James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1871, the son of a headwaiter and a schoolteacher. After graduating from Atlanta University, he became principal of a black school in Jacksonville, founded a newspaper, and became the first African American admitted to the Florida bar after Reconstruction. In 1900 he wrote the words of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing', which his brother Rosamond set to music; it became known as the Negro National Anthem. The brothers wrote successful songs for Broadway in New York. Johnson served as United States consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and there he wrote The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, published anonymously in 1912. From 1920 to 1930 he led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People as its executive secretary, campaigning against lynching. He edited anthologies of black poetry and spirituals, and his God's Trombones (1927) turned folk sermons into poetry. Later he taught at Fisk University. He died in a car accident in Maine in 1938.

James Weldon Johnson is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Faith not well documented; his God's Trombones retells Black sermons in verse.