American Classics PDF EPUB Audio

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

First published: 1912
Pages: 119

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4 h 46 min · 12 parts

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Preface
2:34
I
24:10
II
25:03
III
19:21
IV
17:28
V
28:17
VI
17:38
VII
9:11
VIII
20:53
IX
33:28
X
58:16
XI
30:16

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1917) is a public domain work.

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About this book

Published anonymously in 1912, this novel is narrated by a light-skinned biracial man who moves through both Black and white America, gifted with music yet unsure where he belongs. He dreams of turning ragtime into serious art and honoring the culture he was born into, but after witnessing a lynching in the South he decides instead to pass permanently as white, trading his heritage for safety and comfort. James Weldon Johnson wrote it so convincingly that many early readers mistook it for a real memoir. Quiet, ironic, and unsettling, it examines the price of the color line and the meaning of racial identity in America. Free to download as a PDF and EPUB edition.

About the author

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he started working in 1917.