James Weldon Johnson, Negro Americans, What Now?

Robert E. Fleming (University of New Mexico)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Domains

Race

Dates

First circulation or publication 1934

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Commentary / criticism
Essays/ Lectures (any)

Cultural Identities

African American

Resources

Negro Americans, What Now? is a book-length political address by James Weldon Johnson to his fellow African Americans. Although Johnson is best known for his poetry and fiction, he served as an officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1916 to 1930 and was well acquainted with the social and political problems facing his race. The world-wide depression of the 1930s had seen the loss of many of the gains that the black race had made in the early twentieth century. Negro Americans, What Now? was intended to address current problems and to suggest some solutions. Johnson divided his short book into three sections: “Choices”, “Forces and Resources”, and “Techniques …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

377 words

Citation: Fleming, Robert E.. "Negro Americans, What Now?". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 October 2002 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3253, accessed 23 November 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here