The progress and prosperity present in African American rhetoric and composition scholarship

In my dissertation, I combine autoethnographic work and my analysis of Carmen Kynard's Vernacular Insurrections, Tamika Carey's Rhetorical Healing, and Eric Darnell Pritchard's Fashioning Lives. I share my story about being a Black girl whose childhood interests in African American history evolved into sharing my own stories and my analysis of scholarship that spotlights lessons about the African American community's use of their literacy practices to achieve progress and prosperity. My dissertation is about the essential role my parents, family, African American histories, legends, legacies, histories, texts and music have played in my life and development of the literacies that have personally and professionally shaped me. I answer Pritchard's (10) call for more scholarship focused on "...Black LGTBQ literacy practices..." by merging scholarship by Black women rhetoric and composition scholars (e.g., Kynard, Carey) who share my identity as a Black woman and scholarship (e.g., Pritchard) that considers my identity as a member of the Black LGTBQ community. I use April Baker-Bell's Black Feminist Womanist Storytelling approach to combine my analysis with stories about my identities.℗ I aim to inspire and motivate people to achieve their goals and to support other people in their efforts to do the same in my discussions of the scholarship which evidences the African American community's use of their literacy practices to progress, prosper and experience what Bettina Love refers to as "Black Joy." My dissertation sheds light on African American people progressing and prospering despite enduring the racism and oppression that Love, Carey, Kynard, Pritchard, and other scholars discuss, and illuminates the power in Pritchard's (24) discussions of Black LGTBQ people using "restorative literacies" to combat "literacy normativity." I call writing teachers, writing center professionals, rhetoric and composition scholars and others to engage with Kynard, Carey, and Pritchard, and other Black scholars' definitions of literacies and discussions of African American people's use of their literacy practices to progress and prosper even when they were the only ones invested in their progress and prosperity.℗ I discuss the personal and pedagogical purposes served by the scholarship and how I have used the scholarship as an educator and scholar and future uses for myself and other scholars and educators. I draw on scholarship about injustices, oppression, and racism that resulted in African American people having to risk their lives to educate themselves without institutional support and call rhetoric and composition scholars and educators and institutions to ensure they do not repeat these histories. I urge readers to think about the progress and prosperity that is possible if oppression, racism, and what Pritchard refers to as "literacy normativity" are not present in educational, professional, or religious spaces.℗ I reflect on how Kynard, Carey, Pritchard, and other scholars shed light on the significant role African American peoples' literacy practices have played in the creation of essential spaces that positively impact them and other people. Through discussing my own experiences and engaging with African American scholarship (e.g,. Kynard, Carey, Pritchard, Logan, Love, Banks, Richardson, etc.) I present histories and propose futures that consider the role African American people's literacy practices play in progress and prosperity. I encourage people to be invested in Black people having equitable and uplifting experiences in spaces and experiences that are essential for their progress and prosperity and to envision how that work positively impacts society.