Essential Writings of Robert A. Hill

Collected for the first time, the foundational contributionsof a scholar and activist who shaped the study of Garveyism and pan-Africanism

This volume brings together Robert A. Hill’s most importantwritings for the first time, highlighting his intellectual contributions to thehistory of pan-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 remainsunderacknowledged for his influence on the field. This collection is along-overdue testament to his legacy.

Adam Ewing showcases Hill’s groundbreaking writings onGarveyism, the pan-African, anticolonial movement that spread across the globefollowing World War I. Hill’s essays trace Marcus Garvey’s evolving thought andilluminate the resonance of the movement in the Caribbean and its diaspora, inthe United States, and across sub-Saharan Africa. The volume also includesHill’s writings on diverse aspects of pan-Africanism, including the impostorfigure in diaspora history, Cyril Briggs’s African Blood Brotherhood, theRastafarian movement, the fiction of George Schuyler, George Beckford and theAbeng collective in Jamaica, the theories of Walter Rodney, the life andthought of C.L.R. James, and the music of Bob Marley.

This volume not only demonstrates Hill’s intellectual praxisand its roots in his academic influences and personal experiences but alsoreveals the breadth, diversity, complexity, and centrality of the pan-Africantradition in African diasporic politics and thought.

Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining theHumanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowmentfor the Humanities.