35TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION Super Hero JAMES WELDON JOHNSON

James Weldon Johnson 

James Weldon Johnson had a storied life. He supported the advancement of Blacks  through his literary, musical, and educational contributions, his organizational accomplishments with the NAACP, and his service as a diplomat and U.S. counsel to foreign nations. 

Johnson believed in racial assimilation. He considered it the major responsibility of Blacks to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. Johnson believed that to remove the label of "inferior," Blacks needed to prove their intellectual and physical equality. 

Johnson was a true Renaissance man—historian, novelist, poet, educator. He excelled in all his endeavors. His accomplishments made him the most popular leader in the African-American community in his day behind Booker T. Washington himself. 

Johnson is best known for writing the lyrics to "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which is considered the Black national anthem. Also, his 10-year stint as the first African-American head of the NAACP ushered in a period of tremendous growth. 

Johnson was born on June 17, 1871, in Jacksonville, Florida. His mother encouraged him and his brother, John, in music, art, and literature. There was no high school for Blacks in Jacksonville, so Johnson moved to Atlanta to complete his education through college. 

After college, Johnson returned to Jacksonville and established courses that would lead to a high school degree for Blacks. He then became principal of that high school. He also studied law, and in 1898, he became the first Black lawyer to pass the Florida bar. 

The racial climate at the time led Johnson and his brother to move to New York in 1902. While there, they were successful in writing musical comedies, and they penned a string of 200 songs for the Broadway stage. 

While in New York, Johnson studied literature at Columbia University. His interest in politics began to grow at this time. In 1904, he became treasurer of New York City's Colored Republican Club and developed an association with Booker T. Washington. 

At the urging of Booker T. Washington, President Teddy Roosevelt appointed Johnson U.S. counsel to Venezuela in 1906 and to Nicaragua in 1908. His consular positions gave Johnson enough free time to pursue writing. In 1912, he published The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, one of the first accounts of a Black passing for white. He also became an editor and a popular columnist for the New York Age in 1914. 

Johnson believed success in literature and arts, as well as in politics, would help African Americans break down racial barriers. He became an advocate and literary critic of Black artistic works and compiled such pioneering anthologies as The Book of American Negro Poetry and The Book of American Negro Spirituals. In Black Manhattan, Johnson promoted Harlem as the center of Black culture during the Harlem Renaissance. 

His works of poetry included two collections— Fifty Years & Other Poems and the book for which he is most remembered, God's Trombones. The last book is a group of sermons that were written using Black vernacular. 

In 1916, W.E.B. Du Bois urged Johnson to accept an offer to become a national organizer for the NAACP. Johnson was particularly successful in opening new branches in the South. 

In 1920, he became executive secretary of the NAACP, the first African American to hold that post. For the next decade, Johnson was one of the most prominent Black leaders of his time. 

In recognition of his large body of literary work, Johnson was appointed to the Adam K. Spence Chair of Creative Literature and Writing at Fisk University in October 1930. He resigned from the NAACP in December of that year. Working at the university allowed him to write, travel, lecture, and mentor other promising African Americans. 

Johnson died on June 26, 1938, when a train struck his car during a blinding rainstorm.

From Great African Americans.  Copyright, Publications International, Ltd.