Lillian Bertha Jones Horace

Lillian Bertha Jones Horace (née Amstead; April 29, 1880 – August 1, 1965) was an African American author, educator, and librarian from Fort Worth, Texas, best known for her novels Five Generations Hence, Crowned with Glory and Honor, and Angie Brown. These are the earliest novels on record written by an African-American woman from Texas. Horace married and divorced twice, and continued to teach, travel and write throughout her life. At the time of her retirement, she had been an educator for over thirty years. the first free public school in Fort Worth, and Mt. Gilead Baptist Church. She attended several colleges and universities, including historically black colleges in the Jim Crow south. In 1898-99, Lillian attended Bishop College, a historically black college founded by the Baptist Home Mission Society in Marshall, Texas, which she credited with her commitment to the Baptist faith. Lillian attended the Dallas Summer Normal Institute, a segregated teacher education program, in 1905. In 1914, she enrolled at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College (now Prairie View A&M University) and graduated valedictorian in a class of seventy-four. Returning to Fort Worth to teach during the school year, Lillian attended summer courses at the University of Chicago in 1917, 1918, 1919, 1928, and 1940; at the University of Colorado Boulder in 1920; and at Columbia University in 1924. In 1920–1921, she attended Simmons College in Louisville, Kentucky, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 1922. While at Simmons College, she held the position of Dean of Women. Jones would later return to the University of Chicago in 1940 to study for a master's degree in Library Science. In 1916, Lillian self-published her first book of utopian fiction, Five Generations Hence, the first known novel by an African-American woman in Texas. The plot of the migration narrative, centering on fictional African-American educator Grace Noble, presents African-American women as heroines and the return of black Americans to Africa as a "plausible solution to the obstacles facing blacks in the South", The book was not widely distributed, but came to scholars' attention in 1995 when it was excerpted in Daring to Dream: Utopian Stories by United States Women, 1836-1919. Williams was killed in a plane crash in 1940, and although Lillian finished the book the following year, power struggles within the National Baptist Convention prevented distribution of the book until 1964, when it gained the attention of Martin Luther King Jr. "Crowned with Glory and Honor": The Life of Rev. Lacey Kirk Williams was published posthumously in 1978.

Lillian's second novel, Angie Brown, was written while traveling between Texas and California after her divorce from her second husband. Rather than presenting emigration to Africa as a solution to American racial struggles, Angie Brown focuses on the women's shared experience and envisions "cooperation between black and white women".

Personal life Lillian B. Horace was a member of the Texas Commission on Interracial Cooperation, Zeta Phi Beta sorority, Alphin Art & Charity Club, Progressive Women's Club, Women's Council of Mt. Gilead, Heroines of Jericho, and Prince Hall Order of the Eastern Star; she also served as chaplain of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. She was also involved with the Texas Library Association and the National PTA. As a local civic leader and longtime educator at the "separate but superior" I.M. Terrell High School, Lillian was a significant influence on local African American women like educator Hazel Harvey Peace and civil rights activist Lulu B. White. the African-American section of Fort Worth's historic Oakwood Cemetery. Her funeral was held on August 9, 1965. Those in attendance included members of the many organizations Horace was a part of, including the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, Heroines of Jericho, Progressive Woman's Club, Viola Court No. 250 and Alphin Charity and Literary Arts Club. She was one of the only African American women writers working in the South during the 1940s. Scholars have argued that the category of Southern Literature has very few works by Black authors. Historians have viewed Horace's work as a way to widen this category. During the early to mid 1900s, the South upheld Jim Crow Laws. As an African American woman, Horace's freedom was limited under these laws which Dr. Veronica Watson argues influenced her work. In the diaries found by Kossie-Chernyshev, she wrote about everything from politics and war to her personal life. Her entries included some personal experiences with what she considered to be discrimination. For example, after a white woman stole shoes from her while she was at the store, and an employee refused to help her, Horace wrote:

The floorwalker, Mr. Weed, hurts my feelings. I lie awake and suffer much of the night. I want to say things to him not vulgar things but things to show how inconsiderate he was in a crisis. Shoes gone-- money and coupon "17"--but I suffer only for the insult I received. The first time I feel unpatriotic—just a dark face makes you the recipient of any insult.

Five Generations Hence Five Generations Hence, written in 1916, was Horace's first novel, which she self-published due to her work being rejected many times. She co-owned the publishing company that she used, Dotson Publishing Co. This novel was lost for many years until Carol Kessler included an excerpt of it in her novel Daring to Dream, written in 1996. Her premise puts forth emigrating to Africa as a solution to the discrimination faced by black people in the United States.

Crowned with Glory and Honor Crowned with Glory and Honor (written in 1943) is a biography of Reverend Lacey Kirk Williams, a prominent pastor and president of the National Baptist Convention (NBC), 1922–1940. Reverend Williams died just as Horace was finishing this novel, which created tension between leaders of the NBC. At this time, Horace was unable to convince them to publish the Reverend's biography. However, many years later at a meeting of the Progressive National Baptists Convention Inc. (PBC) Horace shared her novel. In 1978, thirteen years after Horace's death, a leader of the PBC, L. Vencheal Booth, published her work.

Angie Brown Angie Brown, written in 1949, was Horace's third novel. She unsuccessfully attempted to have it published by New York-based publisher Lemuel L. Foster. This novel includes themes of interracial cooperation, focusing specifically on black and white women. The protagonist, Angie Brown, is an African American woman who experiences the death of her infant soon after her husband leaves her. One of the only interns who would see Black patients at a nearby segregated hospital did not return from an extended lunch in time to treat her child. A devastated Angie begins a journey that takes her far away from home where she finds support from both black and white women. In turn, she is a positive influence on those around her.