James Weldon Johnson: Lift Every Voice and Sing

1990, trade paperback edition, Childrens Press, Chicago. 32 pages. Vintage photos throughout. James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) was raised in a household full of music. He would eventually graduate from a university with honors in 1894. He would become the first African American in Florida's history to pass the Bar exam. Later, with his brothers, he moved to New York City and became a successful song writer. He is perhaps best known today for the Lift Every Voice and Sing. Later in his life, he became a professor at a university in Tennessee. Sadly, he was killed in an auto accident in 1938. Quite a story; quite a man.