James Weldon Johnson Books In Order

Novels

  1. The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man (1912)

Collections

Non fiction

  1. Black Manhattan (1930)
  2. Negro Americans, What Now? (1934)
  3. The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson (2011)

Novels Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Non fiction Book Covers

James Weldon Johnson Books Overview

The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man

James Weldon Johnson’s emotionally gripping novel is a landmark in black literary history and, more than eighty years after its original anonymous publication, a classic of American fiction. The first fictional memoir ever written by a black, The Autobiography of an Ex Coloured Man influenced a generation of writers during the Harlem Renaissance and served as eloquent inspiration for Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright. In the 1920s and since, it has also given white readers a startling new perspective on their own culture, revealing to many the double standard of racial identity imposed on black Americans. Narrated by a mulatto man whose light skin allows him to ‘pass’ for white, the novel describes a pilgrimage through America’s color lines at the turn of the century from a black college in Jacksonville to an elite New York nightclub, from the rural South to the white suburbs of the Northeast. This is a powerful, unsentimental examination of race in America, a hymn to the anguish of forging an identity in a nation obsessed with color. And, as Arna Bontemps pointed out decades ago, ‘the problems of the artist as presented here seem as contemporary as if the book had been written this year.’

Black Manhattan

In this classic work, first published in 1930, James Weldon Johnson, one of the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance, combined the skills of the historian, social scientist, and the reporter to trace the New York black experience from the earliest settlements on Chatham Square during the pre revolutionary period to the triumphant achievements of Harlem in the 1920s. But Black Manhattan is by no means simply history; It illuminates Johnson and his contributions to both black literature and black organizations; it provides us with an intimate account of the black theatrical and musical world of which Johnson had been a part; and it raises searching questions about the black people’s struggle to find their identity. Black Manhattan remains one of the essential books on the black American experience, losing none of its resonance and value after many decades.

The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson

A canonical collection, splendidly and sensitively edited by Rudolph Byrd. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. One of the leading voices of the Harlem Resaissance and a crucial literary figure of his time, James Weldon Johnson was also an editor, songwriter, founding member and leader of the NAACP, and the first African American to hold a diplomatic post as consul to Venezuela and Nicaragua. This comprehensive volume of Johnson’s works includes the seminal novel Autobiography of an Ex Colored Man, poems from God s Trombones, essays on cultural and political topics, selections from Johnson s autobiography, Along This Way, and two previously unpublished short plays: Do You Believe in Ghosts? and The Engineer. Featuring a chronology, bibliography, and a Foreword by acclaimed author Charles Johnson, this Modern Library edition showcases the tremendous range of James Weldon Johnson s writings and their considerable influence on American civic and cultural life. This collection of poetry, fiction, criticism, autobiography, political writing and two unpublished plays by James Weldon Johnson 1871 1938 spans 60 years of pure triumph over adversity. . Johnson s nobility, his inspiration shine forth from these pages, setting moral and artistic standards. Los Angeles Times

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