The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man 

The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man
James Weldon Johnson
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928
Vanderbilt University Divinity Library

James Weldon Johnson was a renowned Harlem Renaissance writer in addition to being a distinguished lawyer, civil rights activist, diplomat, and professor. He served as the executive secretary of the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) and campaigned for a federal anti-lynching bill. After his time in leadership for NAACP, he resigned to teach creative writing at Fisk University.

Johnson’s Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man is a fictional account of an unnamed biracial man, referred to as the “Ex-Colored Man,” throughout his life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, migrating between various cities in America. In the final chapter, he decides to pass as white in the hope of greater safety and social advancement after witnessing a lynching. The book concludes with him stating, “My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet…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.” This final line acknowledges the societal benefits that many people hoped for when passing, such as a better social standing for his children, yet it shows the sense of isolation from his identity.