The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

James Weldon Johnson

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man — James Weldon Johnson’s fictional memoir of an unnamed biracial pianist who grows up believing he is white and confronts America’s racial order. Moving through the South, New York, and Europe, he weighs artistic ambition and belonging against the safety of passing, in a study of identity, music, class, and the cost of choice.