The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Contributors

By James Weldon Johnson

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Jan 12, 2027
Page Count
144 pages
Publisher
Union Square & Co.
ISBN-13
9781454970873

Price

$10.99

Price

$13.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $10.99 $13.99 CAD
  2. ebook $4.99 $6.99 CAD

James Weldon Johnson’s trailblazing novel on passing and racial ambiguity, freshly repackaged for the Union Square & Co. Signature Editions line.

A coming-of-age tale about a young biracial man whose light skin allows him to “pass’ for white at the turn of 20th century America. From a cigar factory in Jacksonville to an elite gambling club in New York, the unnamed narrator describes his remarkable journey through the strata of Black and white society, rubbing elbows with European aristocrats and ragtime musicians alike. Yet through it all, he struggles to forge an identity in a world that tells him he doesn’t belong. Ultimately, he discovers that the practice of passing brings little more than a ruinous self-denial. 


James Weldon Johnson

About the Author

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) was an American writer, lawyer and civil rights activist born in Jacksonville, Florida. He was the first Executive Secretary of the NAACP and was a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. His best-known works include The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912, republished in 1927), the poetry collection God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927), and the anthology he compiled and edited, The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922).

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