James Weldon Johnson
From Philosopedia
James Weldon Johnson (17 June 1871 - 26 June 1938)
James William Johnson, an early civil rights leader and a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance, was born in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1913 he changed his name to Weldon. His father, James Johnson, was a resort hotel headwaiter, and his mother, Helen Louise Dillet, was the first female, black teacher in Florida at a grammar school\ - her mother had been a member for three decades in the Bahamas of the House of Assembly. His brother, J. Rosamond Johnson became a Harlem Renaissance composer.
Johnson attended Edwin M. Stanton School, the only school in Jacksonville open to African Americans, then received his B.A. from Atlanta University in 1894, returning to the Stanton School as its principal. While principal, he founded the Daily American, which reported on issues pertinent to the black community but lasted less than a year. From 1897 to 1901 he practiced law, the first black lawyer in the State of Florida. He earned his M.A. from Atlanta University in 1904. In 1906 he was the United States consul at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and from 1909 to 1912 the consul at Corinto, Nicaragua.
After marrying Grace Nail on 3 February 1910 he became executive Secretary of the NAACP from 1920 to 1931. He taught creative Literature at Fisk University starting in 1930. The Johnsons had no children.
In his biography, Along This Way, he referred to himself as an agnostic. In the last two pages, he discussed his lack of interest in organized religion. He understood, respected, and eloquently expressed in his writings the spirituality inherent in black culture and society, but he personally did not subscribe to it himself.
Brief biographies by Herman Beavers and Eugene Levy supply details of his co-writing "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" with his brother; writing a novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, a "tragic mulatto" story; his being field secretary of the NAACP; his editing books about black poetry and spirituals; and his 1927 book of poetry, God's Trombones.
While vacationing in Maine at his summer home in 1938, he was in a tragic automobile accident that took his life. The car he was driving in Wiscasset, Maine, was hit in a heavy rainstorm by a train. In Harlem, more than 2,000 attended his funeral.
Johnson appeared on a 22¢ stamp in 1988.
Author
- The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912, novel)
- Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917, poetry)
- Book of American Negro Poetry (1922, anthology)
- God's Trombones (1927, sermons)
- Along This Way (1933, memoir, autobiography)
- Negro Americans, What Now? (1934)
- Saint Peter Relates an Incident: Selected Poems (1934, poetry)
