You, the reader of this anthology, hopefully glance at the introductory comments that precede each work. Curious but skeptical, you may ask, can the writer justify stealing your time, bending your ear, insisting on being heard? An introductory paragraph can be difficult to compose, but an entire essay that is devoted to introducing another set of texts offers a host of particular challenges to a writer. In Rob Pressel’s extraordinary essay, introducing a series of 1960s Civil Rights speeches, he confronted his own specific challenges in his final paper for our WR 100 seminar, “Oratory in America.”
Rob’s biggest question concerned the use of first person and the inclusion of autobiographical details. We looked at several models, and the example of Gore Vidal’s insistent, swaggering first person introduction to a collection of Lincoln speeches forced the class to ask if we, as collegiate, academic writers, could take such risks?
Rob initially hesitated to include any personal details in his introduction. However, he recognized that his motivation for writing about sacrifice during the Civil Rights Movement arose due to the 1964 murder of his great uncle Michael Schwerner. Rob came to see that readers might well find this personal and real-life tragedy as something more than simply a compelling detail. Writers must always make difficult choices, and the decision to include sensitive personal details needs to be carefully considered. In this case, Rob came to believe that writing about his uncle’s sacrifice had the potential—if presented in a non-exploitative manner—to help readers understand the real-life relevance of writing and speaking about the profound sacrifices that marked the Civil Rights Movement.
Rob was much more confident about including the anecdote relating his meeting with Civil Rights leader, John Lewis. This incident linked the 1960s to the present in a way that helped drive home the relevance of Rob’s essay. The rest of the essay is free of personal details; however, by bookending the introductory essay with events that personally touched him, Rob shows his readers how historical personages and events can touch us and teach us.
— DAVID SHAWN
WR 100: Oratory in America