The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

African-American writer's pioneering novel parallels his own life, probes the psychological aspects of "passing for white," and examines the American caste and class system.. Major contribution to American literature.

James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1871. Among the first to break through the barriers segregating his race, he was educated at Atlanta University and at Columbia and was the first black admitted to the Florida bar. He was also, for a time, a songwriter in New York, American consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua, executive secretary of the NAACP, and professor of creative literature at Fisk University—experiences recorded in his autobiography, Along This Way. Other books by him include Saint Peter Relates an Incident, Black Manhattan, and God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. In addition to his own writing, Johnson was the editor of pioneering anthologies of black American poetry and spirituals. He died in 1938.
William L. Andrews is E. Maynard Adams Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of To Tell a Free Story and editor or coeditor of more than thirty books on African American literature.

Introduction
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text
Preface to the Original Edition of 1912

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLORED MAN

Explanatory Notes