Summary

Sutton E. Griggs’s first novel, originally published in 1899, paints a searing picture of the violent enforcement of disfranchisement and Jim Crow racial segregation. Based on events of the time, including US imperial policies, revolutionary movements, and racial protests, Imperium in Imperio introduces the fictional Belton Piedmont and Bernard Belgrave as “future leaders of their race” and uses these characters to make sense of the violence that marked the dawn of the twentieth century. Taking on contemporary battles over separatism and integration, Griggs’s novel continues to play a crucial role in understandings of Black politics.

Edited and introduced by Tess Chakkalakal and Kenneth W. Warren, this new critical edition offers not only an incisive biographical and historical introduction to the novel and its author but also a wealth of references that make the events and characters of Griggs’s Imperium in Imperio, and its aftermath, accessible to readers today.

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chronology: Life and Times of Sutton E. Griggs
Textual Note 

Imperium in Imperio 

Annotations 
Emendations 
Appendix A: The Lynching of Postmaster Frazier B. Baker
Appendix B: The Story of My Struggles (1914) by Sutton E. Griggs
Appendix C: Griggs and the Richmond Planet
Appendix D: Signed First Edition
Appendix E: The Virginian Pilot
Appendix F: Promotional Materials and Contemporary Review of Imperium in Imperio
Appendix G: Speeches

Editors

Tess Chakkalakal is associate professor of Africana studies and English at Bowdoin College and the author of Novel Bondage: Slavery, Marriage, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century America.

Kenneth W. Warren is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor in English at the University of Chicago and the author of What Was African American Literature?

Reviews

“An excellent edition that will make this important work more accessible to scholars and students alike.”
Benjamin Fagan, author of The Black Newspaper and the Chosen Nation