Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This essay analyzes the topic of black masculinity in three novels by African-American authors published around the turn of the century: Sutton Griggs's Imperium in Imperio (1899), David Bryant Fulton's Hanover (1900), and Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901). Specifically, the essay examines how these authors appropriated the rhetoric of white leaders of the American Revolution like Patrick Henry to construct images of courageous black men fighting against white supremacists who repressed black American freedom. These three authors depicted fearless, righteous black men to debunk the popular images of the violent black brute that white men often used to maintain their power over African-American men.

Keywords

early African-American authors black masculinity white supremacists literary fiction

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bracey

J. H.

Jr. Meier

, & Rudwick

(Eds). (1970). Black nationalism in America. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Bruce

D. D.

Jr. (1989). Black American writing from the nadir: The evolution of a literary tradition 1877–1915. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Chesnutt

C. W.

(1993). The marrow of tradition. New York: Penguin. (Original work published 1901).

Dixon

Jr. (1970). The clansman. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. (Original work published 1905).

Foner

(1988). Reconstruction: America's unfinished revolution 1863–1877. New York: Harper & Row

Fulton

D. B.

(1969). Hanover, or the persecution of the lowly. New York: Arno. (riginal work published 1900).

Gates

H. L.

Jr. (1988). The signifying monkey: A theory of African-American literary criticism. New York: Oxford University Press

Gleason

(1992). Voices at the nadir: Charles Chesnutt and David Bryant Fulton. American Literary Realism, 24 (3), 22–41.

Griggs

S. E.

(1969). Imperium in imperio. New York: Arno. (Original work published 1899).

10.

Harris

(1984). Exorcising blackness: Historical and literary lynching and burning rituals. Bloomington: Indiana University Press

11.

Hodes

(1993). The sexualization of reconstruction politics: White women and black men in the South after the Civil War. In Fout

J. C.

& Tantillo

M. S.

(Eds.), American sexual politics: Sex, gender, and race since the Civil War (pp. 59–74). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

12.

Horsman

(1981). Race and manifest destiny: The origins of American racial Anglo-Saxonism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

13.

Logan

R. W.

(1997). The betrayal of the negro from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson. New York: Da Capo. (riginal work published 1965).

14.

Malcolm

(1964). The ballot or the bullet. In Gates

H. L.

Jr. & McKay

N. Y.

(Eds.), The Norton anthology of African American literature (pp. 90–101). New York: Norton.

15.

Messner

M. A.

(1997). Politics of masculinities: Men in movements. London: Sage

16.

Sundquist

E. J.

(1993). To wake the nations: Race in the making of American literature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

17.

Wiegman

(1993a). The anatomy of lynching. In Fout

J. C.

& Tantillo

M. S.

(Eds.), American sexual politics: Sex, gender, and race since the Civil War (pp. 223–245). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

18.

Wiegman

(1993b). Feminism, “the boyz,” and other matters regarding the male. In Cohan

& Hark

I. R.

(Eds.), Screening the male: Exploring masculinities in Hollywood cinema (pp. 173–193). London: Routledge.

19.

Williamson

(1984). The crucible of race: Black-white relations in the American South since Emancipation. New York: Oxford University Press.

“Sublime Patriots”: Black Masculinity in Three African-American Novels

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References