Light Ahead for the Negro

<p><I>Light Ahead for the Negro</I> (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. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript this edition of Edward A. Johnson's <I>Light Ahead for the Negro</I> is a classic work of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.</p>