African-American scholars have cited James Weldon Johnson's 1927 book of poems, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse as one of the author's most notable works. Johnson, who is best known for his 1912 work, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, was an American writer and civil rights activist born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1871. As a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Johnson helped to bring awareness to the problem of black lynching in America during the first part of the 20th century as well as other civil rights issues that people of color faced in America. A collection of eight poems, God's Trombones draws upon the tradition in the black church of drawing upon black folklore to preach the word of god. The title of the work has been described by Johnson as a metaphor for the powerfully persuasive nature of the vocal and rhetorical qualities of the sermons of a folk preacher. Immediately upon its publication God's Trombones would go on to achieve great critical acclaim in the black community further helping to establish Johnson as one of the principal figures of the Harlem Renaissance. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Originally published in 1912, this novel was one of the first to present a frank picture of being black in America

Masked in the tradition of the literary confession practiced by such writers as St. Augustine and Rousseau, this autobiography purports to be a candid account of its narrator's private views and feelings as well as an acknowledgement of the central secret of his life: that though he lives as a white man, he is, by heritage and experience, an African-American. Written by the first black executive secretary of the NAACP, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, in its depiction of turn-of-the-century New York, anticipates the social realism of the Harlem Renaissance writers. In its unprecedented analysis of the social causes of a black man's denial of the best within himself, it is perhaps James Weldon Johnson's greatest service to his race.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

First published anonymously in 1912, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is James Weldon's Johnson fictional account of a young biracial man living in America during the second half of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. The so-called Ex-Colored man makes his living as a jazz pianist playing ragtime music at a popular New York club. It is here that he catches the attention of a wealthy white gentleman who takes a curious interest in him and employs him to play at his parties. While he becomes friends with the man a feeling of subservience reminiscent of slavery prompts him to part ways. He travels to the south where he intends to work on his music in an attempt to glorify the artistry of his race. After witnessing a terribly horrific lynching he abandons his desire to embrace his black heritage opting instead to pass as a white man. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man masterfully explores the complexity of race relations between whites and blacks in America and the search for racial identity by one of mixed ethnicity. Through the experiences of its unnamed protagonist the issues of class, race, and discrimination are discussed with an openness uncommon to literature of the time, and which would establish it as a pivotal work of the Harlem Renaissance. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Recalling the great confessional narratives from St. Augustine to Jean Jacques Rousseau, from Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass to Henry Adams, James Weldon Johnson relates the emotionally gripping tale of a mixed-race piano prodigy who can pass for white in turn-of-the-century America. Forced into impossible choices created by an unjust society, the narrator describes his experiences as he travels from Jacksonville to New York City, the rural South to Paris, London, and beyond. The earliest first-person novel published by an African American author, Johnson's powerfully unsentimental story examines the significance of chance and choice, the particularly American investment in self-invention, and the role of identity in shaping our lives. Its influence extends to Richard Wright, Ralph Waldo Ellison's Invisible Man and even Barack Obama's Dreams from my Father. Includes several of Johnson's influential and still timely New York Age editorials and a detailed biographical timeline.

A Harlem Renaissance classic: seven inspirational poems inspired by the powerful rhetorical traditions of African-American sermons and spirituals.

James Weldon Johnson, the co-author of Lift Every Voice and Sing and author of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, was a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. In God's Trombones, one of his most celebrated works, the rich tradition of inspirational sermons by Black preachers are reimagined as poetry, reverberating with the musicality and splendid eloquence of the classic spirituals. This collection includes The Creation, The Prodigal Son, Go Down Death (A Funeral Sermon), Noah Built the Ark, The Crucifixion, Let My People Go, and The Judgment Day, and includes the remarkable original illustrations by artist Aaron Douglas.

A Contemporary Classics hardcover edition of the groundbreaking classic novel of the Black experience in America that is still remarkably relevant more than a century later.

First published anonymously in 1912, this resolutely unsentimental novel gave many white readers their first glimpse of the double standards--and double consciousness--experienced by Black people in modern America. Republished in 1927, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, with an introduction by Carl Van Vechten, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man became a pioneering document of African-American culture and an eloquent model for later novelists ranging from Zora Neale Hurston to Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison.

Narrated by a man whose light skin enables him to pass for white, the novel describes a journey through the strata of Black society at the turn of the century--from a cigar factory in Jacksonville to an elite gambling club in New York, from genteel aristocrats to the musicians who hammered out the rhythms of ragtime. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a complex and moving examination of the question of race and an unsparing look at what it meant to forge an identity as a man in a culture that recognized nothing but color.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

The autobiography of the celebrated African American writer and civil rights activist

Published just four years before his death in 1938, James Weldon Johnson's autobiography is a fascinating portrait of an African American who broke the racial divide at a time when the Harlem Renaissance had not yet begun to usher in the civil rights movement. Not only an educator, lawyer, and diplomat, Johnson was also one of the most revered leaders of his time, going on to serve as the first black president of the NAACP (which had previously been run only by whites), as well as write the groundbreaking novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Beginning with his birth in Jacksonville, Florida, and detailing his education, his role in the Harlem Renaissance, and his later years as a professor and civil rights reformer, Along This Way is an inspiring classic of African American literature.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Introduced by Maya Angelou, the inspiring sermon-poems of James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, and one of the most revered African Americans of all time, whose life demonstrated the full spectrum of struggle and success. In God's Trombones, one of his most celebrated works, inspirational sermons of African American preachers are reimagined as poetry, reverberating with the musicality and splendid eloquence of the spirituals. This classic collection includes Listen Lord (A Prayer), The Creation, The Prodigal Son, Go Down Death (A Funeral Sermon), Noah Built the Ark, The Crucifixion, Let My People Go, and The Judgment Day.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

This stirring collection of Negro spirituals, edited by the great Negro poet James Weldon Johnson and arranged for voice and piano by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, presents 120 of these melodic -- and intensely moving -- religious folk songs for contemporary performance. The original language has been faithfully preserved in this convenient performing edition, so that the spirituals can be sung today exactly as they were more than a hundred years ago. Included in this special, two-volumes-in-one publication are such perennial favorites as Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Deep River, Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho, and Go Down Moses -- songs handed down from generation to generation in a rich oral tradition, and painstakingly assembled and edited for the enjoyment of future generations. The songs are prefaced by James Weldon Johnson's masterful discussions of their origins, musical quality, and historical significance. Above all, he stresses the essential dignity of the Negro spirituals, which, though no doubt inspired by the religious faith of their masters, -- are purely and solely the creation of the American Negro.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

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. Featuring a foreword by Zadie Smith.

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) was a revered African American civil rights leader, diplomat, lawyer, novelist, poet, and songwriter in the Harlem Renaissance. He also coauthored the hymn Lift Every Voice and Sing, known as the Black national anthem. God's Trombones, one of Johnson's most celebrated works, transforms seven uplifting spiritual sermons of African American preachers into poetry. God's Trombones equates the Black oral tradition and its characteristic cadence with the sweeping tonal ranges of the trombone, which most closely resembles the human voice. This classic collection includes Listen, Lord -- A Prayer; The Creation; The Prodigal Son; Go Down Death -- A Funeral Sermon; Noah Built the Ark; The Crucifixion; Let My People Go; and The Judgment Day.

Known only as the Ex-Colored Man, the protagonist in Johnson's novel is forced to choose between celebrating his African American heritage or passing as an average white man in a post-Reconstruction America that is rapidly changing. This Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1912 text. It is accompanied by a detailed introduction, explanatory footnotes, and a note on the text. The appendices that follow the novel include materials available in no other edition: manuscript drafts of the final chapters, including the original lynching scene (chapter 10, ca. 1910) and the original ending (chapter 11, ca. 1908).

An unusually rich selection of Backgrounds and Sources focuses on Johnson's life; the autobiographical inspirations for The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man; the cultural history of the era in which Johnson lived and wrote; the noteworthy reception history for the 1912, 1927, and 1948 editions; and related writings by Johnson. In addition to Johnson, contributors include Eugene Levy, W. E. B. Du Bois, Carl Van Vechten, Blanche W. Knopf, and Victor Weybright among others.

The four critical essays and interpretations in this volume speak to The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man's major themes, among them irony, authorship, passing, and parody. Assessments are provided by Robert B. Stepto, M. Giulia Fabi, Siobhan B. Somerville, and Christina L. Ruotolo.

A chronology of Johnson's life and work and a selected bibliography are also included, as well as six images.

2013 Reprint of 1912 Edition. Full facsimile of the original text, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional telling of the story of a young biracial man, referred to only as the Ex-Colored Man, living in post Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Ex-Colored Man was forced to choose between embracing his black heritage and culture by expressing himself through the African-American musical genre ragtime, or by passing and living obscurely as a mediocre middle-class white man. Though the title suggests otherwise, the book is not an autobiography but a novel. However, the book is based on the lives of people Johnson knew and from events in his own life. Johnson's text is an example of a roman clef.

This selection of more than forty poems from a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance includes both uncompromising indictments of racial injustice and celebrations of the triumphs of African-Americans.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

2000 marks the centenary of Lift Every Voice and Sing, James Weldon Johnson's most famous lyric, which is now embraced as the Negro National Anthem. In celebration, this Penguin original collects all the poems from Johnson's published works--Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917), God's Trombones (1927), and Saint Peter Relates an Incident of the Resurrection Day (1935)--along with a number of previously unpublished poems.

Sondra Kathryn Wilson, the foremost authority on Johnson and his work, provides an introduction that sheds light on Johnson's many achievements and his pioneering contributions to recording and celebrating the African American experience.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Book of American Negro Spirituals is a comprehensive collection of spirituals that were sung by African Americans during the period of slavery and beyond. The book is authored by James Weldon Johnson, a renowned African American writer, and civil rights activist. It contains a total of 120 spirituals, with lyrics and music notation, as well as historical information about the songs and their origins. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part providing an introduction to the spirituals and discussing their significance in African American history and culture. Johnson explains how the spirituals were used as a means of communication, as well as a form of resistance and expression of faith. He also provides context for the songs, discussing their origins in Africa and their evolution in the United States.The second part of the book contains the collection of spirituals, arranged in alphabetical order by title. Each song includes the lyrics, music notation, and a brief introduction providing historical information about the song and its significance. The songs cover a range of themes, from the struggle for freedom and justice to the celebration of faith and community.Overall, The Book of American Negro Spirituals is a valuable resource for anyone interested in African American history, music, and culture. It provides a comprehensive collection of spirituals and contextualizes them within the broader historical and cultural context. The book is a testament to the power of music as a means of expression and resistance, and to the enduring legacy of the spirituals in American culture.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

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.

A gifted musician's decision to navigate society as a white man causes an internal debate about anti-blackness and the explicit nature of intent versus impact. James Weldon Johnson presents a distinct conflict driven by a person's desires and overwhelming fear.

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man follows the story of an unnamed narrator and his unique experience as a fair-skinned Black person. As a child, he is initially unaware of his race, but his mother soon clarifies their family's ancestry. The young man's ability to pass for white allows him to negate the harsh and discriminatory treatment most Black people face. This leads to a series of events that significantly shape the way he views his place in society.

James Weldon Johnson delivers a captivating tale of identity politics in the U.S. and abroad. The main character is living a life of omission that provides public gain at a personal cost. This story maintains its relevance as a critical examination of race in society.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is both modern and readable.

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