"Sublime Patriots": Black Masculinity in Three African-American Novels

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.