Monthly Archives: February 2024

James Weldon Johnson wrote and edited numerous historically significant books of poetry, particularly The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922), a major contribution to the history of African American literature; The Book of American Negro Spirituals (Viking Press, 1925), followed a year later by The Second Book of American Negro Spirituals (Viking Press, 1926); and God’s Trombones (Viking Press, 1927), winner of the William E. Harmon Foundation Award. The latter was influenced by his impressions of the rural South, drawn from a trip that he took to Georgia while a freshman in college. It was this trip that ignited his interest in the African American folk tradition. In 1900, he wrote the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” on the occasion of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The song was immensely popular in the Black community and became known as the “Negro National Anthem.” Continue reading →