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JAMES WELDON JOHNSON(1871-1938) was a novelist, poet, lawyer, editor, and ethnomusicologist, and coauthor of the hymn ""Lift Every Voice and Sing,"" which is unofficially known as the Black national anthem Born in Jacksonville, Florida, he was educated at Atlanta University and at Columbia University and was the first Black lawyer admitted to the Florida bar. He was also a songwriter in New York, American consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua, executive secretary of the NAACP, and professor of creative literature at Fisk University. His other books include an autobiography, Along This Way, and the poetry collection God's Trombones. ABOUT THE INTRODUCER- HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. An award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, he has authored or coauthored twenty-five books and created twenty-one documentary films, including Finding Your Roots. His PBS documentary, The African Americans- Many Rivers to Cross, earned an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and an NAACP Image Award.
The fictional account of an ambiguously black man's expedition into America's hard heart . . . . The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a revolutionary text. It takes as its core understanding that racism is first a way of seeing the world . . . . Recognized today as one of the cornerstones of the Harlem Renaissance, [Johnson's novel] still proves itself to be as forward-thinking and ambitious as any of its successors. --from the Introduction by Gregory Pardlo
