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James Weldon Johnson: Writings

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man | Along This Way | essays and editorials | selected poems More

Edited by William L. Andrews

“The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man established James Weldon Johnson as the first truly modern black American novelist, while his Along This Way, published two decades later (in 1933), recounted his rich life as a diplomat, journalist, songwriter, and secretary to the NAACP. This collection of his writings, which includes both of those longer works plus several rare essays, poems, and songs, is yet another important volume in The Library of America series.” — Dallas Morning News

Overview
Table of Contents

Overview

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James Weldon Johnson’s career was one of extraordinary range, spanning the worlds of diplomacy (as U.S. consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua), politics (as Secretary of the NAACP), journalism (as founder of one newspaper and longtime editor of another), musical theater (as lyricist for the Broadway songwriting team of Cole and Johnson Brothers), and literature (as novelist, poet, and anthologist). At the dawning of what would become the modern civil rights movement, he forged a record of accomplishment that defied the odds. The Library of America now presents a collection of his writings that displays the many facets of a complex and impassioned writer.

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), Johnson’s first book, is a novel that on its original anonymous publication was taken by many for an actual memoir. A groundbreaking work of modern fiction, it powerfully describes the inner development of a gifted, socially alienated man as he tries to come to terms with the constraints of racism.

Along This Way (1933) is Johnson’s genial and enthralling account of his fantastically busy life, with a cast of characters including W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Clarence Darrow, Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Carl Van Vechten, and many others.

A selection of shorter prose—editorials from The New York Age, political essays, literary prefaces, an excerpt from the historical study Black Manhattan—confirms the variety of Johnson’s interests, as he comments on figures and topics including Jack Johnson, Marcus Garvey, Woodrow Wilson, lynching, anti-Japanese discrimination in California, American involvement in Haiti, changing trends in theater and poetry, and the significance of spirituals.

Johnson’s poetry is represented by the full text of God’s Trombones (1927), his stirring homage to African-American preaching, and shorter works including “O Black and Unknown Bards,” lyrics from Johnson’s Broadway songwriting days, and “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the hymn often referred to as the “Negro National Anthem.”

William L. Andrews, volume editor, is E. Maynard Adams Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, general editor of The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology, and co-editor, with Henry Louis Gates Jr., of The Library of America’s Slave Narratives.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

This volume is available for adoption in the Guardian of American Letters Fund.
Table of Contents

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912)

Along This Way (1933)

Editorials from The New York Age (1914-23)
Do You Read Negro Papers?
President Wilson’s “New Freedom” and the Negro
22 Calibre Statesmen
Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Clansman
The Passing of Jack Johnson
A Trap
“The Poor White Musician”
Stranger Than Fiction
Saluting the Flag
Responsibilities and Opportunities of the Colored Ministry
Under the Dome of the Capitol
The Silent Parade
An Army with Banners
Experienced Men Wanted
“Why Should a Negro Fight?”
“Negro” with a Big “N”
Protesting Women and the War
The Japanese Question in California
The “Jim Crow” Car in Congress
A Real Poet
Marcus Garvey’s Inferiority Complex
The New Exodus

Selected Essays (1919-28)
The Riots
Self-Determining Haiti
Preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry
Lynching—America’s National Disgrace
Preface to The Second Book of Negro Spirituals
The Dilemma of the Negro Author
Race Prejudice and the Negro Artist

From Black Manhattan (1930)

Selected Poems
Under the Bamboo Tree
From Fifty Years & Other Poems (1917)
Fifty Years
To America
O Black and Unknown Bards
Brothers
Fragment
The White Witch
Mother Night
Girl of Fifteen
Down by the Carib Sea
Sence You Went Away
Nobody’s Lookin’ but de Owl an’ de Moon
‘Possum Song
Brer Rabbit, You’s de Cutes’ of ‘Em All

God’s Trombones (1927)
Preface
Listen, Lord—A Prayer
The Creation
The Prodigal Son
Go Down Death—A Funeral Sermon
Noah Built the Ark
The Crucifixion
Let My People Go
The Judgment Day

From Saint Peter Relates an Incident (1935)
Saint Peter Relates an Incident of the Resurrection Day
My City
If I Were Paris
Lift Every Voice and Sing

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ISBN: 978-1-93108252-5 906 pages

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N° 145 Library of America Series

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