The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

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Powerful and unflinching, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a stark portrait of black experience in late nineteenth-century America and remains relevant to this day.

This edition is introduced by Dr. Sam Halliday.

James Weldon Johnson’s fictional narrator first learns about his black heritage from a schoolteacher, a discovery which sparks a lifelong search for his place in the world. After his beloved mother dies, he embarks on a journey across America and beyond, first finding refuge in Georgia’s all-black church community. There, his passion and skill for music flourishes and takes him from New York to Europe, playing ragtime for a rich white gentleman. Back in America’s South, he witnesses an event so terrifying that it drives him to turn his back on his own heritage.