James Weldon Johnson was a writer and more importantly, a civil rights activist from the US.He was also married to an activist named Grace Nail, who also helped him with screenwriting. Johnson was popular as a writer and his novel, poems, and anthologies were well-appreciated.Johnson was the lyricist of the song that later became the Negro National Anthem. From 1906-1913, He was the US consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua. He was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he became the first African-American to be made executive secretary. He was also a professor at New York University and was the first African-American man to achieve this remarkable feat.Famous James Weldon Johnson QuotesWriting was the subject Johnson was most interested in. Below are some of his most popular quotes that you must read at least once in your life.“Young man—Young man—Your arm’s too short to box with God.”- ‘God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse’.“I thought of Paris as a beauty spot on the face of the earth, and of London as a big freckle.““As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat.““I found cause to wonder upon what ground the English accuse Americans of corrupting the language by introducing slang words. I think I heard more and more different kinds of slang during my few weeks’ stay in London than in my whole ’tenderloin’ life in New York. But I suppose the English feel that the language is theirs and that they may do with it as they please without at the same time allowing that privilege to others.”- ‘The Autobiography Of An Ex-Coloured Man.’“And so for a couple of years, my life was divided between my music and my school books.”- ‘The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man .’”…evil is a force and, like the physical and chemical forces, we cannot annihilate it; we may only change its form. We light upon one evil and hit it with all the might of our civilization, but only succeed in scattering it into a dozen of other forms.”- ‘The Autobiography Of An Ex-Coloured Man. ‘“You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There’s a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that’s just begun.““A people may become great through many means, but there is only one measure by which its greatness is recognized and acknowledged. The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and standard of the literature and art they have produced…. No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior.”- ‘The Book Of American Negro Poetry.’“And God stepped out on space, and He looked around and said: I’m lonely - I’ll make me a world.”- ‘I’ll Make Me A World: James Weldon Johnson’s Story Of The Creation.’“We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.”- ‘Lift Every Voice And Sing’.“It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction.”- ‘The Autobiography Of An Ex-Coloured Man’.“O black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?”- ‘O Black And Unknown Bards’.“This Great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till He shaped it in His own image.”- ‘The Creation’.“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.”- ‘Lift Every Voice And Sing’.“When one has seen something of the world and human nature, one must conclude, after all, that between people in like stations of life there is very little difference the world over.”- ‘The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man’.James Weldon Johnson Quotes On ArtArt and literature paved Johnson’s way into the world. Read some quotes on art from this great man.“It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive characteristic.““Any musical person who has never heard a Negro congregation under the spell of religious fervor sing these old songs has missed one of the most thrilling emotions which the human heart may experience.”- ‘The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man’.“In Berlin, I especially enjoyed the orchestral concerts, and I attended a large number of them. I formed the acquaintance of a good many musicians, several of whom spoke of my playing in high terms.”- ‘The Selected Writings Of James Weldon Johnson: Social, Political, And Literary Essays’, James Weldon Johnson, Sondra K. Wilson (1995).“Shortly after this, I was made a member of the boys’ choir, it being found that I possessed a clear, strong soprano voice. I enjoyed the singing very much.”- ‘The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man’.“My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest.““But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in classic musical form.““It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.““Music is a universal art; anybody’s music belongs to everybody; you can’t limit it to race or country.““New York City is the most fatally fascinating thing in America. She sits like a great witch at the gate of the country, showing her alluring white face and hiding her crooked hands and feet under the folds of her wide garments–constantly enticing thousands from far within, and tempting those who come from across the seas to go no farther.““Nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.““And all these become the victims of her caprice. Some she at once crushes beneath her cruel feet; others she condemns to a fate like that of galley slaves; a few she favors and fondles, riding them high on the bubbles of fortune; then with a sudden breath she blows the bubbles out and laughs mockingly as she watches them fall.“Best James Weldon Johnson Quotes(Read interesting James Weldon Johnson quotes in this article)There was a different way how James Weldon Johnson experienced life. Here are some quotes from him on the subject.“She was my first love, and I loved her as only a boy loves.““I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.““And God stepped out on space, And He looked around and said, “I’m lonely— I’ll make me a world.““There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cakewalk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.““The peculiar fascination which the South held over my imagination and my limited capital decided me in favor of Atlanta University; so about the last of September I bade farewell to the friends and scenes of my boyhood and boarded a train for the South.““Through my music teaching and my not absolutely irregular attendance at church, I became acquainted with the best class of colored people in Jacksonville.““Americans are immensely popular in Paris; and this is not due solely to the fact that they spend lots of money there, for they spend just as much or more in London, and in the latter city they are merely tolerated because they do spend.““The Southern whites are in many respects a great people. Looked at from a certain point of view, they are picturesque. If one will put oneself in a romantic frame of mind, one can admire their notions of chivalry and bravery and justice.““When we arrived in London, my sadness at leaving Paris was turned into despair. After my long stay in the French capital, huge, ponderous, massive London seemed to me as ugly a thing as man could contrive to make.““Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst.““Make yourself as happy as possible, and try to make those happy whose lives come in touch with yours. But to attempt to right the wrongs and cease the sufferings of the world, in general, is a waste of effort.““For days I could talk of nothing else with my mother except my ambitions to be a great man, a great colored man, to reflect credit on the race and gain fame for myself.“Thought-Provoking James Weldon Johnson QuotesHere are some quotes from James Weldon Johnson on activism.“It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.““Labor is the fabled magician’s wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune.““I do not see how a people that can find in its conscience any excuse whatever for slowly burning to death a human being, or for tolerating such an act, can be entrusted with the salvation of a race.““Southern white people despise the Negro as a race, and will do nothing to aid in his elevation as such; but for certain individuals, they have a strong affection, and are helpful to them in many ways.““It is a struggle; for though the black man fights passively, he nevertheless fights; and his passive resistance is more effective at present than active resistance could possibly be. He bears the fury of the storm as does the willow tree.““Northern white people love the Negro in a sort of abstract way, as a race; through a sense of justice, charity, and philanthropy, they will liberally assist in his elevation.““The battle was first waged over the right of the Negro to be classed as a human being with a soul; later, as to whether he had sufficient intellect to master even the rudiments of learning; and today it is being fought out over his social recognition.““I felt leap within me pride that I was colored, and I began to form wild dreams of bringing glory and honor to the Negro race.““This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.““Washington shows the Negro not only at his best but also at his worst.““I am a thing not new, I am as old As human nature. I am that which lurks, Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; The ancient trait which fights incessantly Against restraint balks at the upward climb; The weight forever seeking to obey The law of downward pull; and I am more: The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; The resultant, the inevitable end Of evil forces and the powers of wrong.““And this is the dwarfing, warping, distorting influence which operates upon each and every colored man in the United States. He is forced to take his outlook on all things, not from the viewpoint of a citizen, or a man, or even a human being, but from the viewpoint of a colored man. It is wonderful to me that the race has progressed so broadly as it has since most of its thought and all of its activity must run through the narrow neck of this one funnel”
James Weldon Johnson was a writer and more importantly, a civil rights activist from the US.
