James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) lived in DC while working for the NAACP. He later worked as US Consul to Venezuela (1906-1908) and US Consul to Nicaragua (1909-1913) and Chair of Creative Literature at Fisk University. He wrote novels, poems, song lyrics, and collections of folklore. Johnson’s books of poems include: To a Friend (1892), Lift Every Voice and Sing (1899), O Black and Unknown Bards (1908), Fifty Years (1917), and God’s Trombones (1927). He is also the author of the fictional The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), and edited The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922) and The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925).
