Essays on The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson divulges aspects of passing by a “mulatto” man that no other novel had confronted before. Though most novels during the time were treated by the author in a straightforward manner, Johnson undoubtedly strays away from...

The Whitening of Souls: A Note on Shame, Internal Monologues, and White Hegemony In James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, the unnamed protagonist lives his life walking the line between white and black. He is a man who can choose to be...

In the book titled The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, by James Weldon Johnson, the topic of race and identity are discussed through the experience of a biracial American. When this man, the protagonist, is introduced the concept of race does not seem to affect...

In James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, the narrator presents the story of his life as a black man passing as white, and the different stages he progresses through while doing so. In both his life and the lives of many black...

The Power of Music in Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man In Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, the narrator is able to marry the two halves of his musical identity in a way that he is unable to do with his racial...

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. contends “race” is not itself a natural entity, rather a synthetic construct used to degrade certain peoples. He implores society to move forward free from the shackles of categorization, liberating itself from a false reality. While this commentary holds significant merit...

James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man challenges the status of race relations in the United States in the early 1900s. Written on the heels of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision which legally established segregation in the United States, the novel depicts the life...

Did you know that the state of Mississippi did not officially abolish slavery until February 7th, 2013? Although slaves have not worked the fields of Mississippi since the Civil War ended, evidence of racial prejudice has far from disappeared. On a recent trip to Greenwood,...

Literature often presents itself in different themes and messages for audience members. These themes may be reoccurring or even opposing at times between different texts. The play The Good Person of Szchecwan by Bertolt Brecht and Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson...

W. E. B. Du Bois, in The Souls of Black Folk, seems to be speaking for a raceless society where the quality of one’s character was the sole basis for being judged. Yet this is not what Du Bois saw in his day and it...