Introduction

In this digital publication, we invite you to explore with us the ways in which the confluence of time, place, community and ideas led to transformation in the historical moment of February 1960 and may continue to do so in our lives today. Our goal here is to take up the question(s) of opportune moments and their ephemerality – what ancient Greek rhetoricians called kairos – to explore how and to what extent we can sustain, extend, or re-experience these moments of change in and with our communities.

Throughout this digital monograph, we examine the idea of an opportune moment as the coming together of time, place, people and communicative acts. Our examination focuses on the rhetorical work that undergirds the Virtual Martin Luther King project, its impact, contributions and consequences. We also illuminate how digital technologies and their resultant world building capacities may serve to activate possibilities that were constructed in and by the speech in 1960 but left dormant in previous history. We invite you to join us in reaching back to ignite what had/has not yet happened, to explore  experiences that resonate from past to present and to project possible futures for ethical advocacy in an ever-changing civic landscape.

Just days after the start of the Greensboro sit-ins in February 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered what would become a widely influential speech titled, “A Creative Protest [Fill Up the Jails].” The speech marked the first time Dr. King openly encouraged civil rights activists (promising the full support of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) to disrupt and break the law through direct non-violent confrontation even if it meant “filling up the jails.” The speech served to catalyze the movement. Despite the historical and rhetorical significance of this speech, it lay dormant: no audio recordings have been found and the original location of the speech, White Rock Baptist Church church building, was torn down just seven years later to make way for urban renewal, specifically, the Durham Freeway.

The Virtual Martin Luther King Project began as a partnership between the White Rock Baptist church congregation and local scholars who worked together to host and record a public recreation of King’s speech at the church’s current sanctuary on June 8, 2014. Featuring a voice actor, Mr. Marvin Blanks, enacting/performing King’s speech, White Rock pastors and deacons, and the church choir, the recreation event attracted over 250 people. The audience for the recreation included individuals who had attended/heard the speech in 1960, area politicians, activists, members of the Durham Ministerial Alliance, congregation members, and members of the NC State community. It was funded in part by a small grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council. The audio director at a local game development studio, his father and a digital production faculty member at NC State, captured audio and video recordings of the event. Based on these sound recordings, we utilized digital and audio technologies to develop the components and experiences that would become the Kit of Parts of the vMLK Project.

For more information about the phases of the project see here.

In 2013-14, when we began the research and development work that resulted in what is now the vMLK Project, a national conversation about Black history, commemoration and civic life was gaining momentum. In 2016, the NC State Libraries became the lone academic library among ten awardees chosen by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to receive the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, as well as the first academic library to be recognized with this award in more than a decade. The award is the nation’s highest honor for extraordinary public service, recognizing institutions that are valuable community anchors. This recognition, and the visionary work that went into making the NC State Libraries the premier technology library in the country, inspired us to think about what we could do with a remarkable set of technological resources in relation to humanistic inquiry at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history.

In other words, we found ourselves in a moment of opportunity, a moment of confluence. In North Carolina, we witnessed the advent of the Moral Monday Protests ² led by Rev. William J. Barber II Raleigh, NC, in reaction to growing hostility to State policies that negatively and disproportionately impacted Black people and other marginalized communities. The historic White Rock Baptist Church congregation, where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had delivered a pivotal speech in 1960, was approaching its 150th anniversary in 2016. Our group of scholars and practitioners (eventually becoming the vMLK project team) had research agendas and scholarly background in visual and material rhetoric, rhetorics of the civil rights movement, and digital technologies. Our colleagues in the College of Design and a nearby video game studio expressed interest in working together interdisciplinarily. The NC State libraries offered technology spaces and staff support for developing community engaged projects. And our communication graduate students were excited about the prospect of rethinking rhetoric and public address in a digital age. As we began engaging in conversations and developing a partnership with White Rock Baptist Church congregation, the idea of recreating an opportune moment and thereby re-theorizing the ancient rhetorical concept of kairos in and for a digital age seemed a fitting response to all of these factors.