James Weldon Johnson

The author, the first Black executive secretary of the NAACP, offers a fictionalized account of his life and looks at the consequences of denying one's heritage.

Black-and-white photographs accompany this version of the song that has come to be considered the African American national anthem.

"Narrated by a man whose light skin enables him to 'pass' for white, the novel describes a journey through the strata of black society at the turn of the century--from a cigar factory in Jacksonville to an elite gambling club in New York, from genteel aristocrats to the musicians who hammered out the rhythms of ragtime"--Page 4 of cover.

A poem based on the story of creation from the first book of the Bible.