Talk:James Weldon Johnson

Johnson's pivotal role in the NAACP
I've added the following information to the article on the NAACP. I don't have time to rewrite it for this piece on JWJ, but it definitely should be reworked slightly and added to this article.

"In 1916, when the NAACP was just seven years old, chairman Joel Spingarn invited James Weldon Johnson to serve as field secretary. Johnson was a former U.S. consul to Venezuela and a noted scholar and columnist. Within four years, Johnson was instrumental in increasing the NAACP's membership from 9,000 to almost 90,000. In 1920, Johnson was elected head of the organization. Over the next ten years under his leadership, the increasingly NAACP would escalate its lobbying and litigation efforts, becoming internationally known for its advocacy of equal rights and equal protection for the 'American Negro.'" deeceevoice 11:52, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation
The 1991 science fiction comedy novel ["A World Lost"] is by James Weldon Johnson. Of course he's not _this_ James Weldon Johnson! Amazon.com and many other book sites have the author this Wikipedia article is about linked to the author of the SF novel.

I don't know if the JWJ who wrote the SF book has written anything else. I keep getting hits on the NAACP's JWJ.


 * I e-mailed DAW books and exactly one year and 4 days later (August 11, 2006 to August 15, 2007) they replied... "He also wrote TREKMASTER, HABU and MINDHOPPER. However, these weren't comedies."
 * Update, I found a couple of cover images of his other books, showing the author as James B. Johnson, yet my copy of "A World Lost" has James Weldon Johnson on it. I finally found this site http://scifan.com/writers/jj/JohnsonBJames.asp which lists one more book, "Daystar and Shadow" I'm wondering if my copy of "A World Lost" is some bizarre printer's error? However, it'd have to be an error going far beyond that due to all the sites listing James B. (or Weldon) Johnson's books as being written by the man who died six years before the SF author was born.

Harvard / racist remarks
The end of the introductory paragraph read until now: "Latter on taught at Harvard University and was then fired for his racist comments." Apart from the faulty spelling etc. I could find no source saying anything about him teaching at Harvard, nor about any kind of scandal involving racist remarks he made. I've thus deleted the passage. Should anyone have different information, please incorporate it into the article - quoting your sources. --Albrecht Conz 21:16, 23 April 2007 pizza


 * Your information is correct. Johnson never taught at Harvard and there is no indication that he ever was involved in a scandal over racist comments. --DriveThru210 5 July 2013

Issues with the "Heather McKee" story
This entry describes James Weldon Johnson as having had two wives:

Under "Life"


 * In 1910, Johnson married Grace Nail while he was a United States Consul in Nicaragua. They had met several years earlier in New York when Johnson was working as a songwriter. A cultured and well-educated New Yorker, Grace Nail Johnson became an accomplished artist in pastels and collaborated with her husband on a screenwriting project.

That sounds in keeping with the character of the man and his life. However, this paragraph, at the end of "Education and Law," does not:


 * Enjoying unusual success as a songwriter for Broadway shows, Johnson moved easily in the upper echelons of African American society in Brooklyn, New York where he met his future wife, Heather McKee. Heather was a very poor woman who lived in Naples, but James Weldon Johnson loved her no matter what. But, after a few years of marriage, they divorced due to the dating of Heather. Johnson figured out that Heather had been dating three other men while they had been married for four years. After hearing this he immediately went to court and declared a divorce with Heather McKee.

The paragraph is poorly written, and has nothing to do with "Education" or "Law." It appears to have been tacked onto a passage about his teaching at Fisk University in Nashville (which occurred toward the end of his life); then, suddenly, we're taken back to New York, for this undated episode with Ms. McKee in Brooklyn. (Is "Naples" a neighborhood in Brooklyn? Naples, NY, is in western New York state, south of Rochester.)

Can anyone help resolve this? Is the McKee story true, and if it is, when did it occur? We can infer that it was when JWJ was in New York with his brother, prior to his marriage to Grace Nail, but there are no dates included.

(Since JWJ moved to New York for his songwriting career at the end of the 1890s, and JWJ and Grace Nail "met several years [before 1910] in New York when Johnson was working as a songwriter," the McKee marriage would have had to have happened not too long before his marriage to Grace Nail.)

It appears someone recently added a version of this story to a place in the entry that makes more sense chronologically (and in which "Naples" might mean Naples, Fla.), but without mentioning the NYC connection; "Spanglej" deleted it and restored that passage to its original condition:

Revision as of 18:27, 13 February 2012; Revision as of 21:10, 13 February 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Weldon_Johnson&diff=next&oldid=476688421

These biographies of Johnson at the U. South Carolina and U. Illinois' Web sites both mention Grace Nail Johnson, but make no mention of McKee:

James Weldon Johnson, 1871-1938 http://library.sc.edu/spcoll/amlit/johnson/johnson1.html

James Weldon Johnson's Life and Career http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/johnson/life.htm

The citation given for the McKee story is "The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay, New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 2004 (Second Edition), p.791-792."

I am not a JWJ scholar, but the poor writing quality of the passage in question, the way it was tacked on to "Education and Law," and the fact that I can't find any Web-based mention of the Heather McKee story (other than quotations from this Wikipedia entry), lead me to believe that the story is unsubstantiated and the passage should be removed.

If it is true, it should be re-written and moved to a better place (in terms of context and chronology) in the entry.

Fmjohnson (talk) 15:52, 2 March 2012 (UTC)


 * This was some vandalism from Nov 2011, missed but now reverted. Span (talk) 17:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Grace was Johnson's first and only wife. No idea where the Heather McKee story comes from, and it's certainly not in the Norton Anthology. --DriveThru210 5 July 2013

If Mr. Johnson were alive to read this article...
I wonder how he'd react. He was a writer and scholar, so he'd recognize the article as a hodge-podge, a semi-cohert thrown-together mess. Since he was a successful teacher, and by the appearance of his face, he was probably a kindly, patient man. So he wouldn't rant and rave about what a mess this is. Could someone whose knowledgeable PLEASE clean up this mess, and fill in the gaps in the story so that the article tells a coherent story? Thanks in advance. Tapered (talk) 04:32, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I proofread the page, deleted irrelevant and redundant information, rewrote the Literary Works section, and cleaned up the references and works cited. --DriveThru210 5 July 2013


 * Have also edited to add more of the major sections of his life, so we know where he was when. Need to add more on work at and of NAACP during this period.Parkwells (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

James Weldon Johnson project of the black history
James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville Fl,June17,1871. He married a girl name Grace Nail. Grace Nail Johnson later collaborated with her husband on a screenwritting project. He wrote his own poetry and supported work by others,also compilling and publishing antholigies of spirituals and poetry. During this period,the NAACP was mounting legal challenges to southern states disfranchisement of African Americans. Johnson also read the law to prepare for the bar. Johnson's first success as a Broadway songwritter,Johnson moved in the upper echelons of African American. It was not until 1927 that Johnson acknowknowledged writting endanger the novel,steressing that is not a work of autobiography but mostly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.70.224.234 (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Death
Is there a reason that his death in an automobile accident is omitted from the article? In his wifes' article it is stated that she sustained grave injuries and that she was driving. Also the fact that he was interred (and where) with his wife could be added to the article IMHO. For the record: Johnson died in a car accident in Wiscasset, Maine, on June 26, 1938, at the age of 67. More than 2,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem.

clarification needed
The section on "Literary Writing" states, "God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927) is considered most important." Does this mean "his most important book of poetry" or "very important"?Maurice Magnus (talk) 23:45, 10 November 2021 (UTC)


 * What did he right 2600:1006:B14A:1E94:1D50:E39E:EE12:3205 (talk) 18:13, 30 January 2024 (UTC)