Autobiography of an ex-colored man summary sparknotes
Summary and Study Guide
Overview
Published anonymously in 1912, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is James Weldon Johnson’s fictional memoir centered on how a talented man born to a Black mother and a white father after the Civil War became white in the early-20th century. Johnson, an important critical and artistic contributor to the Harlem Renaissance, published the novel under his own name in 1927 during the height of the movement. The novel is an important bridge between the literature of Post-Reconstruction and works of the Harlem Renaissance. Readers are advised that the novel includes representations of racial violence, including lynching. This guide is based on the digital facsimile of the 1912 Sherman, French and Company print edition available via Google Books.
Johnson opens the novel with a Preface purportedly from the publishers. They promise that the work that follows will expose for the first time the inner life of Black people and particularly those who pass.
The narrator describes his early life. He spends the first part of that life in Georgia in a cottage with his mother and a father who visits only periodically. His life changes dramatically when his father, a white man, sends the narrator and his mother to live in Connecticut. His father shows up only sporadically at this point, including one last, uncomfortable visit when the narrator is a teen.
Because of his light skin, the narrator assumes from an early age that he is white. He discovers his racial identity one day after a teacher asks him to sit down after the principal asks the white students to stand. The narrator struggles with this new identity, especially as he recognizes that his white peers and the school treat Black students differently than white students.
As the narrator moves into his teen years, he becomes even more aware of prejudice. He also gains public recognition for his gift with music, especially the piano, and decides that he will study music
Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is told from the first-person point of view of an unnamed male narrator. He starts his tale by stating that he is going to reveal the great secret of his life. He first takes the reader to his childhood in Georgia where he was raised by a single mother. His father occasionally visits, but one day when the narrator is very young, he and his mother move to Connecticut. The narrator is a very intelligent young man and soon proves himself a musical prodigy. He enters a public school and becomes close friends with an older and bigger white boy who he nicknames "Red". He is intrigued by the African American students at his school - in particular, an exceptionally bright and ambitious boy who goes by the nickname "Shiny".
One day the principal comes into the narrator's classroom and asks all of the white children to stand. When the narrator stands, the principal asks him to sit down. Through this traumatic incident, the narrator learns that he is not white. He asks his mother and she is clearly anguished, admitting that she is indeed "colored", and that his father is a great white man.
The narrator starts seeing America differently, through the lens of his race. As a child, he becomes wary of others, and devotes his time to music and literature. He falls in love with a young violinist, but she does not return his affections. He comes into contact with his father once, and admires the man's pale skin and calm demeanor. Their meeting is a bit strained, however, and the narrator's father does not stay long. He later gifts his son a piano.
The narrator and his mother have a frank discussion about race, and he notes that she never criticizes his father even though he failed to publicly acknowledge his son and is married to another (white) woman. The narrator graduates from grammar school, and is stunned and inspired by Shiny’s grand oratory at the graduation ceremony. In high school the narra
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Book by James Weldon Johnson
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912/1927) by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional account of a young biracial man, referred to only as the "Ex-Colored Man", living in post-Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He lives through a variety of experiences, including witnessing a lynching, that convince him to "pass" as white to secure his safety and advancement, but he feels as if he has given up his dream of "glorifying" the black race by composing ragtime music.
History
Johnson originally published The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Mananonymously in 1912, via the small Boston publisher Sherman, French, & Company. He decided to publish it anonymously because he was uncertain how the potentially controversial book would affect his diplomatic career. He wrote openly about issues of race and discrimination that were not common then in literature. The book's initial public reception was poor. It was republished in 1927, with some minor changes of phraseology, by Alfred A. Knopf, an influential firm that published many Harlem Renaissance writers, and Johnson was credited as the author.
Despite the title, the book is a novel. It is drawn from the lives of people Johnson knew and from events in his life. Johnson's text is an example of a roman à clef.
Plot summary
The novel begins with a frame tale in which the unnamed narrator describes the narrative that follows as "the great secret of my life." The narrator notes that he is taking a substantial risk by composing the narrative, but that it is one he feels compelled to record, regardless. The narrator also chooses to withhold the name of the small Georgia town where his narrative begins, as there are still living residents of the town who might be able to connect him to th .