Authors: James Weldon Johnson, Luann Walther (Editor), Henry Louis Gates Jr.
ISBN-13: 9780679727538, ISBN-10: 0679727531
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Date Published: December 1989
Edition: Reissue
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) was a prolific writer and legendary civil rights activist who produced several novels, a pioneering work of cultural history, the first major anthology of black poetry, and numerous treatises on race relations. He served as U.S. consul to Venezuela and Nicaragua and as secretary of the NAACP.
African-American writer's pioneering novel parallels his own life, probes the psychological aspects of "passing for white," and examines the American caste and class system. Major contribution to American literature.