Ethiopianist Fiction and the Politics of Theological Hope

This essay examines Pauline E. Hopkins's speculative novel Of One Blood (serialized 1902-03) as it represents the distinctive nonlinear time of Ethiopianism, an African American prophetic tradition premised upon Psalm 68:31, "Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto God" (KJV). Of One Blood proves uncertain about when and how Ethiopianism's key promise, the rise of a new social order featuring African American leadership, might be enacted. As the text grapples with that uncertainty, though, it models for readers how religious historiographies can drive acts of political resistance against systems of oppression that show no signs of giving way. Rather than an escape from the racist realities of the turn-of-the-century United States, the Ethiopianist narratives in Of One Blood convey a mode of confronting those realities and summoning the theological hope to pursue unseen alternatives.