The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man [Paperback]

James Weldon Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2005

"The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" is James Weldon's Johnson fictional account of a light-skinned mulatto who can pass for white. The anonymous narrator is the son of a black mother and a white father living in the early part of the 20th century in the rural south, the urban north and in Europe. The novel masterfully explores the complexity of race relations between whites and blacks in America and the search for racial identity by one of mixed ethnicity.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Johnson's theme of moral cowardice sets his tragic story of a mulatto in the United States above other sentimental narratives. The unnamed narrator, the offspring of a black mother and white father, tells of his coming-of-age at the beginning of the 20th century. Light-skinned enough to pass for white but emotionally tied to his mother's heritage, he ends up a failure in his own eyes after he chooses to follow the easier path while witnessing a white mob set fire to a black man. Reader Allen Gilmore contributes a fine reading. Recommended, with hopes for an unabridged edition in the future.?Sandy Glover, West Linn P.L., Ore.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Review

Novel by James Weldon Johnson, published in 1912. This fictional autobiography, originally issued anonymously in order to suggest authenticity, explores the intricacies of racial identity through the eventful life of its mixed-race (and unnamed) narrator. Born in Georgia, the narrator tells of his childhood in Connecticut, where his mulatto mother, aided by monthly checks from the boy's white father, is able to provide a secure and cultured environment. Learning of his black heritage only by accident, the narrator experiences the first of several identity shifts that will eventually find him opting for membership in white society. Throughout the work, Johnson employs characters, locales, incidents, and motifs from his own life, but the narrator is less a conscious self-portrait than a representative of the author's own ambivalence. -- The Merriam-Webster Encylopedia of Literature --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 108 pages
• Publisher: Digireads.com (January 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1420925458
• ISBN-13: 978-1420925456
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #330,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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57 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unknown classic, September 19, 2000

By 

Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

Perhaps best known for writing the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing , James Weldon Johnson wrote one of the first novels to probe the ambiguities of race, the novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. As a boy, the fictional title character is sent North with his Mother to be raised in Connecticut. He does extremely well in school and is even something of a musical prodigy.

But, he is stunned when one day in school a teacher asks the white students to stand, and scolds him when he joins them. He confronts his fair skinned mother and she reveals that she is indeed black and his father is a white Southern gentleman. His father later comes to visit, and even buys him a piano, but the child is unable to approach and deal with him.

As a young man, the death of his mother & sale of their house leaves him with a small stake & he determines to attend college. Though qualified, he rules out Harvard for financial reasons & heads back down South to attend Atlanta University. However, his stake is stolen from his boarding house room before he can register & he ends up with a job in a cigar factory.

When the factory closes, he heads North again, this time to New York City and discovers Ragtime music and shooting craps, excelling at the one & nearing ruin in the other. A white gentleman who has heard him play enters into an exclusive agreement to have him play at parties & subsequently takes him along on a tour of Europe.

Inevitably, he is drawn back to America and to music. He tours the South collecting musical knowledge so that he will be able to compose a uniquely American and Black music. But his idyll is shattered when he sees a white lynch mob burn a black man. In the wake of this experience, he decides to "pass" for white--not due to fear or discouragement, but due to "Shame at being identified with a people that could with impunity be treated worse than animals."

Abandoning his musical ambitions, he takes a job as a clerk, does well investing in real estate & meets a white woman who he wishes to marry. After examining his conscience he decides to tell her that he is black. After taking some time to confront this fact, she consents to marriage.

As the novel closes, the "ex-colored man" tells us: "My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am, and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought, that, after all, I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage."

And the reader can't help but feel profoundly ashamed of a system of racial oppression that forced a man to make these choices--a wonderful novel.

GRADE: B+

66 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fictional book that serves to tell a lesson and a story that is powerful., February 20, 2010

By 

Lorrie - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Kindle Edition)

This fictional book is very powerful! Great freebie. And no, this is not the author's "tale". I am sure some of the struggles faced are based on the author's vast knowledge but this is not James Weldon Johnson's word-for-word life story, though it obviously is based on details from his personal life.

from Wikipedia:

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional telling of the story of a young biracial man, referred to only as the "Ex-Colored Man", living in post Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Ex-Colored Man was forced to choose between embracing his black heritage and culture by expressing himself through the African-American musical genre ragtime, or by "passing" and living obscurely as a mediocre middle-class white man.

Though the title suggests otherwise, the book is not an autobiography but a novel. However, the book is based on the lives of people Johnson knew and from events in his own life. Weldon's text is an example of a roman à clef. (Roman à clef is a term used for a novel describing real life, behind a façade of fiction)

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommened read!, February 21, 2011

By 

Marnay Harris - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Kindle Edition)

This was my first kindle book and once I started reading I could not stop. This is a free ebook that was worth every moment. I recommend this book to everyone. This book was very thought provoking and I think anyone can benefit from this story.