Autobiographical Johnson published hundreds of stories and
poems during his lifetime. He also produced works such as God's
Trombones (1927), a collection that celebrates the African-American
experience in the rural South and elsewhere, and the novel The
Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) making him the first
black-American author to treat Harlem and Atlanta as subjects in
fiction. Based, in part, on Johnson's own life, The Autobiography
of an Ex-Colored Man was published anonymously in 1912, but did not
attract attention until Johnson re-issued it under his own name in
1927.
Slide 4
General career facts S ongwriter, poet, novelist, journalist,
critic, and autobiographer. James Weldon Johnson, much like his
contemporary W. E. B. Du Bois, was a man who bridged several
historical and literary trends. Born in 1871, during the optimism
of the Reconstruction period, in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson was
imbued with an eclectic set of talents. Over the course of his
sixty-seven years, Johnson was the first African American admitted
to the Florida bar since the end of Reconstruction; the co-composer
(with his brother John Rosamond) of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing,'
the song that would later become known as the Negro National
Anthem; field secretary in the NAACP; journalist; publisher;
diplomat; educator; translator; librettist; anthologist; and
English professor; in addition to being a well-known poet and
novelist and one of the prime movers of the Harlem
Renaissance.
Slide 5
One spcific work: lift everyvoice and sing
Slide 6
Renaissance link James Weldon Johnson was an American author,
educator, lawyer, diplomat, songwriter, and civil rights activist.
Johnson is best remembered for his leadership of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he
started working in 1917. In 1920, he was the first black to be
chosen as executive secretary of the organization, effectively the
operating officer. He served in that position from 1920 to 1930.
Johnson established his reputation as a writer, and was known
during the Harlem Renaissance for his poems, novels, and
anthologies collecting both poems and spirituals of black
culture.