Jacqueline Bacon

Jacqueline Bacon "is an independent scholar whose research and writing focus broadly on historical questions about language, empowerment, activism, and social justice. She received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Austin with an emphasis in rhetoric in 1997.

"Her publications consider a variety of subjects, including nineteenth-century African-American history and rhetoric, women's rhetoric, media criticism, and issues of race and gender in contemporary society. She is particularly interested in the ways that people who are marginalized use the power of language to create positive identities, to fight for civil rights, and to critique institutional and societal oppression.

"Bacon writes for a variety of audiences. As her diverse interests demonstrate, she wishes to engage in conversations both within academic circles and beyond them, believing that scholarly engagement with historical questions about race, gender, and oppression can inform contemporary debates and activism. Her most recent publications include:"


 * Freedom's Journal: The First African-American Newspaper, a book published by Lexington Books, which provides a comprehensive history of the first African-American newspaper, published in New York from 1827 to 1829; traces the influence of this groundbreaking periodical; and uses the information in its columns to create a rich, detailed portrait of African-American life in the late 1820s
 * "'Saying What They've Been Thinking': Racial Stereotypes in Katrina Commentary," published in Extra!, the magazine of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting in 2005, a critical look at the way racist assumptions and the biases of reporters and commentators tainted media coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath
 * "Reading the Reparations Debate," published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech in August 2003, an analysis of the rhetoric of the reparations debate and its implications for this nation's understanding of - and discourse about - history and race
 * The Humblest May Stand Forth: Rhetoric, Empowerment, and Abolition, a book published by the University of South Carolina Press in 2002, which examines the rhetoric of nineteenth-century antislavery activists who were African Americans or women