in 1897. archive.org/details/ArenaM…
Hallie Quinn Brown was not only electrifying audiences worldwide with her elocutionary prowess, but she was also writing about elocution and oratory as well.
In 1880, she published Bits and Odds: A Choice Selection of Recitation for School, Lyceum, and Parlor Entertainments, ohiomemory.org/digital/collec…
She followed that up in 1910 by publishing Elocution and Physical Culture: Training for Students, Teachers, Readers, and Public Speakers. books.google.com/books/about/El…
Others published textbooks on the subject as well. Daniel Barclay Williams published Science and Art of Elocution in 1894 amazon.com/Science-Art-El…
Myles V. Link published The Afro-American School Speaker and Gems of Literature, in 1896. amazon.com/Afro-American-…
Woodson was not even the first person to collect oratory delivered by African Americans. In 1892, Anna Julia Cooper published a collection of her speeches titled, A Voice from the South: By A Black Woman from the South. docsouth.unc.edu/church/cooper/…
After Cooper’s collection, Black preachers started to collect texts of their sermons. James W. Hood, a bishop of the AMEZ church, published "The Negro in the Christian Pulpit” in 1884. onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lo…
That was followed six years later with “The Negro Baptist Pulpit” in 1890 by E. M. Brawley. archive.org/details/031606…
In 1898, Bishop Lucius H. Holsey of the CME church published his collection of sermons aptly titled “Autobiography, Sermons, Addresses, and Essays of Bishop L.H. Holsey.” docsouth.unc.edu/neh/holsey/hol…
In 1904, W. Bishop Johnson published his collection of sermons titled, "The Scourging of a Race and other Sermons and Addresses." catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/1016478…
Others collected speeches for publication as well. Victoria Earle Matthews selected and arranged speeches by Booker T. Washington in a book titled Black-Belt Diamonds: Gems from the Speeches, Addresses, and Talks to Students of Booker T. Washington in 1898 catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/0097968…
However, the one that gained the most attention was Alice Moore Dunbar’s "Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence: The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the Days of Slavery to the Present Time," published in 1914. catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/0097759…
While Cooper’s book has the distinction of being the first collection of a single woman’s speeches, Dunbar’s book has the distinction of being the first anthology that included women other than herself.
She later published "The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer" in 1920, highlighting the importance of oratory and elocution. digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/921cc4b2…
Before Woodson’s publication, some books focused on the oratory of a single orator in what we would call rhetorical biographies today. One such example that deserves mention was James M. Monroe’s Frederick Douglass, the Orator, published in 1893. docsouth.unc.edu/neh/gregory/gr…
In my article published last year in Rhetoric and Public Affairs, I wondered aloud what our field would look like if the early scholars in public address included Woodson and other scholars of Black public address. academia.edu/50846251/My_Sa…
I submit that not only would we have been introduced to the richness and power of the African American public address tradition earlier, but more importantly, who we start to see as scholars and what we call scholarship would be different as well.
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