Johnson, James Weldon, 1871-1938

James Weldon Johnson was a publisher, educator, lawyer, composer, artist, diplomat, and civil rights leader. Together with his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, he wrote the song "Lift Every Voice and Sing", which came to be known as the "Negro National Anthem", as well as a large number of popular songs for the musical stage of the early twentieth century. Johnson also served as consul of the United States to Venezuela and Nicaragua. He wrote several books and served as editor of the New York Age. From 1920-1931, Johnson was field secretary, then secretary, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1930, he became chair of Creative Literature and Writing at Fisk University. The James Weldon Johnson collection consists primarily of programs honoring Johnson following his death in 1938, including those sponsored by the NAACP, Yale University Library, Virginia Union University, and Hampton Institute. Two programs printed during his lifetime provide information about subjects for his lectures and work with students at Fisk University. News clippings discuss a marker erected, in 1972, at the site of his home in Jacksonville, Florida. An obituary marks the passing of his widow, Grace Nail Johnson, in 1976, and two towels with their embroidered initials complete the collection.

James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he started working in 1917. In 1920, he was chosen as executive secretary of the organization, effectively the operating officer.[1] He served in that position from 1920 to 1930. Johnson established his reputation as a writer, and was known during the Harlem Renaissance for his poems, novel, and anthologies collecting both poems and spirituals of black culture. He wrote the lyrics for "Lift Every Voice and Sing", which later became known as the Negro National Anthem, the music being written by his younger brother, composer J. Rosamond Johnson.

Johnson was appointed under President Theodore Roosevelt as U.S. consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua for most of the period from 1906 to 1913. In 1934, he was the first African American professor to be hired at New York University.[2] Later in life, he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University, a historically black university. Johnson was born in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Helen Louise Dillet, a native of Nassau, Bahamas, and James Johnson. In 1910 Johnson married Grace Nail, Johnson died in 1938 while vacationing in Wiscasset, Maine, when the car his wife was driving was hit by a train. His funeral in Harlem was attended by more than 1,000 people.[7] Johnson's ashes are interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.