Lay Historians Write The Past: White's Biographical Sketch of James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson (1872-1938) was the first African American executive secretary of the NAACP from 1920 to 1930. He campaigned strongly against lynching. In addition to his civil rights activism, he was a writer during the Harlem Renaissance. Some of his most famous works include The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man and "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," referred to in documents in the Eartha M.M. White Collection as the "Negro National Anthem" and known as the "Black National Anthem" today. 

In this biographical sketch, Eartha M.M. White recounts Johnson's early life in Jacksonville. She focuses especially on the period of his life in which she knew him personally. She also highlights his achievements in the arts.

This sketch is an example of how individuals contributed to the writing of an African American history. People like White could help create a collective memory by sharing what they had seen and experienced. While individual efforts to create biographical sketches were still important to the recording of African American history, some institutions were being created for historians researching and writing history like the Journal of Negro History in 1916.