James Weldon Johnson has 5 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 7 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 3 ratings. The most-rated is God's Trombones.
God's Trombones
Summary
Johnson transformed memories of the sermons he heard in the late 1800s by renowned African American preachers into this now-classic work of original poetry. Basis for a PBS documentary on Johnson titled Lift Every Voice and Sing.
©1955 Viking Penguin (P)1993 Penguin HighBridge Audio
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Summary
In the years after the Civil War, there was an unfortunate amount of importance placed on racial identity. The focus on the races of one’s parents remained a mainstay of culture due to systemic prejudice and racism, and was a way of continuing to enact violence against Black people. For many mixed-race people, it felt safer to try and shift into white society. It is in this environment that The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is written. In this novel, the narrator describes his life as a Black child and young adult, working his way through the various social classes. He becomes a musician and travels the world as a free Black man for much of his life, but eventually makes the decision to live as a White man after witnessing a horrific lynching. The rest of his life is spent keeping a piece of himself hidden from everyone in an attempt at safety. The story in this novel is fictional, but it comprises a lot of Black experiences from the time period, and offers the perspective of a mixed-race man living in a society that demanded people obscure their true heritage.
©2021 James Weldon Johnson (P)2021 InAudio
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Summary
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, a 1912 novel by James Weldon Johnson, is a fictional autobiography which was originally published anonymously. It chronicles the intricacies of racial identity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the life of its biracial narrator. The book portrays his journey through America's color lines, from his attendance of a black college in Florida to an elite New York nightclub, from the rural South to the suburbs of the Northeast, and a visit to Europe. Throughout the work, the author employs places, character, and incidents from his own life, making it a fine example of a "roman à clef." The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man inspired a generation of writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright.
Public Domain (P)2019 Museum Audiobooks
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Summary
James Weldon Johnson's emotionally gripping novel is a landmark in black literary history and, more than eighty years after its original anonymous publication, a classic of American fiction. The first fictional memoir ever written by a black, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man influenced a generation of writers during the Harlem Renaissance and served as eloquent inspiration for Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright. In the 1920s and since, it has also given white readers a startling new perspective on their own culture, revealing to many the double standard of racial identity imposed on black Americans. Narrated by a mulatto man whose light skin allows him to "pass" for white, the novel describes a pilgrimage through America's color lines at the turn of the century - from a black college in Jacksonville to an elite New York nightclub, from the rural South to the white suburbs of the Northeast. This is a powerful, unsentimental examination of race in America, a hymn to the anguish of forging an identity in a nation obsessed with color.
Public Domain (P)2010 Tantor
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Summary
James Weldon Johnson's emotionally gripping novel is a landmark in black literary history and, more than 90 years after its original anonymous publication, a classic of American fiction. The first fictional memoir ever written by an African-American, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man influenced a generation of writers during the Harlem Renaissance and served as eloquent inspiration for Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright. In the 1920s and since, it has also given white readers a startling new perspective on their own culture, revealing to many the double standard of racial identity imposed on black Americans. Told by a bi-racial man whose light skin allows him to "pass" for white, the novel describes a pilgrimage through America's color lines at the turn of the century - from a black college in Jacksonville to an elite New York nightclub, from the rural South to the white suburbs of the Northeast. This is a powerful, unsentimental examination of race in America, a hymn to the anguish of forging an identity in a nation obsessed with color. And, as Arna Bontemps pointed out decades ago, "the problems of the artist [as presented here] seem as contemporary as if the book had been written this year."
Public Domain (P)2011 AudioGo