Johnson, James Weldon (1871-1938), was an African American author. Johnson wrote the lyrics for the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (1900), sometimes called the “Black national anthem.” His best-known book is The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912). The novel tells of an attempt to escape racial discrimination against Black Americans and provides an understanding of cultural attitudes of Black Americans in the early 1900’s. Johnson’s other works include God’s Trombones (1927), poems imitating Black sermons, and Black Manhattan (1930), a cultural history of Black life in New York City.
Johnson was born James William Johnson on June 17, 1871, in Jacksonville, Florida. He changed his middle name to Weldon in 1913. In Jacksonville, he was a school principal, a newspaper editor, and a lawyer. In 1895, Johnson founded The Daily American, the first Black-oriented daily newspaper in the United States. In 1898, Johnson became the first Black attorney in Florida since the Reconstruction period following the end of the American Civil War in 1865. When Johnson was nearly 30, he moved to New York City. There, he wrote songs for musicals and vaudeville with his brother, Rosamond.
Johnson was United States consul to Venezuela and to Nicaragua from 1906 to 1913. From 1916 to 1920, Johnson was field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He served as its first Black executive secretary from 1920 to 1930. In 1925, Johnson received the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal, which is awarded annually to an African American who has had outstanding achievement in his or her field. Johnson’s writings include an autobiography, Along This Way (1933). He died on June 26, 1938. In 2004, the Library of America published Johnson’s collected Writings.
