Light Ahead for the Negro

Edward A. Johnson

• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781513298337
• eBook ISBN: 9781513298337
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Fantascienza

Light Ahead for the Negro (1904) is a novel by Edward A. Johnson. Written while Johnson was working as an assistant U. S. Attorney in North Carolina, the novel is a groundbreaking work of speculative fiction and Afrofuturism from a pioneering African American politician and lawyer. "I glanced through the floor but the earth was almost indistinguishable, and was disappearing rapidly. There was absolutely nothing that I could do. I looked up again at my friend, who was clambering up rather clumsily, I remember thinking at the moment. […] Involuntarily, I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again, he was gone! My feelings were indescribable. I commenced to lose consciousness, owing to the altitude and the ship was ascending more rapidly every moment. Finally I became as one dead." The son of an abolitionist applies to work at a school for African American children in Georgia. In June 1906, he joins a wealthy friend on a flight from New York City to Mexico, boarding an experimental airship at a West 59th Street pier. When an instrument failure sends them spiraling into the upper atmosphere, the narrator loses consciousness. One hundred years later, he lands on a lawn in Georgia, awakening to discover a utopian society in which anti-blackness has been completely eradicated. This edition of Edward A. Johnson's Light Ahead for the Negro is a classic work of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• I. The Lost Airship—Unconsciousness
• II. To Earth Again—One Hundred Years Later
• III. At the Public Library with Irene
• IV. Now and Then
• V. A Visit to Public Buildings
• VI. A Ride with Irene
• VII. Dr. Newell and Work of the Young Ladies’ Guilds
• VIII. With Irene Again
• IX. The Prize Essay
• X. Sad News for Irene
• A Note About the Author
• A Note from the Publisher