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The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Although the book title The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man might suggest that this is a true story, this is a fictional story written by James Weldon Johnson about a biracial man referred in the book as an Ex-Colored Man. The book was written in 1912 and its story line is based on the time period of the post reconstruction era of the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and deals with the forced choice the biracial man has to make between choosing to live with his black heritage and culture through the expression of the African-American ragtime musical genre or by passing himself off as an obscure middle-class mediocre white man. When James Weldon Johnson had written this book in 1912, he was amongst a small group of African-American writers and due to this concern he was not given accreditation as the books author. The initial public response to the book was poor by the reading public, however when it was republished in 1927, James Weldon Johnson was given his due credit as the books author and it was well-received this time as a fictional novel based on the lives of people known to him and on the real life events experienced by Johnson.
The author and writer of this story, Johnson has with the very first sentences of the book expressed the thinking of the Ex-Colored Man, "I know that in writing the following pages I am divulging the great secret of my life, the secret which for some years I have guarded far more carefully than any of my earthly possessions... With this introductory defilement, he has set the tone of the story by differentiating the two faces that Black man have in relation to their association with people of their own race with one face and with another face when it comes to dealing with White people. The relationships they develop and maintain with their brethren are more natural and unguarded and free-flowing in character while relations with the White people are more reserved, guarded and of a defensive nature implying that the Black people consciously thought of themselves as inferior to the White people or in another manner of speaking, they were considered inferior by the Whites. However, in this book, the Ex-Colored Man grows up thinking he is from a White race and being ignorant of his Black ancestry. It is only when his school principal separates all the White children from the colored ones, he is surprised to learn that he is colored and he confronts his mother and learns the fact of his life that he is biracial.
This revelation greatly disturbs the young boy and he finds himself suddenly torn apart between the Black and White races. To his utter shock and dismay, very soon all of his White friends also abandon him and he has to spend a lonely childhood. The Ex-Colored Man sees the fact of being biracial as if it was a sin and in the later part of this story books reveals how he never forgave his teacher for the terrible way in which the truth was thrust on him about his ancestry. The shock of learning that he was colored had caused hatred not only towards his teacher but also partly towards himself. Among the Black people some names which may be termed a insulting and derogatory when used by other races, however, these very names are considered and taken as terms of endearments among the Black community members when they are used mostly among a closely knit together group of people. The Ex-Colored Man is also pleasantly surprised to hear such names when he joins a group of gamblers after getting away from a drinking party where he hears the Black players call each other at critical moments of their play as chumps and nigger in a gaming room in New York.
He therefore concludes that these expressions among this particular class of people was endearingly and freely used to mean with positivism the terms as dear friends and fellows, however, such expressions are absolutely looked at with animosity and considered as insults when used by the White people in any conversation directed towards them or concerning them. Another similar example on these lines has also been included in this book when during his schooling days of the Ex-Colored Man, he refers to a very dark Black boy as Shiny not as a derogatory name but because he skin appeared to be gleaming and shining as if polished and his eyes and teeth sparkled and glistened. In the various parts of this book, the author has mentioned that the Southern Whites hate and mistreat the Blacks because of their upbringing based on the ancient laws that were passed on to them. They therefore remained obsessed with the subject of race and are more extreme in their view on this subject in comparison to the Black people. With the progress being made by the Black race members, the Whites increase the gulf between themselves and the colored people because of their belief that with better education and more money, the Blacks would live in better houses and put on airs as if to spite the Whites. Johnson further mentions in the book that these feelings are the causes for further hatred because the Whites do not understand with conviction that the Blacks struggle to better their lives and social standing is in accordance to their intellectual prowess.
Therefore their efforts should be taken as a natural impulse common to all human beings world wide to strive for improved and better lifestyles for everyone. Because of the prevailing friction, belief and antipathy towards the Black people by the Whites as a race, they were perceived to be inferior and put on the lower rungs of the social structuring hierarchy. As the Southern Whites strongly believed in these wrongly perceived ideas, they did not want to change the status-quo and preferred to keep the Blacks in their place with the author writing that it is the spirit of the South to defend everything belonging to it to confirm this fact and that they would do nothing to aid in the elevation of the Blacks. Johnsons description of the black classes also serves to show that blacks and whites alike have the same human tendencies to seek social status. Despite the many hurdles that were in the ways of the Blacks to better their education and social standing in society, it was with more determination that they struggled to rise and better their prospects. An example in this book is given of the Smiley who through education and hard works attains a respectable position despite being a member of the Black race.
When the Ex-Colored Man begins to live in an exclusively Black community, he discovers that there are in three different class groups and analysis them as the first being of the desperate type, the second being of the domestic serving class and the third group being of the independent workman group. While the group that served as domestic workers worked as the servants of the Whites and had interactions with them to understand them better. In fact this group was so acceptable with the Whites that they were considered as the most trustworthy personal and were considered many times as part of the families who also served as confidantes and shared the many secrets of families who depended on them. The group that worked as independent workman did not interact with the Whites. The Ex-Colored Man further observed that the desperate Black types had extreme tendencies and hated the Whites just as much as some of the extreme Whites hated them.
However, the Black people as a whole were viewed as stereotypes with all of them being considered to be of a single class by the Whites. The authors description of these classes also depicts the fact that Blacks as well as Whites have all similar tendencies to better their social statuses. After the death of the his mother, the Ex-Colored Man moves to racially segregated South to pursue his education at the Atlanta University, but on arrival his money gets stolen in Atlanta and he ends up instead in Jacksonville where he has to work in a Cigar factory. Since he was protected by his mother during his childhood and raised in a different environment, he finds himself in a totally different all Black environment, where he adapts well and is able to move around with ease between the different classes of the Black society.
However, when the Cigar factory where he was working closes indefinitely, and as it seemed difficult for him to earn enough money to pay through for his education, the Ex-Colored Man abandons his educational plans and together with friends he had made in the Cigar factory, decides to go with them to New York to find work. Because of the very light complexion the Ex-Colored Man had, he is able to pass himself with ease as a Colored person or a White person. When he gets over the shock of discovering his Black ancestry, sometimes out of necessity and sometimes by choice he adopts to the Black or White role that serves him the best. However, in his youth he realizes that he was a natural ragtime musician and decides return to his roots and to settle as a Black in the South. However, on his way there he witnesses a lynching and burning of a Black person for unknown reasons where the Southern crowds instead of hanging him decided to burn him alive.
That incident affected the Ex-Colored Man so much that he gave up the dream of becoming a musician as he did not want to be identified with people who would be treated with such cruelty. He therefore decided to become a neutral person who would neither disclaim the Black people as his own nor claim belong to the White race, but would go on to live a mediocre life style away from such biased and extreme points of views. Works Cited: James Weldon Johnson, 1912, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Accessed: May 12, 2007) web The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, from Wikipedia the free encyclopedia (Accessed: May 12, 2007) web
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