THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PULPIT AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NARRATIVE GROUND IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY

Author

• Nathaniel Cox, Duquesne UniversityFollow

Defense Date

3-20-2026

Graduation Date

Spring 5-8-2026

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Communication and Rhetorical Studies

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Janie Harden Fritz

Committee Member

Erik Garrett

Committee Member

Sarah DeIuliis

Keywords

African American, Race, Religion, Preaching, Black Pulpit, Martin Luther King Jr., Frankl, Gadamer, Burke

Abstract

This dissertation explores how the African American pulpit serves as a living wellspring for rebuilding stories, memory, and identity, a task made urgent by centuries of erasure, from the trauma of the Middle Passage to the ongoing reverberations of that violence. My central claim is that African American preaching, when viewed through the insight-rich frameworks of Gadamer, Burke, and Frankl, becomes not just a form of speech, but a lifeline. It helps reclaim "narrative ground": the deep roots of meaning, belonging, and shared purpose that nourish a wounded people and allow genuine flourishing.

The journey unfolds across six movements. Chapter One lays out the theoretical bones, introducing ‘narrative ground’ as a concept that converses with but stands apart from Ricoeur’s narrative identity and Assmann’s cultural memory. Here, I argue that Gadamer’s idea of a ‘fusion of horizons’ comes alive in the Black preaching moment, a place where sacred text, generational wounds, and our current political struggles all meet. Chapter Two retraces the brutal loss of that ground, from the horror of the slave ships and plantation fields to the twisted uses of Christianity by enslavers and the cold machinery of Jim Crow law. Drawing on the work of Frederick Douglass, Saidiya Hartman, David Hackett Fischer, and Achille Mbembe (who coined the term necropolitics), I show how stories were stolen as a means of control. Chapter Three insists on the unique texture of African American sacred rhetoric: rooted in the Bible, fiercely liberative, blending reason, emotion, and ethical appeal, and tracing its lineage to the griots of West Africa. Chapter Four enters the heart of the prophetic imagination, borrowing from Brueggemann to argue that Black preaching must lament, confront, and reimagine, three tasks that together make narrative renewal possible. The final chapters move from theory into lived practice. Chapter Five spotlights three extraordinary preachers, Prathia Hall, Otis Moss III, and Raphael Warnock, whose work remakes the world from the pulpit. Chapter Six, finally, interrogates the theological systems that have sought to muffle Black identity, drawing on thinkers such as Esau McCaulley, Jim Wallis, and Delores S. Williams to chart a liberating way forward.

All along, I hold the tension between the urgent need for liberation and the constant call for self-critique. The work of the Black pulpit must resist the temptation to replace one set of shackles with another. In the end, I argue that when the fullness of the prophetic tradition is reclaimed (with all its miracles, moral demands, bent toward justice, and radical hope), Black preaching becomes more than community healing. It becomes a prophetic challenge, speaking directly to the heart of a nation still struggling with its own deepest contradictions.

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Cox, N. (2026). THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PULPIT AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NARRATIVE GROUND IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/2421