Fifty years & Other Poems

By James Weldon Johnson

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Fifty years & Other Poems" by James Weldon Johnson. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DigiCat
• Release date: Sep 4, 2022
• ISBN: 8596547245575

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) was an African American writer and civil rights activist. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, he obtained an education from a young age, first by his mother, a musician and teacher, and then at the Edwin M. Stanton School. In 1894, he graduated from Atlanta University, a historically Black college known for its rigorous classical curriculum. With his brother Rosamond, he moved to New York City, where they excelled as songwriters for Broadway. His poem “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” (1899), set to music by Rosamond, eventually became known as the “Negro National Anthem.” Over the next several decades, he dedicated himself to education, activism, and diplomacy. From 1906 to 1913, he worked as a United States Consul, first in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and then in Nicaragua. He married Grace Nail, an activist and artist, in 1910, and would return to New York with her following the end of his diplomatic career. While in Nicaragua, he wrote and anonymously published The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), a novel exploring the phenomenon of racial passing. In 1917, Johnson began his work with the NAACP, eventually rising to the role of executive secretary. He became known as a towering figure of the Harlem Renaissance, writing poems and novels as well as compiling such anthologies as The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922). For his contributions to African American culture as an artist and patron, his activism against lynching, and his pioneering work as the first African American professor at New York University, Johnson is considered one of twentieth century America’s leading cultural figures.

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James Weldon Johnson

Fifty years & Other Poems

EAN 8596547245575

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

FIFTY YEARS

1863-1913

TO AMERICA

O BLACK AND UNKNOWN BARDS

O SOUTHLAND!

To HORACE BUMSTEAD

THE COLOR SERGEANT

(On an Incident at the Battle of San Juan Hill)

THE BLACK MAMMY

FATHER, FATHER ABRAHAM

(On the Anniversary of Lincoln's Birth)

BROTHERS

FRAGMENT

THE WHITE WITCH

MOTHER NIGHT

THE YOUNG WARRIOR

THE GLORY OF THE DAY WAS IN HER FACE

SONNET

(From the Spanish of Plácido)

FROM THE SPANISH

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND

BEFORE A PAINTING

I HEAR THE STARS STILL SINGING

GIRL OF FIFTEEN

THE SUICIDE

DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA

I

Sunrise in the Tropics

II

Los Cigarillos

III

Teestay

IV

The Lottery Girl

V

The Dancing Girl

VI

Sunset in the Tropics

AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS WAR

A MID-DAY DREAMER

THE TEMPTRESS

GHOSTS OF THE OLD YEAR

THE GHOST OF DEACON BROWN

LAZY

OMAR

DEEP IN THE QUIET WOOD

VOLUPTAS

THE WORD OF AN ENGINEER

LIFE

SLEEP

PRAYER AT SUNRISE

THE GIFT TO SING

MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT

HER EYES TWIN POOLS

THE AWAKENING

BEAUTY THAT IS NEVER OLD

VENUS IN A GARDEN

VASHTI

THE REWARD

JINGLES & CROONS

SENCE YOU WENT AWAY

MA LADY'S LIPS AM LIKE DE HONEY

(Negro Love Song)

TUNK

(A Lecture on Modern Education)

NOBODY'S LOOKIN' BUT DE OWL AND DE MOON

(A Negro Serenade)

YOU'S SWEET TO YO' MAMMY JES DE SAME

(Lullaby)

A PLANTATION BACCHANAL

JULY IN GEORGY

A BANJO SONG

ANSWER TO PRAYER

DAT GAL O' MINE

THE SEASONS

'POSSUM SONG

(A Warning)

BRER RABBIT, YOU'S DE CUTES' OF 'EM ALL

AN EXPLANATION

DE LITTLE PICKANINNY'S GONE TO SLEEP

THE RIVALS

INTRODUCTION

Table of Contents

Of the hundred millions who make up the population of the United States ten millions come from a stock ethnically alien to the other ninety millions. They are not descended from ancestors who came here voluntarily, in the spirit of adventure to better themselves or in the spirit of devotion to make sure of freedom to worship God in their own way. They are the grandchildren of men and women brought here against their wills to serve as slaves. It is only half-a-century since they received their freedom and since they were at last permitted to own themselves. They are now American citizens, with the rights and the duties of other American citizens; and they know no language, no literature and no law other than those of their fellow citizens of Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

When we take stock of ourselves these ten millions cannot be left out of account. Yet they are not as we are; they stand apart, more or less; they have their own distinct characteristics. It behooves us to understand them as best we can and to discover what manner of people they are. And we are justified in inquiring how far they have revealed themselves, their racial characteristics, their abiding traits, their longing aspirations,—how far have they disclosed these in one or another of the several arts. They have had their poets, their painters, their composers, and yet most of these have ignored their racial opportunity and have worked in imitation and in emulation of their white predecessors and contemporaries, content to handle again the traditional themes. The most important and the most significant contributions they have made to art are in music,—first in the plaintive beauty of the so-called Negro spirituals—and, secondly, in the syncopated melody of so-called ragtime which has now taken the whole world captive.

In poetry, especially in the lyric, wherein the soul is free to find full expression for its innermost emotions, their attempts have been, for the most part, divisible into two classes. In the first of these may be grouped the verses in which the lyrist put forth sentiments common to all mankind and in no