Sutton Elbert Griggs was born on June 19 1872 in Chatfield, Texas, to Alan Ralph and Emma Hodge Griggs, the oldest of their children. Alan Ralph Griggs had been freed from slavery just seven years earlier. It is therefore remarkable that he became a highly respected Baptist minister and editor of The Western Star in Texas. He also served as the Texas delegate to the 1905 World's Baptist Congress in London, England. In Paths of Progress (1925) Sutton Griggs writes about his father's pioneer spirit, demonstrated by his establishment of the first colored high school and colored newspaper in Texas (44}. In the dedication to his novel, The Hindered Hand (1905), he pays a tribute to his father as “pre-eminently a man of …
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Citation: Chander, Harish. "Sutton E. Griggs". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 January 2002 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1886, accessed 21 November 2024.]
