{"id":152483,"date":"2026-06-17T08:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=152483"},"modified":"2026-06-16T09:09:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T13:09:00","slug":"happy-birthday-poet-james-weldon-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=152483","title":{"rendered":"“There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.” — James Weldon Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n“Nothing will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro through the production of literature and art.” – James Weldon Johnson, preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry<\/i> (1922)<\/big><\/p>\n

It’s his birthday today. <\/p>\n

An extremely important figure in 20th century American culture, James Weldon Johnson was born in 1871 and died in 1938. He is often lumped in with the Harlem Renaissance, but he was a little bit older than that generation. His work was not really a precursor; seen in the timeline of events, it’s almost like he was “preparing the space,” he was enlarging the room to include more voices. Those clamorous years of the ‘teens and 1920s were so jam-packed with events it’s hard to tell who was influencing whom, and what came first, but seen with the benefit of retrospect, Johnson’s work was essential to basically laying down the ground rules of the Harlem Renaissance. Things were already happening, things were changing, but his project – to codify, catalog, capture, explain – was very important, because it set the stage, it gathered together voices that had been ignored and dismissed, especially from “genres” like hymns and sermons, not considered literature. Someone had to make the case for the material’s relevance and worth. This was what James Weldon Johnson did.<\/p>\n

He did it all. He was a teacher, a civil rights activist, a diplomat, a lawyer, a poet, an editor. He served as secretary for the NAACP. He was the first African-American to be accepted into the Florida bar. He eventually became the first African-American professor at New York University. He also taught at Fisk University, lecturing on literature and art. He grew up with formidable parents, particularly his mother, who was a teacher in a public school and passed on to her two sons a love of education, language, and English literature. Just as Jean Toomer did<\/a>, he spent time as a teacher in rural Georgia, a crucial experience for him, witnessing the poverty, illiteracy, racism of a backwoods world. He was responsible for extending the education in black schools in the area to the 10th grade, so that kids had options, a place to stay where learning could conceivably continue. He also traveled to Haiti, under occupation by U.S. Marines at the time, and wrote a book about it. He was appointed consul to Venezuela and Nicaragua. It’s about 10 lives in one! <\/p>\n

I haven’t mentioned his collaboration with his composer brother, J. Rosamond Johnson!<\/p>\n

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The Johnson brothers moved to New York together and began writing songs, James Weldon writing the lyrics, J. Rosamond writing the music. They were very successful, writing some hit stand-alone songs, and also composing the music for Broadway musicals and an opera. One of the shows they worked on was called Sally In My Alley<\/em> (1902), and one of the songs – “Under the Bamboo Tree” – ended up being featured in Meet Me in St. Louis<\/i>, 40 years later. <\/p>\n