1. JAMES WELDON JOHNSON 1871-1938

2. Born into a middle class black family in Jacksonville Florida Then moved to the backwoods of Georgia and he had his first lesson in dealing with men and conditions in the outside world. He described it as a time “that marked the beginning of his psychological change from boyhood to manhood. “ It was also the time when he gained knowledge about his own people, about his “race” He believed that a force stronger than blood bonded him to the people he met in Georgia These experiences explain why he wrote “The autobiography of an ex-colored man.” and explain why he wrote the novel in the way that he did. It is a novel about a man who is half black and half white, but who lives his life “passing” as only a white man

3. EXPOSURE IN HIS EARLY LIFE Parents: James and Helen Louise (Dillet) Johnson Mother was a schoolteacher – exposed him to her love of English and literature and the European tradition in music (this is scene in his novel “Autobiography on an ex-colored man” The achievement of his father, headwaiter at the St. James Hotel. A luxury establishment allowed him the wherewithal to pursue a professional career. Molded by classical education Went to Atlanta university He was dedicated to using his education and good fortune to dedicate his resources to black people.

4. MOVED TO NEW YORK In 1901 left to collaborate with his brother and Bob Cole They wrote popular songs (Broadway shows) He lived amongst the upper class of African American society in Brooklyn. Met his wife Grace Nail Joined the diplomatic corps, serving first as U.S. consul at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela In 1909 served as head of the U.S. consulate at Corinto, Nicaragua. Wrote “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” while living in NY Took over the editorial page of the “New York Age”, an influential African American weekly His writing for the “New York Age” displayed the political gift that soon propelled him into national prominence.

5. ACCOMPLISHMENTS Appointed to the Adam K. Spence Chair of Creative Literature at Fisk University in Nashville. Principle of Stranton School in his home town Wrote “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” for a school commemoration of Lincoln’s birthday. Set to music by his brother Rosamond, the song resonated throughtout black America, achieving the unofficial title of the “Negro National Anthem” Proved adept at many styles and forms of poetry, from the unaffected dialect of “Sence You Went Away.” (1900) to the urbane sonnet “My City” (1923) Wrote “God’s Trombone’s” (1927) which drew on the spiritual aspirations and folk imagination of black people that Johnson met in the rural south Successful songwriter for Broadway shows Published poems in national periodicals such as “Century Magazine”, and “Independent” Asked to become the national Association for the Adcancement of Colored-People (NAACP)

6. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLORED MAN Published in 1912 This novel follows the life of a man who is never named throughout the entirety of the novel. We learn that the narrator feels too ashamed, or afraid to admit that he is in fact a black man, as well as a white man. We follow his story from boyhood to manhood. He starts out identifying as a black child but as time passes on he discovers that he can pass as white as he feels life to be easier. Even after witnessing a lynching, the narrator stills feels the desire to associate with this community of abusers and oppressors. However in the end we see that the main character is full of regret. It is written as though it is an autobiography, a tale of non-fiction Shows the problematic exploration of racial identity and the conflicted relationship of “The Negro” to “the American” in the twentieth-century African American’s struggle for self-definition in the united states I believe that writing it as though they were true events was an extremely effective way of writing and showing the audience the sadness and irony of the situation. When it was first published people believed that it really was an autobiography of James Weldon Johnson. This may be why he later wrote his real autobiography titled, “Along This Way.”

7. ALONG HIS WAY Title of his autobiography States that he was pleased when most of the reviewers of the 1912 edition of “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” accepted it as a human document,” This was a tribute to his writing He has done the book with the intention of it being taken seriously He wanted it to be taken as a real account of a real man’s interior odyssey towards an uneasy solution of his identity problems.

8. In 1927 Johnson demonstrated his theory in his own much-acclaimed “God’s Trombones” and republished “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” with the authorship clearly stating the Johnson. This gave dramatic form to its creator’s theory of the roots of African American creativity in the story of an artist who rejected his gifts and his people in exchange for a masked identity in the white world. Died in an Automobile accicent in 1938

9. WORKS CITED Gates, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and McKay, Nellie Y. (2004) “The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Second Edition.” pgs 791-904