Look on any list of top-rated Afro-American poets and James Weldon Johnson will be on it. Look for a list of top Civil Rights activists and his name will be found. Look also at a list of songwriters and black leaders of the 20’s and 30’s and he will be listed. As a mover and doer, first in Florida, then in New York, he was revered by many.

This intelligent, multi-talented, educated man was born in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida of free-born, fairly affluent, parents. His father James was a headwaiter at a resort. His mother, originally from the Caribbean, was one of the first black, female, public school teachers in the state. James William (who later changed his middle name to Weldon) attended the school at which his mother taught. Since Florida offered no high school for blacks at that time, James’ parents sent him to Atlanta to finish high school and attend college. (www.afn.org) He earned a Bachelors degree in 1894 and returned to Jacksonville to become teacher and principal at the same school he had attended. During his tenure there, he added some of the first high school level classes for blacks in the state.

While teaching in the summers during college, Jackson learned what it was like to be a poor, rural black in the South. Coming from a cultured, upper-middle class life, it was his eye-opener to racism in the U.S. and the beginning of his avid interest in civil rights. He wrote many poems at this time, expressing his feelings about his discoveries. (www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/poets)

Always an active person of many interests, he used his many talents and voices to promote African-American rights. While teaching in Jacksonville, he also studied law and became the first Black to pass the bar exam in Florida. (www.afn.org) In 1865 he founded the first daily newspaper dedicated to Blacks. While keeping busy at these enterprises, he continued writing poetry and collaborated with his brother writing songs. 

Johnson’s mother had always encouraged her sons in the humanities, arts and music. With his brother John, James moved to NYC in 1901 to establish a career in musical theater. They wrote over 200 songs for musicals, including “The Sleeping Beauty” and “Humpty Dumpty”. Their most famous song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” became the anthem for the black civil rights movement at the time. (www.afn.org) During this time, Johnson discovered his interest in politics, especially those involving Blacks. In 1906 he entered foreign service and was appointed consul in Venezuela. With few official duties, he continued to write poetry and his first novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. The book told the story of a Negro passing for white. A few years later he served in Panama, where he met and married Grace Nail.

John also served as consul in Nicaragua and the Azores before resigning from Foreign Service in order to devote more time to writing. He wrote editorials for the prestigious “New York Age”, the oldest Black newspaper. In 1916, he joined the six-year-old National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,(NAACP). His contributions to that organization proved to be invaluable. The membership increased under his organization and promotion and the group’s influence grew stronger.

He served 14 years in the NAACP, resigning, once again, to dedicated more time to his writing and taught part-time at Fisk University. In 1938, the 67-year old was killed in an automobile accident. More than 2000 people mourned him at his funeral in Harlem. He is buried in Brooklyn.

Though largely forgotten in modern times, no one did more to promote the start of the equal rights movement nor did anyone write more beautiful poetry. In addition to his one novel, he also wrote three more books, his autobiography, Along this Way; a book that argued for integration, Negro Americans, What Now?; and one that outlined life in Harlem, Black Manhattan. (www.poets.org)

His moving poetry included the book, God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. In these poems, Johnson was able to write God speaking in a human voice, without sacrificing His divinity and majesty. This classic which has stood the test of time, was his favorite of all his writing. (www.afn.org)