Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkins

Early Black sci-fi with prototype Wakanda

Pauline Hopkins (1859-1930) was an African American novelist, playwright, journalist, and magazine editor who was active in the Boston literary scene of the early 20th century. A trailblazing Black woman writer of her era, Hopkins was notable for confronting racial, political, and feminist issues in her writing. She was also a groundbreaking writer in another sense, in that her novel Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self was an early contribution to the burgeoning science fiction and fantasy genre. Of One Blood was first published serially from 1902 to 1903 in the periodical The Colored American Magazine, of which Hopkins was the editor. In recent years, a few publishers have released editions of the novel in book form, among them MIT Press as part of its Radium Age science fiction series.

A Harvard medical student, Reuel Briggs, is haunted by visions of a mysterious and beautiful woman he has never met, who appears only in his dreams. Soon after, however, he sees this apparition in the flesh, performing in a musical theatre production. The mystery woman, Dianthe Lusk, is a celebrated vocalist in a troupe of Black singers. Briggs and Dianthe’s paths cross again when she is fatally injured in a train accident. Lucky for her, Briggs has discovered the secret of life through his medical research and has unlocked the secret to bringing the dead back to life. He resurrects Dianthe, then supervises her recovery. In the process, the two fall in love. Also in the picture, however, is Briggs’s best friend Aubrey Livingston, who has also developed an obsession for Dianthe. Dianthe is a light-skinned Black woman. It is hinted early on that Briggs is also of mixed race, although he has been passing for white, so it would be acceptable under the societal norms of the time for he and Dianthe to marry. Livingston, on the other hand, is white and engaged to a white woman, but he wants Dianthe for his mistress and is not above resorting to treachery to possess her.

Then, for no logical reason, Briggs decides to join an archaeological expedition to Ethiopia (actually the Sudan in today’s terms), where his party searches for the ancient Nubian city of Meroe. There, Briggs discovers a civilization far more advanced than previously thought. In fact, this Nubian society predates Egypt as the cradle of Western civilization, art, and science. Hopkins’s fantastic depiction of Meroe, brimming with unapologetic Black pride, is a precursor to Wakanda of Marvel Comics and the recent Black Panther films. We now know that Africa was the homeland of all human life, and there were ancient African civilizations other than Egypt, but these would have been controversial views in 1903. Hopkins boldly puts forward these assertions and cleverly elaborates them with sci-fi/fantasy ingenuity.

Hopkins was certainly a skilled practitioner of the English language, but from a plotting standpoint, Of One Blood is not particularly well-written. Plot threads fizzle into nothing (Briggs’s talent for resurrection is totally disregarded) while others pop out of nowhere (at what point was one of the main characters reported dead?). Hopkins also employs a surprise twist that was unnecessary in the Star Wars saga and is equally unnecessary here. What makes the novel admirable and gratifying to today’s readers, however, is the inspiring and audacious (for its time) message of Black pride and racial equality. It’s hard not to get behind a novel that champions the brotherhood of all humanity, and Hopkins manages to make her point with a story that is unexpected and entertaining.