James Farmer Jr.: The Great Debater

(Hardback)

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James Farmer Jr.: The Great Debater provides a rhetorical and biographical guide to how the American Civil Rights Movement came into being. It details James Farmer Jr.s intellectual emergence as a young debater at an HBCU in Marshall, Texas and ultimately chronicles how this led to the emergence of the first non-violent sit-in against segregation in 1942 in Chicago. Farmer was a key founder of the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] that pioneered the non-violent strategies that would later be used by Martin Luther King. He debated important figures like Malcolm X to provide a powerful advocacy grounded in the praxis of argumentation. Ben Voth demonstrates the ongoing relevance of Farmers successful debate methodology in resolving contemporary race problems in the 21st century such as Black Lives Matter.

Reviews

Voth vividly recounts the story of perhaps the greatest forgotten hero of the Civil Rights Movement. This book is an inspiring chronicle of a forgotten legacy, which is unknowingly embedded in the very fabric of the lives of all Americans. -- Christopher Medina, director of debate at Wiley College
James Farmer was considered by many to be the intellectual of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. He was one of those charismatic leaders whose words and actions affected change not only in the United States but also all over the world. Now hes been largely forgotten, but Ben Voth, in his book, James Farmer Jr.: The Great Debater, sheds new light on Farmer and one of the great reasons that he was able to do what he did. It adds new light to Farmers enduring legend. -- Gail Beil, Independent researcher

Author Bio

Ben Voth is associate professor of corporate communications and public affairs and director of debate at Southern Methodist University.