Renegade Regionalists: The Modern Independence of Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry - Paperback

by James M. Dennis (Author)

In the early twentieth century, Marcus Garvey sowed the seeds of a new black pride and determination. Attacked by the black intelligentsia and ridiculed by the white press, this Jamaican immigrant astonished all with his black nationalist rhetoric. In just four years, he built the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the largest and most powerful all-black organization the nation had ever seen. With hundreds of branches, throughout the United States, the UNIA represented Garvey's greatest accomplishment and, ironically, the source of his public disgrace. Black Moses brings this controversial figure to life and recovers the significance of his life and work.

"Those who are interested in the revolutionary aspects of the twentieth century in America should not miss Cronon's book. It makes exciting reading."--The Nation

"A very readable, factual, and well-documented biography of Marcus Garvey."--The Crisis, NAACP

"In a short, swiftly moving, penetrating biography, Mr. Cronon has made the first real attempt to narrate the Garvey story. From the Jamaican's traumatic race experiences on the West Indian island to dizzy success and inglorious failure on the mainland, the major outlines are here etched with sympathy, understanding, and insight."--Mississippi Valley Historical Review (Now the Journal of American History).

"Good reading for all serious history students."--Jet

"A vivid, detailed, and sound portrait of a man and his dreams."--Political Science Quarterly

Author Biography

James M. Dennis is professor of art history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Grant Wood: A Study in American Art and Culture, as well as of catalogs for the traveling exhibition Grant Wood: An American Master Revealed and for the Grant Wood collection of the Cedar Rapids Art Center.