Thick rhetoric: MLK and global cartographies of polyvocal struggle

This essay introduces a framework of thick rhetoric looking to articulations of freedom and resistance around The Montgomery Story, a 1958 graphic novel published in Alabama U.S.A. Thickness suggests discourses that have been accused of being simultaneously too much and too little, having been forced into one plane of coherence, often against their own cultural location. Here, thick rhetoric engages social location and discursive circulation while allowing for possibilities of reading and participating in polyvocal and cross-boundaried resistance. Engaging thick frameworks of temporal and spatial cartographies of MLK's global circulation offers insight into polyvocal, coalitional struggles for justice.