Gruesser’s book not only brings to light the literary life of this important Black writer but also discusses the work of a Black Kansas City artist who illustrated Griggs’ 1905 novel, The Hindered Hand, commissioned by the National Baptist Church as a response to Thomas Dixon’s best-selling racist romance, The Leopard’s Spots, which, along with Dixon’s later, The Clansman, served as the basis for the film, The Birth of the Nation.
John Cullen Gruesser is Senior Research Scholar at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, and a visiting fellow at the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University. Prior to this, he taught at Kean University in New Jersey where he coordinated the M.A. in Liberal Studies program.
Gruesser has been the president of the Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins Society, the New Jersey College English Association, and the Poe Studies Association, which named him an Honorary Lifetime Member in 2020.
This event will be held in room 302 of the Student Un ion on April 25, 2024.
