James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man

As a fictive tale, the novel leaves one speechless and appalled by the ignorance once held prior to reading, wholly unaware of the horrors individuals faced in the North, and the cruelty that even free African Americans were exposed to, one could not be blamed for harshly judging individuals, like Frado, who look racially ambivious, for choosing to pass as a European American. After receiving an enlightening re-education, one who reads the work of James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, may not choose to judge the novel’s protagonist as a criminal, as he does, but view it as a mechanism for survival. Johnson’s novel shares similar themes with Our Nig regarding identity, race and freedom to an African American individual of racially ambiviliant appearance. Wilson’s work allows the reader to sympathize with Johnson’s unnamed narrator, and his betrayal of the African American race by passing for a Caucasian American, even though he is unable to forgive himself.
The narrator’s confession of being an “un-found-out criminal” that has lived the majority of his adult life under
the false premise of European American heritage (Johnson 1).Declaring “I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage” a confession of disappointment in his life choice (Johnson 158). Scarily, however, if he hadn’t chosen this unconventional route, his life and the life of him and children could have easily reflected the same fate as Frado.
Charting the progression of the race question, a common theme in Johnson’s work, he is sure to note that the African American “In spite of all that is written, said and done, this great, big, incontrovertible fact stands out,--the Negro is progressing, and that disproves all the arguments in the world that he is incapable of progress.” (Johnson). This progression, however, has very little to no effect on the attitudes and opinions of African Americans within the United States. Marginalized within American society, African Americans continued to face racial prejudice on a daily basis. The narrator, exploiting his unidentifiable appearance, swoops beyond both sides of the color veil and notes the widening gap that divided the African American race from European Americans, the North from the South, and America from Europe. In doing so, the narrator illuminates uncomfortable truths, and the prevailing thoughts of race within both cultures. While times have changed and the African American struggle with it, the country continued to preoccupy itself with frivolous and racially prejudiced issues. In the past, as Wilson charts in her work, it was a question of whether African Americans had the intellect to master the rudiments of education. In Johnson’s narrative, the prejudice has progressed to questioning the deservedness of social recognition for people of African American peoples.
Yet, the narrator’s decision is not one he comes to lightly, even fully aware of the injustices African American face, the narrator sees potential to elevate the African American race, by expressing the “the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in classic musical form” (Johnson 108).
Using experience as knowledge, the narrator decides that even accomplishing his dream: becoming a great African American composer, is still not enough to ease the life of an African American man. The identity, if accepted, is difficult and unnecessary for a man of his stature. Despite the great progress made by the race combined with the great history that African Americans claim, the narrator remains discouraged by the difficulty to gain social recognition, the lack of respect received by fellow countrymen, and the ability to live a life of comfort as a colored
man.
The idea that Our Nig is an autobiography, the reality that Johnson posits in his fictional world seems all the more plausible. The dangers were real, and in many instances African Americans were faced with issues of life or death solely because of their racial identity. Readers today, who demonize the narrator’s choice, may not truly understand what it means to be African American before the Civil Rights movement.