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Griggs And Corrothers: Historical Reality And Black Fiction, James Robert Payne

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Sutton E. Griggs's Imperium in Imperio and James D. Corrothers's "A Man They Didn't Know" are two early Afroamerican fictions which suggest a black alliance with foreign powers in the face of unrelenting racial injustice at home.1 Imperium in Imperio, published in 1899, has been described as "the first political novel" by a black American;2 and "A Man They Didn't Know," appearing in 1913, is probably the first Afroamerican fiction to suggest a specific alliance between American blacks, groups in Mexico, and the Japanese. Sutton E. Griggs is currently undergoing rediscovery, and Imperium in Imperio is by now well known …