James Weldon Johnson - Education and Law

Education and Law

In the summer of 1891 the Atlanta University freshman had gone to a rural district in Georgia to instruct the children of former slaves. "In all of my experience there has been no period so brief that has meant so much in my education for life as the three months I spent in the backwoods of Georgia," Johnson wrote. "I was thrown for the first time on my own resources and abilities." James Weldon Johnson graduated from Atlanta University in 1894. He would later receive an honorary Master's degree in 1904. After graduation he returned to Stanton, a school for African American students in Jacksonville, until 1906, where, at the young age of 35, he became principal. As principal Johnson found himself the head of the largest public school in Jacksonville regardless of race. For his work Johnson received a paycheck less than half of what was offered to a white colleague possessing a comparable position. Johnson improved education by adding the ninth and tenth grades. Algebra, English composition, physical geography and bookkeeping were a part of the added ninth grade course. The tenth grade course consisted of geometry, English literature, elementary physics, history and Spanish. Johnson later resigned from his position as principal.

In 1897, Johnson was the first African American admitted to the Florida Bar Exam since Reconstruction. He was also the first black in Duval County to seek admission to the state bar. In order to receive entry Johnson underwent a two-hour examination before three attorneys and a judge. He later recalled that one of the examiners, not wanting to see a black man admitted, left the room.

In December 1930, Johnson resigned from the leadership of the NAACP to accept the Spence Chair of Creative Literature at Fisk University in Nashville, where he lectured not only on literature but also on a wide range of issues to do with the life and civil rights of black Americans. The position had been especially created for him, largely out of recognition of his achievements as a poet, editor, and critic during the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. He held this position until his death in an automobile accident in 1938. Enjoying unusual success as a songwriter for Broadway shows, Johnson moved easily in the upper echelons of African American society in Brooklyn, New York.