Light Ahead for the Negroes

1904 Johnson, E[dward] A[ustin] (1860-1944). Light Ahead for the Negroes. New York: Grafton Press. Rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1975; and in Black Sci-Fi Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Stories (London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2021), 335-77. MoSW, PSt, ViU

Set in 2006 in an improved but still segregated South, which is presented as a much better situation for African-Americans. Very paternalistic attitudes by whites, so much so that there may be an element of satire. Unions opened to Negroes, and, in separate meetings, to women; the unions train the men, and Schools of Domestic Science were opened to professionally train the women. The first part of the work is a description of the situation of the black at the beginning of the twentieth century (21-98). The economy has been partially nationalized. Blacks and whites “naturally” associate with their own people. Southern cotton plantations bought, broken up, and re-sold to African-Americans at low prices at which time they are given assistance and training. Technologically advanced with electric cars that run on dedicated elevated tracks. In Adam vs. Ape-Man and Ethiopia. Illus. New York: Ptd. by J. J. Little and Ives Co., 1931, he argues that American Negroes are descended from Ethiopians, which were the first civilization in Africa. The African-American author was born a slave, graduated from Atlanta University, studied and practiced law, and was the first African-American elected to the New York State legislature.