Keepin' It Hushed: The Barbershop and African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric

In Keepin' It Hushed: The Barbershop and African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric, Vorris L. Nunley investigates the role of the hush harbor (a safe place for free expression among African American speakers) as a productive space of rhetorical tradition and knowledge generation. Nunley identifies the barbershop as an important hush harbor for black males in particular and traces the powerful cultural trope and its hidden tradition of African American knowledge through multiple texts. From Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask" to the recent Barbershop movies and the provocative rhetoric of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Nunley's study touches on a range of time periods and genres. Nunley's introduction connects African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric (AAHHR) to everyday considerations of what may or may not be spoken in public and how African American speakers manage numerous hidden transcripts. In the first three chapters, Nunley charts different iterations of hush harbors and their function in the conte