All James Weldon Johnson Quotes
It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.
James Weldon Johnson
60% of people like this quote
But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in classic musical form.
James Weldon Johnson
56% of people like this quote
I do not see how a people that can find in its conscience any excuse whatever for slowly burning to death a human being, or for tolerating such an act, can be entrusted with the salvation of a race.
James Weldon Johnson
55% of people like this quote
I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.
James Weldon Johnson
54% of people like this quote
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.
James Weldon Johnson
54% of people like this quote
You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There's a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that's just begun.
James Weldon Johnson
53% of people like this quote
Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God.
James Weldon Johnson
53% of people like this quote
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.
James Weldon Johnson
53% of people like this quote
Americans are immensely popular in Paris; and this is not due solely to the fact that they spend lots of money there, for they spend just as much or more in London, and in the latter city they are merely tolerated because they do spend.
James Weldon Johnson
52% of people like this quote
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.
James Weldon Johnson
52% of people like this quote
My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest.
James Weldon Johnson
52% of people like this quote
My mother was kept very busy with her sewing; sometimes she would have another woman helping her.
James Weldon Johnson
52% of people like this quote
Through my music teaching and my not absolutely irregular attendance at church, I became acquainted with the best class of colored people in Jacksonville.
James Weldon Johnson
51% of people like this quote
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