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This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.
James Weldon Johnson
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James Weldon Johnson
Age: 67 †
Born: 1871
Born: June 17
Died: 1938
Died: June 26
Author
Composer
Diplomat
Jurist
Lawyer
Novelist
Poet
Politician
Songwriter
Writer
Jacksonville
Florida
J. W. Johnson
Citizens
Democracy
Accords
Justice
Humblest
Country
Weakest
Accord
Guarantees
Citizen
Diversity
More quotes by James Weldon Johnson
And Satan smiled, stretched out his hand, and said, O War, of all the scourges of humanity, I crown you chief.
James Weldon Johnson
It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction.
James Weldon Johnson
As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat.
James Weldon Johnson
This Great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till He shaped it in His own image.
James Weldon Johnson
The peculiar fascination which the South held over my imagination and my limited capital decided me in favor of Atlanta University so about the last of September I bade farewell to the friends and scenes of my boyhood and boarded a train for the South.
James Weldon Johnson
Southern white people despise the Negro as a race, and will do nothing to aid in his elevation as such but for certain individuals they have a strong affection, and are helpful to them in many ways.
James Weldon Johnson
You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There's a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that's just begun.
James Weldon Johnson
A great wave of humiliation and shame swept over me. Shame that I belonged to a race that could be so dealt with and shame for my country, that it, the great example of democracy to the world, should be the only civilized, if not the only state on earth, where a human being would be burned alive.
James Weldon Johnson
My luck at the gambling table was varied sometimes I was fifty to a hundred dollars ahead, and at other times I had to borrow money from my fellow workmen to settle my room rent and pay for my meals.
James Weldon Johnson
But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in classic musical form.
James Weldon Johnson
There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.
James Weldon Johnson
Americans are immensely popular in Paris and this is not due solely to the fact that they spend lots of money there, for they spend just as much or more in London, and in the latter city they are merely tolerated because they do spend.
James Weldon Johnson
Make yourself as happy as possible, and try to make those happy whose lives come in touch with yours. But to attempt to right the wrongs and cease the sufferings of the world in general is a waste of effort.
James Weldon Johnson
...evil is a force and, like the physical and chemical forces, we cannot annihilate it we may only change its form. We light upon one evil and hit it with all the might of our civilization, but only succeed in scattering it into a dozen of other forms
James Weldon Johnson
It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.
James Weldon Johnson
I finally made up my mind that I would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race but that I would change my name, raise a mustache, and let the world take me for what it would that it was not necessary for me to go about with a label of inferiority pasted across my forehead.
James Weldon Johnson
In the life of everyone there is a limited number of experiences which are not written upon the memory, but stamped there with a die and in the long years after, they can be called up in detail, and every emotion that was stirred by them can be lived through anew these are the tragedies of life.
James Weldon Johnson
The fortress inspired a tremendous confidence. It was the only propeller driven aircraft I have flown that was completely viceless there were no undesirable flight characteristics. The directional stability was excellent and, properly trimmed, the B-17 could be taken off, landed and banked without change of trim.
James Weldon Johnson
O Black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
James Weldon Johnson
I'm lonely I'll make me a world.
James Weldon Johnson