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Title	:	The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Author	:	James Weldon Johnson
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	(American Century Series)
Pages	:	Pages: 212 pages
Published	:	March 1st 1991 by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl (first published 1912)
Categories	:	Fiction. Classics. Cultural. African American. Historical. Historical Fiction. Race

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

James Weldon Johnson

Paperback | Pages: 212 pages

Rating: 3.91 | 8193 Users | 503 Reviews

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James Weldon Johnson's emotionally gripping novel is a landmark in black literary history and, more than eighty years after its original anonymous publication, a classic of American fiction.

The first fictional memoir ever written by a black person, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man influenced a generation of writers during the Harlem Renaissance and served as eloquent inspiration for Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright. In the 1920s and since, it has also given white readers a startling new perspective on their own culture, revealing to many the double standard of racial identity imposed on black Americans.

Narrated by a mulatto man whose light skin allows him to "pass" for white, the novel describes a pilgrimage through America's color lines at the turn of the century--from a black college in Jacksonville to an elite New York nightclub, from the rural South to the white suburbs of the Northeast.

This is a powerful, unsentimental examination of race in America, a hymn to the anguish of forging an identity in a nation obsessed with color. And, as Arna Bontemps pointed out decades ago, "the problems of the artist [as presented here] seem as contemporary as if the book had been written this year."

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Original Title:	The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
ISBN:	0809000326 (ISBN13: 9780809000326)
Edition Language:	English

Rating About Books The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

Ratings: 3.91 From 8193 Users | 503 Reviews

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I liked it... It was a bit dry, yet it is precise in its telling of the "facts" of this persons life as they unfold before him. I think it is important to keep in perspective the date it was written, 1912 is when it was first published. The writer was a founder of the NAACP, worked on T.R.'s Presidential campaign, wrote Broadway tunes, Poetry, was American Consul to Puerto Rico and Venezuela. The "Autobiography" having been written anonymously until Johnson was credited in 1927 and the fact that

OK, so maybe this isn't one of the great novels of the 20th century. The canon tells me that other books are, and because of that I'm starting to become less enamored of the canon and of those who insist on pushing it -- because such a focus on the limited offerings of elite taste makers and academics causes gems like this to fall by the wayside.I do pay attention to the canon and use it as a guide and as a benchmark standard that fits within a larger context. The canon can't be ignored, and

One of the most fascinating books I have ever read! This is the life and beliefs of a brilliant black man with white skin. It was written in the early 1900s and bespoke common sense and well thought-out theory. His mother tried to pass him as white the first several years of his life and he had no knowledge of being in any way different from his white companions. This gave him the advantage of seeing and overstanding both sides of the race issue. Having been born less than 10 years after the

Very interesting book, it's such a shame that I probably would not have read this if it weren't for my book group. I haven't read any bi-racial accounts before this, I believe Johnson was born to a black mother and a white father. Because I had also been watching a series about being black in Britain, I found it interesting that a lot of the issues that were spoken about in this book seemed to pop up in the television series proving that very little may have changed throughout time and other



Beautifully written but .........I may write a full review sometime.

After discussing the difference between what is considered a good novel and what is considered an interesting novel*, I have made the decision that this one is most certainly interesting, but not very good. Johnson presents race issues ranging from double-consciousness to passing (crossing the color line) to the struggle for identity as his unnamed narrator explores the dark tunnels connecting whiteness and blackness during Reconstruction. In this novel the reader (and the narrator) becomes