BIBLIOGRAPHY
Martin, Herbert Woodward. “Alvin Aubert: South
Louisiana: New and Selected Poems.” Black
American Literature Forum 21, no. 3 (Fall 1987):
343–348.
Ward, Jerry W., Jr. “Alvin Aubert: Literature, History,
Ethnicity.” Xavier Review 7, no. 2 (1987): 1–12.
Loretta G. Woodard
Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man, The
James Weldon Johnson (1 912 )
When the unnamed protagonist and narrator of
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON’s Autobiography of an
Ex-Colored Man discovers he is categorized as
“colored,” the realization, he explains, marks “the
miracle of my transition from one world into an-
other” (785). The son of a light-skinned African-
American mother and a white, Southern father,
the narrator finds himself subject to the prejudices
of a caste system that categorizes any person with
“one drop” of black blood as African-American.
Johnson uses his protagonist’s precarious racial
position to explore American race relations in the
early 20th century. As Johnson develops the racial
tension of the novel, he also probes the psycho-
logical effects this tension has on the narrator’s
identification with both the white and black races.
After his schoolteacher publicly identifies him
as a Negro, the narrator is cast out from the circle
of white children and is unwilling to consort with
the black children; instead, he develops an absorb-
ing passion for the piano as a means of alleviating
his loneliness. The narrator carries these two lega-
cies of his childhood—racial alienation and musi-
cal interest—with him as he journeys through the
United States and Europe in search of a satisfying
life. He seeks an identity through different roles in
a variety of black communities: as a student at At-
lanta University, a cigar maker in the middle class
black community of Jacksonville, Florida, a master
ragtime player in the black New York nightclub
scene; and finally, a collector of black folk music
in rural Georgia. Certain attitudes and actions of
the narrator, however, suggest his unwillingness to
identify fully with African Americans. The black
underclass of Atlanta, for example, unsettles him,
as does the sight of a white woman with a dark-
skinned black man in a New York nightclub. Like-
wise, although he reaches the pinnacle of black
folk culture as the best ragtime player in New York,
he plays for predominantly white audiences before
accompanying a white benefactor to Europe as his
personal pianist.
A renewed commitment to African Americans
and African-American culture briefly leads the
narrator back to the South, where he hopes to
help uplift the black race by collecting folk songs.
However, when he witnesses the brutal lynching of
a black man in Macon, Georgia, and the “shame
at being identified with a people that could with
impunity be treated worse than animals” (853), he
leaves the South. Returning to New York, he suc-
cessfully passes into the white community, adopts
its goal of making money, marries a white woman,
and raises two children who know nothing of their
racial heritage. The novel concludes with the nar-
rator thinking admiringly of the dedicated Afri-
can-American activists and wondering wistfully
whether he has “chosen the lesser part” by selling
his “birthright for a mess of pottage” (861).
Published anonymously and with little fanfare
in 1912, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
sold poorly. When Johnson republished the novel
in 1927—this time with his authorship acknowl-
edged and the British spelling “coloured” in the
title—it was more widely read and more warmly
received. Published at the peak of the HARLEM
RENAISSANCE, the second edition found a reading
public that was more attuned to the issues John-
son addressed. Indeed, the novel had anticipated
a number of the concerns of the Harlem Re-
naissance, including the celebration of African-
American folk culture, a vibrant black urban life
emerging in the North, and the struggle toward
an African-American racial identity. More im-
portant, with the portrayal of a light-skinned Af-
rican-American protagonist, Johnson followed in
the tradition of the “tragic mulatto” established
by such writers as William Wells Brown, FRANCES
HARPER, and CHARLES CHESNUTT, reinvigorating theAutobiography of An Ex-Colored Man, The 21