"Black on Black provides the first comprehensive analysis of the modern African American literary response to Africa, from W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk to Alice Walker's The Color Purple.". "John Gruesser uses the concept of Ethiopianism - the biblically inspired belief that black Americans would someday lead Africans and people of the diaspora to a bright future - to provide a framework for his study. Combining cutting-edge theory, extensive historical and archival research, and close readings of individual texts, Gruesser reveals the diversity of the African American response to Countee Cullen's question, "What is Africa to Me?""--BOOK JACKET.