James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), American author, lawyer, and diplomat, whose writings and activities demonstrated his deep consideration of black life in the United States. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson was educated at Atlanta and Columbia universities. In 1898 he became the first black admitted to the Florida bar. He practiced law in Florida until 1902, when he moved with his brother, composer John Rosamond Johnson, to New York City. There they worked as songwriters, having already collaborated on the well-known song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (1900). They found success in New York, where they wrote about 200 songs as well as a musical, The Shoo-Fly Regiment (1906). Later Johnson served as U.S. consul, in Venezuela from 1906 to 1909 and in Nicaragua from 1909 to 1912. He was field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1916 to 1920, and in 1920 he became the NAACP's first black executive secretary. He held the post until 1930, when he became a professor of creative literature at Fisk University in Tennessee.

Johnson's best-known book is the novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912). The book examines race relations in the United States through its narrator, who wrestles with the question of his racial identity. Johnson also wrote volumes of poetry, including God's Trombones (1927), a collection of sermons in free verse; several studies of black American life, including Black Manhattan (1930); and an autobiography, Along This Way (1933).