The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, novel by James Weldon Johnson, published in 1912. This fictional autobiography, originally issued anonymously in order to suggest authenticity, explores the intricacies of racial identity through the eventful life of its mixed-race (and unnamed) narrator.

The narrator, born in Georgia, tells of his childhood in Connecticut, where his mixed-race mother, aided by monthly checks from the boy’s white father, is able to provide a secure and cultured environment. Learning of his black heritage only by accident, the narrator experiences the first of several identity shifts that will eventually find him opting for membership in white society. A European interlude under the sponsorship of a wealthy white male companion raises the question of sexual identity as well, but the novel never makes this issue explicit. Throughout the work, Johnson employs characters, locales, incidents, and motifs from his own life, but the narrator is less a conscious self-portrait than a representation of the author’s own ambivalence.