Sutton E. Griggs

Infobox Writer
name = Sutton E. Griggs

| imagesize =
caption = Portrait of Sutton E. Griggs published in 1901
pseudonym =
birthname =
birthdate = June 19, 1872
birthplace = Chatfield, Texas
deathdate = January 2, 1933
deathplace = Houston, Texas
occupation = novelist, minister, and theologian
nationality = American
period =
genre = African American literature, western fiction
subject = Social Justice, Racial Segregation and Integration
movement =
notableworks = "Imperium in Imperio", "The Hindered Hand"
spouse = Emma Williams
partner =
children =
relatives = Allen R. Griggs (father), Emma Hodge Griggs (mother), Eunice Griggs (daughter)
influences = W.E.B. DuBois, NAACP
influenced =
awards =


website =

Sutton Elbert Griggs (1872-1933) was an African American author, Baptist minister, and social activist. He is best known for his novel "Imperium in Imperio," a utopian work that envisions a separate African American state within the United States.

Life

Griggs was born in Chatfield, Texas to the Rev. Allen R. and Emma Hodge Griggs. His father, a former Georgia slave, became a prominent Baptist minister and founder of the first black newspaper and high school in Texas. Sutton worked closely with his father on the National Baptist Convention's Education Committee. He wrote frequently later in life of his deep respect for his parents' characters and accomplishments.accomplishments. [ [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1886] "Literary Encyclopedia" entry by Harish Chander, Shaw University]

Sutton Griggs attended Bishop College in Marshall, Texas and Richmond Theological Seminary. Upon graduation, he became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Berkley, Virginia. There he married Emma Williams, a teacher, in 1897. In 1899, he became pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in East Nashville and corresponding secretary of the National Baptist Convention.

Griggs was a prolific author, writing more than a dozen books in his lifetime and selling them door-to-door or at the revival meetings at which he preached. His first novel, "Imperium in Imperio", published in 1899, became a bestseller. In 1901, Griggs founded the Orion Publishing Company to sell books to the African American market. None of his four subsequent novels achieved the success of "Imperium in Imperio", but he produced a steady stream of social and religious tracts, as well as an autobiography.

An admirer of W.E.B. DuBois and a supporter of the Niagara Movement and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Griggs was strongly influenced by contemporary social theory. He believed that the practice of social virtues alone could advance a culture and lead to economic success. [ [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/GG/fgr85_print.html] Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," (accessed May 12, 2008)] The more radical ideas expressed in his novels, particularly "Imperium in Imperio", have led him to be sometimes characterized as a militant separatist in the mold of Marcus Garvey. During his lifetime, however, his integrationist philosophy and courting of white philanthropy earned him the scorn of self-help advocates. [ [http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/1000/article/1015] "The Battle That Raged", "Issues & Views", Fall 1996]

Griggs's careers in both the church and social welfare sphere were active and itinerant. In Houston, he helped establish the National Civil and Religious Institute. In 1914, he founded the National Public Welfare League. From 1925 to 1926, he served as president of the American Baptist Theological Seminary, which his father helped found . His longest tenure--19 years as pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Memphis--saw him act on his belief in the social mission of churches, providing the only swimming pool and gymnasium then available to African Americans in the city. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 stripped the Tabernacle of investment funds and led to its bankruptcy. Griggs returned to Hopewell Baptist Church in Denison, Texas, then to a brief pastorship in Houston. Shortly after resigning that post in 1933, he died, and was buried in Dallas.

Novels

Many of Griggs's novels follow a similar formula: two childhood friends are separated by wealth, education, skin tone, and political outlook; one is a militant and one an integrationist. A traumatic incident galvanizes the more moderate friend into action, and the two work together to redress the injustice.

"Imperium in Imperio" (1899) follows this plotline with a startling twist: the revelation of an African American "empire within an empire," a shadow government complete with a Congress based in Waco, Texas. The light-skinned and more militant Bernard Belgrave who has been hand-picked to serve as president advocates a takeover of the Texas state government, while the dark-skinned, college-educated Belton Piedmont argues for assimilation and cooperation. Bernard has Belton executed as a traitor, leaving the potentially violent and unstable Bernard in control of the Imperium as the novel ends. [ [http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=1585] "Imagining Texas as Black Utopia", Steven G. Kellman, The Texas Observer, "Feb. 27, 2004"]

"The Hindered Hand", written in 1905 as a direct reply to Thomas Dixon's "The Leopard's Spots", contains graphic accounts of sexual violence and lynching, and was among the most popular African American novels of the period.

With a stiff prose style and long rhetorical passages punctuated by melodramatic events, Griggs' novels are not models of "literary" styling. But for the African-American audiences for which they were written, the novels provided a rare opportunity to read about the political and social issues that preoccupied them, including violence, racism, and the pursuit of political and economic justice.

Although he outsold more famous contemporaries, Griggs remained largely invisible in literary histories of the time. A re-issue of "Imperium" by the Arno Press in 1969 revived interest in Griggs, and several editions have been published since. "Imperium" has been embraced as an important addition to the history of utopian literature, western fiction, and African American literature.

References

elected works

* "Imperium in Imperio", 1899
* "Overshadowed", 1901
* "Unfettered", 1902
* "The Hindered Hand; or, The Reign of the Repressionist", 1905
* "Pointing the Way", 1908
* "Wisdom's Call", 1911
* "The Story of My Struggles", 1914
* "Guide to Racial Greatness or The Science of Collective Efficiency", 1923

Footnotes

Bibliography

*cite web | title=Griggs, Sutton Elbert | work=Handbook of Texas Online | url=http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/GG/fgr85_print.html| accessdate=January 4 | accessyear=2006
*cite web | author=M. Giulia Fabi | title=Race Travel in Turn-of-the-Century African American Utopian Fiction | work=Passing and the Rise of the African American Novel | url=http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/73ntd7mq9780252026676.html| accessdate=May 12 | accessyear=2008
*cite web | title=Imagining Texas as Black Utopia | work=The Texas Observer | url=http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1585| accessdate=January 4 | accessyear=2006
*cite web | author=Elizabeth Wright | title=Banking Pioneers | work=Issues and Views | url=http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/1000/article/1015| accessdate=May 12 | accessyear=2008
*cite web | title=Sutton E. Griggs | work=Literary Encyclopedia | url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1886| accessdate=January 4 | accessyear=2006
*cite web | author=Kali Tal | title=That Just Kills Me: Black Militant Near-Future Fiction | url=http://freshmonsters.com/kalital/Text/Articles/Militant.html| accessdate=January 4 | accessyear=2006
*cite web | title=Afro-American Writers in the West | work=A Literary History of the American West | url=http://www2.tcu.edu/depts/prs/amwest/html/wl1139.html| accessdate=January 4 | accessyear=2006
*cite web | author=Finnie D. Coleman | title=Sutton E. Griggs and the Struggle Against White Supremacy | work=University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 2007 | url=http://utpress.org/a/searchdetails.php?jobno=T01080&authorsm=Coleman,%20Finnie%20D.| accessdate=May 12 | accessyear=2008

External links

*
** gutenberg|no=15454|name=Imperium in Imperio: A Study of the Negro Race Problem by Sutton E. Griggs at Project Gutenberg
* [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/GriFric.html Free eBook of "Friction between the races: causes and cures] at the University of Virginia

Persondata
NAME= Sutton Elbert Griggs
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= American author, minister
DATE OF BIRTH= 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH= Chatfield, Texas
DATE OF DEATH= 1933
PLACE OF DEATH= Denison, Texas