James Weldon Johnson

James W. Johnson at the age of about 30

James Weldon Johnson (born June 17, 1871 in Jacksonville , Florida , † June 26, 1938 in Wiscasset , Maine ) was an important American writer and also diplomat , newspaper founder and editor, poet, anthropologist , university lecturer, lawyer, critic , Composer, civil rights activist from the very beginning and prominent representative of the Harlem Renaissance . In addition to his own writings, his anthologies of Afro-American poems and spirituals made him known. He was one of the first African American professors at New York University and the lyricist of " Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing " , the "African American national anthem".

Life

Grace Nail Johnson (1910)

Johnson was born in Jacksonville to Helen Louise Dillet and James Johnson. Initially, Johnson was tutored by his mother, a teacher, then at Edmin M. Stanton School. At the age of 16 he began studying law at the private Clark Atlanta University , which he successfully completed in 1894. In 1910 he married Grace Nail, the daughter of a wealthy New York building contractor. Johnson died while vacationing in Maine in 1938 when his car was hit by a train. More than 2,000 mourners attended his funeral in Harlem .

In school and law

After graduation, Johnson returned to the Stanton School, where he became director at the age of 23. In order to improve the education of the predominantly black students, he introduced the 9th and 10th grade. During this time he also founded the Daily American newspaper . He was the first African American to be admitted to the court in Florida. In the 1930s he became a professor of creative writing at Fisk University in Nashville .

music

Johnson, who was a good guitarist and pianist, had already started in Jacksonville with his brother, singer and pianist J. Rosamond Johnson , to write songs and lyrics for the opera Tolosa . Her goal was to use sophisticated compositions and texts to overcome the prevailing stereotype of African American people in popular culture. In 1899 they both moved to New York City to seek their fortune on Broadway. There they learned u. a. Oscar Hammerstein I know and especially the composer, author, actor, producer and director Bob Cole . Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson, and James Weldon Johnson wrote over 200 songs together. In 1900, Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing was also created there . In 1970 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame .

diplomacy

From 1906 to 1912 Johnson worked as consul for the Theodore Roosevelt government , first in Puerto Cabello ( Venezuela ) and from 1909 in Corinto ( Nicaragua ).

literature

Johnson had already begun to study English literature at Columbia University in 1903 . In Nicaragua he wrote poetry and his first novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man , which initially appeared anonymously in 1912 and was mistaken for an autobiography by many readers. It was republished in 1927, this time under Johnson's name and labeled as a novel. In 1914, after Woodrow Wilson was elected US President , Johnson left the diplomatic service and moved back to New York. There he was a journalist and co-editor of the New York Age newspaper for ten years . He is one of the founders of ASCAP , which, like GEMA, was supposed to secure the rights of the artists to use their intellectual property. He translated Enrique Granado's opera Goyescas , which premiered at the Met in 1916 . In 1925 his anthology The Book of American Negro Spirituals and 1930 Black Manhattan appeared on the contribution of African-Americans to New York's cultural scene. In 1933 he wrote his autobiography Along This Way , in which he a. a. describes his encounters with Paul Robeson , Clarence Darrow , Booker T. Washington , Theodore Roosevelt , Bayard Rustin and Carl van Vechten . His book Negro Americans, What Now? (1934) called for equal civil rights for all Americans.

Poetry

Johnson's first published volume of poetry was Fifty Years and Other Poems , published in 1917. The poems of Johnson and Paul Laurence Dunbar, as well as the works of authors such as WEB Du Bois, influenced many young artists such as Langston Hughes and established the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. Johnson helped many writers get their work published. His anthology The Book of American Negro Poetry with works by Anne Spencer , Jessie Redmon Fauset and Georgia Douglas Johnson , among others , was published in 1922. The Academy of American Poets called it a milestone in the history of Afro-American literature. One of his most famous works is God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse , published in 1927, which celebrates the tradition of the popular preacher.

politics

In 1916, Johnson began working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He made a significant contribution to increasing the membership from 9,000 to 90,000 within four years. In 1920 he was elected its first black chairman. During his ten-year tenure, he mainly fought against the many black lynchings.

Selection of works

Poems

• Lift Every Voice and Sing (1899)
• Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)
• Go Down, Death (1926)
• God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927)
• Saint Peter Relates an Incident (1935)
• The Glory of the Day was in Her Face
• Selected Poems (1936)

Other works and collections

• The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (novel, 1912/1927)
• Self-Determining Haiti (1920)
• The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922)
• The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925)
• Second Book of Negro Spirituals (1926)
• Black Manhattan (1930)
• Along This Way (1933)
• Negro Americans, What Now? (1934)
• The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson (1995, posthumous anthology)

German transmission

• Hanna Meuter : I sing America too. American Negro seals. Bilingual. Ed. And transl. Together with Paul Therstappen . Wolfgang Jess, Dresden 1932. With short biographies. 1st row: The new negro. The voice of the awakening Afro-America . Part 1; New edition ibid. 1959. pp. 58–61 ("At a closed gat of justice" & "O black and unknown bards.")

Literature by and about James Weldon Johnson

• James Weldon Johnson: Writings. (Ed. by William L. Andrews), 2004, ISBN 978-1-931082-52-5 .
• Thomas Yenser (Ed.): Who's Who in Colored America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Persons of African Descent in America. Brooklyn, New York 1930-1931-1932. (3. Edition)
• William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, Trudier Harris (Eds.): The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York, Oxford 1997, p. 404 ff.

Web links

• James Weldon Johnson: Writings | Library of America (English)
• Literature by and about James Weldon Johnson in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Harmon Collection (English)
2. ^ William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, Trudier Harris (Eds.): The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York, Oxford 1997, p. 404 ff. (English)
3. ↑ Jass.com: Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson, and James Weldon Johnson (English)
4. ↑ Songwriters Hall of Fame (English)
5. ^ Literary Encyclopedia | James Weldon Johnson (English)
6. ^ "A Hot Time At Santiago": James Weldon Johnson, Popular Music, and US Expansion (English)
7. ↑ About James Weldon Johnson | Academy of American Poets (English)
8. ↑ Goyescas. Score of the piano reduction. (PDF; 22.4 MB) Accessed February 14, 2017 . 
9. ↑ BiblioTech PRO V3.2b (English)