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Johnson, James Weldon
5 articles on Johnson, James Weldon
Johnson, James Weldon
Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century
Word Count: 4040 Includes: “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” | The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. | New York Age and the NAACP. | God's Trombones. | Bibliography(b. 17 June 1871; d. 26 June 1938), writer, songwriter, teacher, and NAACP leader. James William Johnson (who changed his middle name to Weldon in 1913) was born in Jacksonville, Florida, to James Johnson, a headwaiter in a resort hotel, and Helen Louise (Dillet) Johnson, a teacher and part-time musician. Even though Jacksonville was more progressive than many other southern cities during the Reconstruction period and, as Johnson put it in his autobiography, “a good town for Negroes” because of a need for workers in the service industry during the winter months, Johnson's parents were both fortunate to find steady jobs. They were able to provide for their children, and they stressed the importance of a strong work ethic and good education.Johnson attended Jacksonville's Stanton Central Grammar School, where his mother taught. ...
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Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 1392 Includes: Bibliography1871–1938
Diplomat, poet, novelist, critic, composer, and the first African American executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Few leaders have combined such keen intelligence with such varied talents as did James Weldon Johnson, whom biographer Robert Fleming called “truly the ‘Renaissance man’ of the Harlem Renaissance.” A leading literary and political figure, Johnson was instrumental not only in the growth of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) but also in the formation and nurturing of a distinctly African American artistic community. Poetry, song lyrics, fiction, history, and editorials flowed from his pen and made Johnson one of the great men of African American letters.Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson ...
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Source: African American National Biography
Word Count: 1748 Includes: Further Reading(17 June 1871–26 June 1938), civil rights leader, poet, and novelist, was born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of James Johnson, a resort hotel headwaiter, and Helen Dillet, a schoolteacher. He grew up in a secure, middle-class home in an era, Johnson recalled in Along This Way (1933), when “Jacksonville was known far and wide as a good town for Negroes” because of the jobs provided by its winter resorts. After completing the eighth grade at Stanton Grammar School, the only school open to African Americans in his hometown, Johnson attended the preparatory school and then the college division of Atlanta University, where he developed skills as a writer and a public speaker. Following his graduation in 1894 Johnson returned to his hometown and became principal of Stanton School.School teaching, ...
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Source: The Oxford Companion to United States History
Word Count: 403(1871–1938), educator, civil rights leader, writer. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson graduated from Atlanta University in 1894 and three years later became the first African American to be admitted to the Florida bar. In 1901, he moved to New York City, where he worked with his brother John Rosamund Johnson on musicals and wrote, among other songs, Lift Every Voice and Sing, later to become an anthem of the civil rights movement. Johnson's involvement in Republican party politics led to his appointment as U.S. consul to Venezuela (1906–1909) and Nicaragua (1909–1912). While abroad, he wrote Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), a novel that established his literary reputation and ignited a heated debate about racism.Johnson wrote explicitly for an interracial audience, in accordance with his belief that ...
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Source: The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
Word Count: 1640(1871–1938), song-writer, poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and autobiographer. James Weldon Johnson, much like his contemporary W. E. B. Du Bois, was a man who bridged several historical and literary trends. Born in 1871, during the optimism of the Reconstruction period, in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson was imbued with an eclectic set of talents. Over the course of his sixty-seven years, Johnson was the first African American admitted to the Florida bar since the end of Reconstruction; the cocomposer (with his brother John Rosamond) of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, the song that would later become known as the Negro National Anthem; field secretary in the NAACP; journalist; publisher; diplomat; educator; translator; librettist; anthologist; and English professor; in addition to being a well-known poet and novelist and one of the prime movers of the Harlem ...
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