Background
Sutton Griggs was born on June 19, 1872, in Texas, United States. He was a son of Allen R. Griggs and Emma Hodge Griggs.
Bishop College, Marshall, Texas, United States
Bishop College where Sutton E. Griggs studied.
8040 Villa Park Dr #250, Richmond, VA 23228, USA
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond where Sutton E. Griggs studied.
(Odin’s Library Classics is dedicated to bringing the worl...)
Odin’s Library Classics is dedicated to bringing the world the best of humankind’s literature from throughout the ages. Carefully selected, each work is unabridged from classic works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama.
https://www.amazon.com/Overshadowed-Sutton-Griggs/dp/1987601165/?tag=2022091-20
1901
(Written in response to Thomas Dixon’s recently published ...)
Written in response to Thomas Dixon’s recently published race-baiting novel The Leopard’s Spots, Griggs’s book depicts the remnants of the old Southern planter class, the racial crisis threatening the South and the North, the social ferment of the time, the changing roles of women, and the thwarted aspirations of a trio of African American veterans following the war against Spain. This scholarly edition of the novel, providing newly discovered biographical information and copious historical context, makes a significant contribution to African American literary scholarship.
https://www.amazon.com/Hindered-Hand-Regenerations-Sutton-Griggs/dp/1943665869/?tag=2022091-20
1905
Sutton Griggs was born on June 19, 1872, in Texas, United States. He was a son of Allen R. Griggs and Emma Hodge Griggs.
Sutton Griggs received his elementary education in the Dallas public schools. He studied at Bishop College in Marshal, Texas from 1885 to 1890. He also attended Richmond Theological Seminary (now Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond) and received a Bachelor of Divinity in 1894.
Sutton Griggs took up a post of a pastor of the First Baptist Church in Berkley, Virginia in 1894. In 1896 he became a pastor of the First Baptist Church in East Nashville, Tennessee. Besides, Griggs worked as a corresponding secretary of the National Baptist Convention. Later he moved to Memphis, where he was the pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church for nineteen years.
Sutton Griggs worked as a president of the American Baptist Theological Seminary from 1925 to 1926. In 1930, after making various additions, including a swimming pool and an employment bureau, the church ran into financial problems and was foreclosed. Griggs returned to Texas to serve as pastor of the Hopewell Baptist Church in Denison, where his father had previously been the minister. He later resigned the pastorate to start a Baptist institute for religious and civic affairs in Houston but died on January 2, 1933, before realizing this project.
Griggs wrote his first novel, Imperium in Imperio, in 1899. In 1905, he published The Hindered Hand, which became his second famous book. Griggs wrote more than thirty books for African-American audiences. However, he remained largely invisible in literary histories of the time. A reissue of Imperium by the Arno Press in 1969 revived interest in Griggs and several editions have been published since.
(Written in response to Thomas Dixon’s recently published ...)
1905(Odin’s Library Classics is dedicated to bringing the worl...)
1901Sutton Griggs was a supporter of the Niagara Movement and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He organized black self-help associations such as the National Public Welfare League (1914) and the National Religious and Civic Institute for the Baptists of Houston (1931).
His views on improving the status of blacks were influenced by several contemporary social theorists, including Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and Benjamin Kidd. Griggs felt that society evolved from lower to higher forms by adopting "Christian virtues." In his later view blacks needed only to practice Christian virtues (love, honesty, patience, etc.) in order to improve their socioeconomic status.
Quotations: "Religion ought do more than help a man reach heaven when he dies. It ought to help him to live in this world. It ought to help people meet every problem of life."
Sutton E. Griggs married Emma Williams on May 10, 1897. The marriage produced a daughter.