I saw this initially in a list of science-fiction, and elsewhere saw it described as a utopia, which is closer; I'd almost say 'secret history' except of course being set in the author's present.

Genre aside: two black boys grow up in the post-slavery South US, get formal education and the informal education of inequality, injustice, and lynchings. Late-ish in the novel it's revealed that a secret black society with its own government (hence the title) are trying to work out what to make of their relationship to white society and government.

It's ultimately not a story about the characters and their occasionally melodramatic adventures: it's about the crossroads the fictional imperium and the real people it stands for have come to (I doubt it's coincidence that the three main characters bear very similar names despite espousing very different paths) and it's explicitly aimed at white readers, some mixture of plea and warning. ( )

'The Bible which the white people gave us, teaches us that we are men. The Declaration of Independence, which we behold them wearing over their hearts, tells us that all men are created equal. If, as the Bible says, we are men; if, as Jefferson says, all men are equal...'

I don't even need to finish the above quote from Sutton Griggs' book Imperium in Imperio for one to see where that simple logic leads. It's clear, but all still so murky in practice.

This book was self-published in 1899 and sold door-to-door or revival tent-to-revival tent making it a best seller of its day. In this book Griggs, a Baptist minister and social activist, creates a scenario where African Americans start a government within a government complete with a mirror congress in Waco, Texas (Waco... so many strange things about that place).

He was a prolific writer, not a great writer... but greatness isn't necessary if the message is clearly conveyed. And it is... in this book.

Now considering the quote above I wonder what Griggs really thought of women, and whether their sex was included in Jefferson's famous quote...

Her pretty face bore the stamp of intellectuality, but the intellectuality of a beautiful woman, who was still every inch a women despite her intellectuality. ( )