FIVE GENERATIONS HENCE (4)
By:
September 24, 2025
Five Generations Hence is a 1916 afrofuturist novel by Lillian B. Jones. It is considered unique in its pre-Harlem Renaissance, pre-Marcus-Garvey call for a transcontinental dialogue between Africa and America, one that hinges on economic self-sufficiency and most particularly on the high-minded ideas and deeds of intelligent women. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize Chapter V, k for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5.
“It is not true,” replied Miss Noble. “The very laws and the amalgamations so abhorred are our safeguards that the perpetuation of our race is assured. If we were originally part of the white race and have by some physical evolution produced these racial characteristics, then it is possible that other and adverse forces being brought to bear, we might finally be lost in that family whence we sprang, but not become extinct. As a separate and distinct people we have a destiny to weave, and no force, oppression or amalgamation can deter that edict of God.
“But it has been discovered before now by thinking people that the two races can never live in harmony one with the other, side by side, until one concedes the mastery, or both concede the spirit of equality. And there can exist no equality between peoples so unlike in physical characteristics, temperament, wealth, and education.
“The Negro as a race is yet a child, and like most natives of warm, southern climates he is pleasure-loving, impetuous, superstitious and fond of gay dress, very unlike the hardy, practical races of the North.
“Side by side the contrast is too great; the Negro [evinces] little originality in his dress, manner or custom because his training has ever been that all that is lovely and desirable belongs to the white man, and being [of] an easygoing people, he chooses to mimic rather than originate. This brings him into the contempt of his white neighbor, [who has] with it a feeling of superiority and monopoly.
“But away from these influences — where the little Negro maiden [must] compare her little blue-eyed blonde doll baby with her “nigger boy,” our correct temperature must be taken by a physician of the opposite race, [and we rely on] bosses to advance us money for food and to bury our dead — yes, away from these conditions, Negroes can see each other’s virtues, gain self-respect and learn the great lesson of self-reliance as a race.
“All saving the old Negro seek to forget slavery. Saving the spirit of gratitude that it is no more, the young Negro wishes to blot out of his memory that dark period of his history; but the average white man keeps it constantly before him, and few can rise to the dignity of a man or woman when constantly reminded by those in authority that their position of master and slave is not far removed.
“God in his wonderful providence permitted us to be stolen from our native shores and used to build up a powerful civilization. What have we profited thereby? We have learned the art that is the backbone of power and dominion that of labor; we have learned forbearance and certainly not been permitted to become guilty of the awful sin of pride. We have learned much of the white man’s boasted civilization, and by his help the Negro is educating himself to return, I fancy, to his natal soil and begin anew in his destiny, which is taking such time in weaving.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.