His first novel, Imperium in Imperio (1899), was
published by his own Editor Publishing Company.
Influenced by BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’s and W. E.
B. DUBOIS’s arguments on “the Negro problem,”
in the novel Griggs presents and mediates their
perceptions through two protagonists, Belton and
Bernard. He was the first African-American novel-
ist to introduce the reader to the concept of the
New Negro: “The cringing, fawning, sniffing, cow-
ardly Negro which slavery left, had disappeared,
and a new Negro, self-respecting, fearless, and de-
termined in the assertion of his rights was at hand”
(62). Although the sales of the novel were low (it
was sold mostly at black churches and Christian
conventions), Griggs continued to write, publish-
ing two more novels, Overshadowed (1901) and
Unfettered with Dorlan’s Plan (1902).
Disappointed with the overall low book sales,
after Unfettered, Griggs hesitated to write more
novels but did so after the National Baptist Con-
vention (St. Louis, Missouri) asked him to write
one to respond to Thomas Dixon, Jr.’s racist
novel The Leopard’s Spots (1902). The convention
pledged to provide financial support to Griggs
for this project; however, when he completed The
Hindered Hand in 1905, he was on his own again.
Although this book sold more copies than his
previous novels, the sales were still low. Turning
to writing critical essays instead, he published The
One Great Question, on the race problem, in 1907.
The following year, he wrote his last novel, Pointing
the Way (1908). Realizing that his essay collection
was more popular than his novels, Griggs decided
not to write any more fiction.
In his novels, Griggs borrows from the senti-
mental romance, with its major motifs of love and
exaggeration, in order to present his thoughts on
current race issues. While he ambitiously attempts
to accommodate too many racial and sociopoliti-
cal issues, such as Jim Crowism, Black Nationalism,
Garveyism, New Negroism, and miscegenation, his
novels often include lengthy rhetorical discussion
and argument among characters. Consequently
they lack realistic plots and character development,
which has led some critics to describe his fiction as
“primitive.” Viewed within the context of Ameri-
can modernism, however, Griggs’s fiction might
be considered fashionable; it could be described as
what Robert Scholes calls “fabulation”: “a return
to a more verbal kind of fiction... a less realistic
and more artistic kind of narrative; more shapely,
more evocative; more concerned with ideas and
ideals, less concerned with things” (quoted in Bell,
284). However, focusing more on social realism
in Griggs’s work, many critics have failed to place
him within a modernist context.
Griggs also published his autobiography, The
Story of My Struggles (1914); a biography, Tr i -
umph of the Simple Virtue, or, The Life Story of
John L. Webb (1926); and more than 20 collec-
tions of essays and pamphlets on the issue of
race, including Wisdom’s Call (1911), Life’s De-
mands (1916), Guide to Racial Greatness (1923),
and Friction between the Races: Causes and Cure
(1930). In these works, Griggs suggested conser-
vatism, collective efficiency, and Christlike love
as resolutions to the American race problem. In
addition to publishing, Griggs was involved in
DuBois’s Niagara Movement as a member of the
black literati; DuBois was pleased with Griggs’s
interest in the movement. Griggs served as pas-
tor at the First Baptist Church of Berkley (Va.,
1900–1901), First Baptist Church (East Nashville,
Tenn., 1901–1908), Tabernacle Baptist Church
(Memphis, Tenn., 1913–1922 and 1926–1931),
and Hopewell Baptist Church (Denison, Tex.,
1922–1924 and 1931–1932) and as the first presi-
dent of American Baptist Theological Seminary
(Nashville, Tenn., 1925–1926). Griggs moved
from Denison to Houston in the winter of 1932.
He died suddenly on January 3, 1933.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bell, Bernard. The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradi-
tion. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,
1987.
Elder, Arlene A. “Sutton Griggs: The Dilemma of the
Black Bourgeoisie.” In The “Hindered Hand”: Cul-
tural Implications of Early African-American Fic-
tion, 69–103. Westport, Cincinnati, and London:
Greenwood, 1978.
Frazier, Larry. “Sutton E. Griggs’s Imperium in Impe-
rio as Evidence of Black Baptist Radicalism.” Bap-
tist History and Heritage 30 (Spring 2000): 72–91.Griggs, Sutton E. 215