It is absolutely certain that according to the division of the human family made in the Bible that King Solomon did not belong to the White race, and all things being equal could not personally have been white, as that word is popularly understood, according to African-American Rev. Benjamin Tucker Tanner, D.D., in his 1895 100-page book "The Color of Solomon."
Tanner was not only one of the foremost theologians of his times, but his long years of experience as an editor, his wide, critical and thorough researches in historical, ecclesiastical, and linguistic lines, makes what he has to say on any subject of more than ordinary importance.
In explaining his reason for devoting time to discussing the "otherwise senseless question of Solomon's color, a king who reigned quite three thousand years ago, " Tanner writes:
"In no country in Christendom, except the United States of America, would the color of a man be deemed a subject worthy of consideration. In all other lands it is race or nation. In the United States, however, that that is mightier than manhood-mightier than race or nation, morals or intellect, is the negative quality of the color of the skin."
Benjamin Tucker Tanner (1835-1923) was an African American clergyman and editor. He served as a Bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1886, and founded the Christian Recorder an important early African American newspaper.
Other books by the author include:
• Apology for African Methodism
• The Dispensations in the History of the Church and the Interregnums
• Theological Lectures
• The Color of Solomon: What?
• The Descent of the Negro
• Outlines of History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church
• Origin of the Negro, and Is the Negro Cursed?
