ABSTRACT
James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He received the A.B. and M.A. degrees from Atlanta University and did further study at Columbia University, Talladega, and Howard University. Having been admitted to the Florida bar in 1897, he practised law in Jacksonville until 1901. In 1906 he was appointed United States Consul to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and from 1909 to 1914 he was U.S. Consul at Counto, Nicaragua. Johnson also collaborated with his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, on the writing of plays and light opera. He was also a contributing editor to the New York Age and from 1916 to 1920 he was the field secretary for the N.A.A.C.P. From 1920 until 1930 he was the Executive Secretary of the N.A.A.C.P. Johnson was the recipient of the Springarn medal and a trustee of Atlanta University. He was the author of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Fifty Years and Other Poems, The Book of American Negro Poetry, Along This Way, and the editor of the Book of Negro Spirituals. He was a frequent contributor to Century, Independence, and the Crisis. As a writer, lawyer, diplomat, and protest leader, James Weldon Johnson was able to influence and direct American Negro thinking on a wide variety of fronts. From many points of view, James Weldon Johnson, by virtue of background and training, belongs in the company of Negro leaders of the nineteenth century rather than of the twentieth.
