Rhetoric of Revolt @ The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Living Memorial

Juniors in the Rhetoric class met with Alia Bilal from Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Living Memorial in Marquette Park. Students have been pursuing the guiding question, how do voices work to unite people, divide opinion, and transcend conflict? In the third unit of this Humanities course, students are asked to look at how rhetoric inspires and mobilizes?. The Action Project for Unit 3 asks students to create “an original artwork” that “speak[s] out on issues that receive little attention” and “inspires collective action.” In order to contextualize such a statement and experience it in person, we journeyed to Marquette Park to see the monument there to Dr. Martin Luther King’s protest march in 1966, known as the Living Memorial.

Why?

The purpose of this Field Experience is to investigate the guiding question, how does rhetoric inspire and unite?.

How?

The students learned about both the history that led to the Chicago Freedom Movement’s protest march and the movement to preserve the memory of that action with the Living Monument.