James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida on June 17th 1871. His early education was at home from his mother, Helen, a musician and a public school teacher (the first female, black teacher in Florida at a grammar school) and then at Edwin M.

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God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse is a book of poems by James Weldon Johnson patterned after traditional African-American spiritual oratory. African-American scholars have identified the collection as one of Johnson's two most notable works, the other being Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. The work went on to find acclaim in many circles, proving "enormously popular among both the black cognoscenti as well of the masses of black Americans"...

Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917) is a collection of poems by James Weldon Johnson. Although less popular than his book God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927), Johnson's second poetry collection showcases, his talents as a rising star of African American literature. Including some poems that would be, featured in The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), an influential anthology compiled and edited by the poet himself, Fifty Years and...

Originally published in 1930 and now back in print with an introduction by Zadie Smith, Black Manhattan traces the Black experience in New York City from its origins in the seventeenth century, through the Revolutionary and Civil War periods, to the triumphant achievements of the Harlem Renaissance. Written by one of the leading Black scholars and activists of the first half of the twentieth century, this timeless book also illuminates Black literature,...

Poetry can inspire, evoke, provoke and transport the reader. But this collection of 39 poems did even more - it broke barriers. This collection was written by Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American woman whose poetry writings were published. Seized from West Africa as a young girl, Phillis lived in Boston as a slave to the prominent Wheatley family where she learned to read and write, as well as undertaking lessons in the Bible, astronomy, geography,...

An illustrated version of the song written by civil rights leader and poet James Weldon Johnson in 1899 that has come to be considered the African American national anthem.

Black-and-white photographs accompany this version of the song that has come to be considered the African American national anthem.