SOURCE: "A Study of James Weldon Johnson," in The Journal of Negro History, Vol. LII, No. 2, April, 1967, pp. 128-45.

In the following essay, Adelman reflects on Johnson 's life, writing, and contributions to African-American culture between the 1890s and 1930s.

The period running roughly from the 1890's to the 1930's was a particularly harsh one for the American Negro. It was characterized in many ways by a deterioration in the Negro's status both in the South and the North. And although the Negro made some important gains, especially in the latter part of this period, the South's capitulation to racism and to the Jim Crow code of discrimination, which began in the 1890's, ran unabated until well into the depression years.¹ These conditions placed heavy demands on Negro leadership, which was itself torn, at least until 1915, by the bitter split between Booker T. Washington and W. E. DuBois...