Light Ahead for the Negro

Charles A. Johnson (1860-1944) was an African American attorney, novelist, and New York state assemblyman. Born into slavery in Wake County, North Carolina, he gained his freedom as a child at the end of the Civil War and went on to excel at Washington High School and Atlanta University. While working as a school principal in Raleigh, he wrote A School History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1890 (1890), a pioneering textbook on African American history that was adopted by black schools throughout Virginia and North Carolina. In 1891, he obtained a law degree from Shaw University, a historically black university in Raleigh, before working as an assistant U.S. Attorney from 1899 to 1907. During this time, Johnson wrote Light Ahead for the Negro (1904) an influential utopian novel set in the year 2006. Devoted to Republican Party politics, he moved to New York City and became a leader in Harlem, eventually joining the New York State Assembly in 1918. In 1928, despite having gone blind several years earlier, Johnson ran a strong campaign for Congress in the 21st District, eventually losing to Democrat Royal H. Weller.