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    The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
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    The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
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    The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
    Ebook180 pages3 hours

    The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

    By James Weldon Johnson

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    One of the most prominent African-Americans of his time, James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) was a successful lawyer, educator, social reformer, songwriter, and critic. But it was as a poet and novelist that he achieved lasting fame.
    Among his most famous works, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man in many ways parallels Johnson's own remarkable life. First published in 1912, the novel relates, through an anonymous narrator, events in the life of an American of mixed ethnicity whose exceptional abilities and ambiguous appearance allow him unusual social mobility — from the rural South to the urban North and eventually to Europe.
    A radical departure from earlier books by black authors, this pioneering work not only probes the psychological aspects of "passing for white" but also examines the American caste and class system. The human drama is powerful and revealing — from the narrator's persistent battles with personal demons to his firsthand observations of a Southern lynching and the mingling of races in New York's bohemian atmosphere at the turn of the century.
    Revolutionary for its time, the Autobiography remains both an unrivaled example of black expression and a major contribution to American literature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateMar 1, 2012
    ISBN9780486111155
    Author

    James Weldon Johnson

    James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, 1871. He trained in music and in 1901 moved to New York with his brother John; together they wrote around two hundred songs for Broadway. His first book, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, published anonymously in 1912, was not a great success until he reissued it in his own name in 1927. In that time he established his reputation as a writer and became known in the Harlem Renaissance for his poems and for collating anthologies of poems by other black writers. Through his work as a civil rights activist he became the first executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as well as the first African American professor to be hired at New York University. He died in 1938.

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    Reviews for The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      A free audio from Audio sync summer program. This is fiction written as autobiography where a young man who didn't know he was black because he was so light skinned until he was confronted with the truth as student. He was a smart young man with plans to attend college and then his mother died. His dream was gone and he took to drifting around the south where he learned about being black. Then he met a millionaire who took good care of him (very much like the good slave owner) and he traveled to Europe with him. This really is a book that looks at racism in the early 1900s. It reminds me of another book that I read that was written in this time which also reads like a sociology book of the time. In the end, after witnessing a lynching, the man decides to live as white. The last is called passing. The man decides to pass as white and thereby he gives up his gifted talent as a black musician and lives a life of mediocrity.
    • 3/5
      The fictionalized story of a fair-skinned colored man who must decide whether he wants to live life as a black man, or leave everything and pass as white.
    • 3/5
       A fine book, more notable for it's place as a pioneering work in African American literature than any literary qualities. It interests me as an inversion of the more common narrative in which a black protagonists opts for a life of public excellence in service to the race, rather than a life of more quiet personal fulfillment. In this way, it reminds me of books like the Damnation of Theron Ware or Main Street, and the "confession" of a black man who chooses to pass for white gives the novel an easily accessible layer of social critique.
    • 4/5
      This is an amazing, very American story of an educated, fortunate boy, the son of a black woman and a white man, who comes to love listening to and playing music. His absent father loves him and his mother and provides much. Growing up in Connecticut, believing he is white; he is soon stunned to learn he is considered black by society. He discusses race with his mother and others. He is intelligent and well-read, and wishing to portray black Americans in a positive light, determines he will find some meaningful work after college. But his plans to attend Atlanta University fall apart after he is robbed; his life now takes a different turn. He finds various jobs, makes money and friends easily, gambles, winning and losing, drinks but never too much. He impresses a wealthy patron with his music, and travels through Europe with him. Maturity sets in as he realizes that this play life has kept him from his plans for serious work. Returning to the US he commits himself anew to his plan to gather information about race relations by traveling through the South and seeing how blacks live first hand. His reactions and commentary are honest, smart but surprisingly brutal. After seeing a horrendous, egregious event he is mortified by the state of the country, and gives up his life’s plans, changing to a totally different course. Good, strong read.
    • 5/5
      This novel holds up extremely well.