Two gifted Black men grow up in Virginia and take different paths: Belton Piedmont, dark-skinned and poor, and Bernard Belgrave, light-skinned and privileged. Through school, politics and love they confront the violence of the Jim Crow South, until both are drawn into the Imperium, a secret government of African Americans headquartered in Texas, and must choose between accommodation and armed revolt.
A bold 1899 novel of Black political imagination, now read as a pioneering work of African American fiction. Download the free EPUB.