James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871-June 26, 1938)

James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871-June 26, 1938) was a popular Black American poet. He was best known for writing a series of verse titled, God's Trombones, and editing the Book of Negro Spirituals. His autobiography, Along This Way, won the 1925 Springarn Medal for literature. James Weldon Johnson was a U.S. Consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua; a professor at Fisk University, 1930-38; and served as the secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In God's Trombones, 1927, Johnson wrote The Creation:

<And God stepped out on space,

And He looked around and said,

"I'm lonely-

I'll make me a world."....

And God smiled again,

And the rainbow appeared,

And curled itself around his shoulder....

With his head in his hands,

God thought and thought,

Till he thought: I'll make me a man!> 1871JJ001

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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.

Endnotes:

1871JJ001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). James Weldon Johnson, 1927, in God's Trombones-The Creation, (The Viking Press: 1927), st. I, 7, 10. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 733. James Weldon Johnson, God's Trombones (NY: Penguin Books: 1985), pp. 17, 20.


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