James Weldon Johnson
13 quotes
Biography
James Weldon Johnson was an African American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter and early civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson.
"The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them."
"Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst."
"It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive characteristic."
"Young man—Young man—Your arm’s too short to box with God."
"I thought of Paris as a beauty spot on the face of the earth, and of London as a big freckle."
"The peculiar fascination which the South held over my imagination and my limited capital decided me in favor of Atlanta University so about the last of September I bade farewell to the friends and scenes of my boyhood and boarded a train for the South."
"The battle was first waged over the right of the Negro to be classed as a human being with a soul later, as to whether he had sufficient intellect to master even the rudiments of learning and today it is being fought out over his social recognition."
"The Southern whites are in many respects a great people. Looked at from a certain point of view, they are picturesque. If one will put oneself in a romantic frame of mind, one can admire their notions of chivalry and bravery and justice."
"Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God."
"My luck at the gambling table was varied; sometimes I was fifty to a hundred dollars ahead, and at other times I had to borrow money from my fellow workmen to settle my room rent and pay for my meals."
"Whose starboard eyeSaw chariot 'swing low'?"
"O black and unknown bards of long ago How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? How in your darkness did you come to know The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre?"
"Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town."