Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1912-09-18
Warner, on Cotton Belt Near Bluff to be Exclusively
  For Colored Residents.
FISHER HAS PROJECT
Negro Educator Talks of the OppOr- tunitieS Offered His Race in
 the Agricultural Field.

1 NOfllal college at tnlS place, anu who left the State about year and half ago, has returned to Arkansas Fisher has been spending a few days i in Pine Bluff looking over the field and outlining a campaign of publicity for his new efforts.
 It will be of interest to his friends throughout the State to know that he will be the general field agent and promoter of the plan to establish a town for colored people at Warner, Arkansas The seat of this new town $ on the Cotton Belt railroad between Wahbaseka and Humphrey, in Jeffer son county.
 The Warner Land Company has | plated the new town, and, in addi- tion. has placed on the market 1000 acres of fertile farming lands ajpoin- 1 ing and surrounding the town. All of this land is to be offered to colored people; and Fisher, because of his 1 well known push and energy, has been asked to come back to the State and push the project.
 To a Graphic representative, con- corning his reasons for going into this new field, Fisher said:
 Frankly, the idea of founding a town, the property in which would be | held always for and by colored peo- but colored persons can purchase | land in Warner. This does not mean i that the town will be hostile to the whites but it is intended to establish d community where negroes may have an opportunity to govern themselves and to prove their ability to make progress along substantial lines.
 Tn the second place, I believe l can be of some service to my people by keeping before them the necessity of purchasing homes and getting hold of some of the rich bottom lands of the South before the prices put them beyond the reach of the colored peo- pie. Everywhere, in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and the other states of the Mississippi Valley, there is the same story-the rich farming lands have so advanced ill price that colored people will very soon be un- able to secure any of them
 { Our people depend largely upon agriculture for their support and yet our attention is apparently turned to everything but ownership of farm lands. l have vision in my mind for Warner; and in that picture is a town owned, governed and developed by colored people, There will be schools and churches, (my company will donate land for both) governed as the colored people want them, shere will be parks and playgrounds i've are going tfio donate to the own a piece of land right in the center of the corporation to be used for pub- | C DdIkj anu tHClC Wlii pC ONHSA VII terprises common to a model city. As a backbone for the life and activities of the town there will be model farms of cotton corn, rice and other grain and great truck farms to supply near by and foreign markets. Such truck farms would lead naturally to can ming facscry and other allied .ndus- tries.
 t'The great drainage canal, nne miles in length, that is being cut right by our property. at cost of more than $47,0O0, will give such drainage as will make the entire sec ton an ideal one for farming.
 Long ago a prophet declared that where there is no vision, the people perish l have long felt that in large measure, my race has been deficient in vision for the future. mean by this that we go on from year to year seeing very little of the splen- did opportunities which tomorrow will bring. When tomorrow comes, our white neighbors have generally seized the opportunity and we are ] left out in the cold. l have come i back to Arkansas because l want to talk 10 colored people of the land and prosperity and happiness of to- morrow l want to develop some path-fnders in my race-some who will, like the hardy and dauntless white pioneers, who crossed the prairies and founded the great Vest; go into the uncultivated farm lands of this State and possess the land and hold it for themselves and their children. At Warner there will be