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Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson
Here is, to quote the eminent historian Nathan Irvin Huggins, “one of the finest American autobiographies written in this century.” Born in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida, James Weldon Johnson began his career as a high-school principal. He went on to attain success as a songwriter on Broadway and as the compiler of the definitive
Book of American Negro Spirituals
. But he a
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Johnson (1871-1938) is most famous as the author of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” but that is just the bright tip of his many accomplishments. Johnson was a school principal in Florida who opened the first public high school for African Americans, he was a journalist, lawyer, scholar, novelist (The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man), poet, a successful Broadway songwriter (with his brother who was the composer), an American consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua, the editor of ground-breaking anthol
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James Weldon Johnson was a high-school principal by age 21; spoke Latin, Spanish, French, and god knows what else; worked as a singer-songwriter and poet, Roosevelt diplomatic appointee and consul to Venezuela, the first Black man admitted to the Florida bar since Reconstruction, NAACP executive, ACLU activist, and sometime politician; he also did more than perhaps anyone else to bring government attention to the rate and causes of lynchings in the South in the early 20th century.
Johnson's an od ...more
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This is an important read for anyone wishing to explore the origins of the Black intellectual elite who led the United States to enlightenment after Radical Reconstruction. Like many of his class, James Weldon Johnson rose up from indentured servitude to exemplify the caliber of talent that was unable to contribute to American society due to the legacy of segregation.
An author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights acti ...more
An author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights acti ...more
An excellent biography which informs one about African American life iin the first quarter of the 20th Century.
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James Weldon Johnson was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and collections of folklore. He was also one of the first African-American professors at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative li
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