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LIGHT AHEAD FOR THE NEGRO

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Copyright 1904 by
E. A. JOHNSON.

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PREFACE

The author dedicates this work to the thousandsof sympathetic and well wishingfriends of the Negro race. He is tryingto show how the Negro problem can be solved inpeace and good will rather than by brutality.His idea is that the Golden Rule furnishes theonly solution.

He believes that at the bottom of southernsociety there is a vein of sympathy and helpfulnessfor the Negro and that this feeling should becultivated and nourished that it may grow strongerand finally supplant harsher sentiments.

There are two factions striving for the masteryof the south to-day, one seeking political power onthe idea that Negro manhood is to be crushed andserfdom established, and the other willing that theNegro should have a freeman’s chance and workout his destiny as best he can with the powersGod has given him. This faction is ready to giveits sympathy and help, and it is the efforts of thisviclass that the author desires to endorse and encourage.

The story weaved into the work is subordinateto the discussion of facts, and not paramount; itis intended to be mild, thus putting it in keepingwith the character of the heroine whose deeds itportrays; and should the day ever come whenAmerica can arise to the height of adopting andfollowing her sentiments, it will then indeed bethe “Sweet land of liberty,” for the black as wellas the white man.

E. A. Johnson.
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CONTENTS