 | |
| Authors | Thomas Dixon, Jr. |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Edward Shenton |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Monarch Publishing |
Publication date | 1939 |
The Flaming Sword was a 1939 novel by Thomas Dixon, Jr. It was his twenty-eighth and last novel. [1] It has been described as "a racist jeremiad centered on the specter of black sexuality." [2]
The novel is the last installment of a trilogy which included The Clansman and The Birth of a Nation . [3] It is partly based on The Red Dawn , a play written by Dixon in 1919. [3]
Dixon worked sixteen hours a day on this novel. [4] The book came with thirty pages of illustrations done by Edward Shenton. [3] It was published by Monarch Publishing, owned by Edward Young Clarke, a Ku Klux Klan member. [3]
The title is taken from a quotation by African-American leader W.E.B. Du Bois: "Across this path stands the South with flaming sword." [2] [4] [5]
Shortly after Angela Cameron gets married, an African-American man breaks into her house, kills her husband and son, and rapes her sister. [3] As a result, she decides to move to New York City and learn more about the situation of African-Americans. [3] Meanwhile, African-Americans and Communists try to overthrow the government, and they succeed: the country becomes known as the 'Soviet Republic of the United States' and the only newspaper available in New York City is the Soviet Herald. [6] [7] However, she meets her childhood sweetheart and decides everything is not lost. [3] Eventually, she donates US$10 million to found the Marcus Garvey Colonization Society, whose aim is to repatriate African Americans to the African continent. [2] [5]
The book was reprinted four times in the first two months of publication. [3] In 2005, it was reprinted by the University Press of Kentucky. [1]
According to biographer Anthony Slide, the novel "is generally seen as a critical failure." [3] Indeed, The New York Times called it "a nightmare melodrama" and "the expression of a panic fear." [3] Alluding to World War II, the New York Herald Tribune suggested, "it is not as wildly incredible today as it might have seemed a few short weeks ago." [3]
The novel was praised by Marcus Garvey. [5]
The Birth of a Nation, originally called The Clansman, is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play The Clansman. Griffith co-wrote the screenplay with Frank E. Woods and produced the film with Harry Aitken.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Garvey was ideologically a black nationalist and Pan-Africanist, his ideas came to be known as Garveyism.
The Nigger is a play by American playwright Edward Sheldon (1886–1946). It explores the relationship between blacks and whites in the melodrama of a politician faced with a sudden, personal dilemma. The play was first performed on Broadway in New York City at the New Theatre on December 4, 1909. The play was adapted to a novel, and a film adaptation, directed by Edgar Lewis, was made in 1915. Because the title was controversial, the film was released in some markets as The Governor or The New Governor.
The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden—1865–1900 is the first novel of Thomas Dixon's Reconstruction trilogy, and was followed by The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905), and The Traitor: A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire (1907). In the novel, published in 1902, Dixon offers an account of Reconstruction in which he portrays a Reconstruction leader, Northern carpetbaggers, and emancipated slaves as the villains; Ku Klux Klan members are anti-heroes. While the playbills and program for The Birth of a Nation claimed The Leopard's Spots as a source in addition to The Clansman, recent scholars do not accept this.
Henrietta Vinton Davis was an elocutionist, dramatist, and impersonator. In addition to being "the premier actress of all nineteenth-century black performers on the dramatic stage", Davis was proclaimed by Marcus Garvey to be the "greatest woman of the Negro race today".
Tony Martin was a Trinidad and Tobago-born scholar of Africana Studies. From 1973 to 2007 he worked at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and over the course of his career published more than ten books and a range of scholarly articles.
The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan is a novel published in 1905, the second work in the Ku Klux Klan trilogy by Thomas Dixon Jr.. Chronicling the American Civil War and Reconstruction era from a pro-Confederate perspective, it presents the Ku Klux Klan heroically. The novel was adapted first by the author as a highly successful play entitled The Clansman (1905), and a decade later by D. W. Griffith in the 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation.
Queen Mother Moore was an African-American civil rights leader and a black nationalist who was friends with such civil rights leaders as Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Rosa Parks, and Jesse Jackson. She was a figure in the American Civil Rights Movement and a founder of the Republic of New Afrika. Dr. Delois Blakely was her assistant for 20 years. Blakely was later enstooled in Ghana as a Nana.
Thomas Frederick Dixon Jr. was an American Baptist minister, politician, lawyer, lecturer, writer, and filmmaker. Referred to as a "professional racist", Dixon wrote two best-selling novels, The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden—1865–1900 (1902) and The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905), that romanticized Southern white supremacy, endorsed the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, opposed equal rights for black people, and glorified the Ku Klux Klan as heroic vigilantes. Film director D. W. Griffith adapted The Clansman for the screen in The Birth of a Nation (1915). The film inspired the creators of the 20th-century rebirth of the Klan.
Thomas James (1804–1891) had been a slave who became an African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister, abolitionist, administrator and author. He was active in New York and Massachusetts with abolitionists, and served with the American Missionary Association and the Union Army during the American Civil War to supervise the contraband camp in Louisville, Kentucky. After the war, he held national offices in the AME Church and was a missionary to black churches in Ohio. While in Massachusetts, he challenged the railroad's custom of forcing blacks into second-class carriages and won a reversal of the rule in the State Supreme Court. He wrote a short memoir published in 1886.
Edward Young Clarke was the Imperial Wizard pro tempore of the Ku Klux Klan from 1915 to 1922. Prior to his Klan activities, Clarke headed the Atlanta-based Southern Publicity Association. He later served as the president of Monarch Publishing, a book publishing company.
The Fall of a Nation is a 1916 American silent drama film directed by Thomas Dixon Jr., and a sequel to the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith. Dixon, Jr. attempted to cash in on the success of the controversial first film. The Fall of a Nation is considered to be the first ever feature-length film sequel, though it was predated by short film sequels such as The Little Train Robbery and Sherlock Holmes II: Raffles Escaped from Prison. Based upon Dixon's novel The Fall of a Nation, the film is now lost, although the complete score survives.
The One Woman: A Story of Modern Utopia is a 1903 novel by Thomas Dixon Jr.
Comrades: A Story of Social Adventure in California is a 1909 novel by Thomas Dixon, Jr. It deals with the establishment of a socialist commune on a Californian island and its subsequent unraveling. Widely reviewed, it was later adapted as a play and as a film.
The Root of Evil is a 1911 novel by Thomas Dixon, Jr.
The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South is a 1912 novel by Thomas Dixon Jr.
The Traitor: A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire is a 1907 novel by Thomas Dixon Jr. It is the third part in a trilogy about the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction. The two previous installments were The Leopard's Spots, published in 1902, and The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, published in 1905.
The Foolish Virgin: A Romance of Today is a 1915 novel by Thomas Dixon, Jr.
The Foolish Virgin is a lost 1924 American silent romantic drama film released by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by George W. Hill and stars Elaine Hammerstein. It is based on the 1915 novel The Foolish Virgin: A Romance of Today by Thomas Dixon Jr. This is the second known adaptation of the novel; the first was released in 1916.
Leslie Stowe was an American actor. He appeared on stage and screen. He played the evil Herman Wolff character in Bolshevism on Trial. Anthony Slide praised his performance as the film's villain.