Essential Writings of Robert A. Hill

Collected for the first time, thefoundational contributions of a scholar and activist who shaped the study ofGarveyism and pan-Africanism

Thisvolume brings together Robert A. Hill’s most important writings for the firsttime, highlighting his intellectual contributions to the history ofpan-Africanism. A pioneering scholar and activist, a groundbreakingbuilder of pan-African archives, and the editor of the multivolume MarcusGarvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Hill remains underacknowledgedfor his influence on the field. This collection is a long-overdue testament tohis legacy.

AdamEwing showcases Hill’s groundbreaking writings on Garveyism, the pan-African,anticolonial movement that spread across the globe following World War I. Hill’sessays trace Marcus Garvey’s evolving thought and illuminate the resonance ofthe movement in the Caribbean and its diaspora, in the United States, andacross sub-Saharan Africa. The volume also includes Hill’s writings on diverse aspectsof pan-Africanism, including the impostor figure in diaspora history, CyrilBriggs’s African Blood Brotherhood, the Rastafarian movement, the fiction of GeorgeSchuyler, George Beckford and the Abeng collective in Jamaica, the theories ofWalter Rodney, the life and thought of C.L.R. James, and the music of BobMarley.

Thisvolume not only demonstrates Hill’s intellectual praxis and its roots in his academic influences and personal experiences but also revealsthe breadth, diversity, complexity, and centrality of the pan-African traditionin African diasporic politics and thought.

Publicationof this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the AmericanRescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.