The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson - African American Literature Classic - Perfect for Book Clubs & Historical Studies

I grabbed this book from Kindle free books without knowing anything about it and read it at face value. I took it to be a true autobiography, but it often read like fiction. It turns out both are true. It is a fictional novel written by a black man to read like an autobiography. It is not actually an autobiography.James Weldon Johnson himself was a black man who looked like a black man, not a light skinned black with relatively European features as the character in the novel. The book is based on the lives of people Johnson knew and from events in his own life, and written to examine black and white race issues from both the white and the black sides of the street.It is easier and shorter and more accurate to use the words I found elsewhere to describe this very interesting book. I often like to know the story behind the story when I read such books.Wikipedia: "James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 - June 26, 1938) was an American author, educator, lawyer, diplomat, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is best remembered for his leadership within the NAACP as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and anthologies. He was also the first African-American professor at New York University.[1] Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University."Wikepedia continued: "The book was "published anonymously in 1912. Johnson's decision to publish the novel anonymously stemmed in part from his sense that signing his name to a potentially controversial book might damage his diplomatic career.[12] It was only during 1927 *when the book was republished) that Johnson admitted his authorship, stressing that it was not a work of autobiography but mostly fictional."From the Library Journal: From Library Journal: Johnson's theme of moral cowardice sets his tragic story of a mulatto in the United States above other sentimental narratives. The unnamed narrator, the offspring of a black mother and white father, tells of his coming-of-age at the beginning of the 20th century. Light-skinned enough to pass for white but emotionally tied to his mother's heritage, he ends up a failure in his own eyes after he chooses to follow the easier path while witnessing a white mob set fire to a black man."I've grabbed both good free e-books and very poor free e-books from Amazon, and it turns out this one was a gem.