Big Apple History . Arts and Entertainment . James Weldon Johnson


	James Weldon Johnson (center) looks on as Roland Hayes, a black lyric tenor, is awarded a medal for achievement.

During the Harlem Renaissance in New York, James Weldon Johnson was truly a "renaissance man." During his varied career, Johnson wrote over two hundred songs for Broadway shows, worked as a diplomat in South America, and ran the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Harlem during the 20s. In addition, he was an attorney, poet, novelist, and educator.

As a young man, James Weldon Johnson spent two summers teaching black schoolchildren in a poor section of rural Georgia. This experience had a profound effect on him. Through his poetry, music, and political activism, he dedicated his life to improving the status of other African Americans.

In the early 1900s, musical theater often stereotyped blacks. In response, Johnson and his brother wrote songs that portrayed a positive image of African Americans. One of their songs, "Lift Every Voice and Sing,"was later recognized in the African-American community as "the Negro National Anthem."

While working as a diplomat in Latin America, Johnson wrote a novel called THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLORED MAN. Later, as editor of NEW YORK AGE, a newspaper for blacks, Johnson promoted the idea that African Americans could improve their situation through self-education and hard work. GOD'S TROMBONES, one of his most famous books, features sermons by an intelligent but unschooled preacher.

As leader of the NAACP, Johnson fought for civil rights. In 1917, to protest gruesome lynchings of blacks, he organized a silent march through the streets of Manhattan. Johnson summarized his beliefs in a pamphlet published by the NAACP:

"I will not allow one prejudiced person or one million or one hundred million to blight my life. I will not let prejudice or any of its attendant humiliations and injustices bear me down to spiritual defeat. My inner life is mine, and I shall defend and maintain its integrity against all the powers of hell."

LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING (1900)
by James Weldon Johnson

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land

Illustration: Courtesy of Corbis -- Bettmann.