E-text prepared by Mary Glenn Krause, Roger Frank, Wayne Hammond, California Digital Library, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/lightaheadforneg00johnrich LIGHT AHEAD FOR THE NEGRO by E. A. JOHNSON Author of _The School History of the Negro Race Colored Soldiers in the Spanish American War The Negro Almanac_ [Illustration] The Grafton Press New York Copyright 1904 by E. A. Johnson. PREFACE The author dedicates this work to the thousands of sympathetic and well wishing friends of the Negro race. He is trying to show how the Negro problem can be solved in peace and good will rather than by brutality. His idea is that the Golden Rule furnishes the only solution. He believes that at the bottom of southern society there is a vein of sympathy and helpfulness for the Negro and that this feeling should be cultivated and nourished that it may grow stronger and finally supplant harsher sentiments. There are two factions striving for the mastery of the south to-day, one seeking political power on the idea that Negro manhood is to be crushed and serfdom established, and the other willing that the Negro should have a freeman’s chance and work out his destiny as best he can with the powers God has given him. This faction is ready to give its sympathy and help, and it is the efforts of this class that the author desires to endorse and encourage. The story weaved into the work is subordinate to the discussion of facts, and not paramount; it is intended to be mild, thus putting it in keeping with the character of the heroine whose deeds it portrays; and should the day ever come when America can arise to the height of adopting and following her sentiments, it will then indeed be the “Sweet land of liberty,” for the black as well as the white man. E. A. JOHNSON. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE LOST AIRSHIP--UNCONSCIOUSNESS, 1 II. TO EARTH AGAIN--ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER, 6 III. AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY WITH IRENE, 13 IV. NOW AND THEN, 21 V. A VISIT TO PUBLIC BUILDINGS, 99 VI. A RIDE WITH IRENE, 107 VII. DR. NEWELL AND WORK OF THE YOUNG LADIES’ GUILD, 111 VIII. WITH IRENE AGAIN, 116 IX. THE PRIZE ESSAY, 120 X. SAD NEWS FOR IRENE, 131 _Light Ahead for the Negro_ CHAPTER I THE LOST AIRSHIP--UNCONSCIOUSNESS