COMM Professor Houck featured in NY Times article on his research into a Civil Rights sermon

Posted by Daniela Agurcia on
Dr. Davis W. Houck
Dr. Davis W. Houck

Dr. Davis W. Houck, a professor at Florida State University (FSU)’s School of Communication, was featured and quoted in the NY Times article, “Civil Rights Sermon is Mislaid but Not Forgotten.”

The article discusses what Houck believed to be a neglected aspect of civil rights history.  Since 2003, he has been compiling a collection of public oratory from the civil rights era. Houck was quoted on the subject saying, “I saw the extent to which Christians used the Scripture to shield their own prejudices.”  He has specifically searched for Bishop Clay F. Lee’s 1964 sermon, “Herod was in Christmas,” which spoke about bigotry and intolerance.  Houck met with Lee several times hopeful he might find the written draft of his sermon, but the second volume of Houck’s book anthology needed to be published earlier this year without including it.

Houck is the author and editor of 10 books including volumes 1 and 2 of Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press (with Matthew A. Grindy), Rhetoric as Currency: Hoover, Roosevelt and the Great Depression (winner of the Marie Hochmuth Nichols award) and a Pulitzer submitted monograph, FDR and Fear Itself: The First Inaugural Address.

A nationally recognized expert on the American civil rights movement, Houck has also been honored for his work with Leon County’s Boys and Girls Clubs with FSU’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Service Award and the Florida Education Association’s Human Rights Award.  His most recent project is a multi-user public speaking textbook with FlipLearning, which has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Kauffman Foundation.


NY Times LogoRead the full article where Houck was quoted on March 7, 2014 in the NY Times: nytimes.com/2014/03/08/us/civil-rights-sermon-is-mislaid-but-not-forgotten.html  

 

Find some archives of past news highlights where Houck was featured at: