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At a very early age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes? I also learned the names of the notes in both clefs, but I preferred not be hampered by notes.
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
Long
Early
Hampered
Learned
Preferred
Alone
Tunes
Names
Piano
Age
Began
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Pick
Able
Picks
Music
Notes
Thump
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I thought of Paris as a beauty spot on the face of the earth, and of London as a big freckle.
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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.
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...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
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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.
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As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat.
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It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction.
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Northern white people love the Negro in a sort of abstract way, as a race through a sense of justice, charity, and philanthropy, they will liberally assist in his elevation.
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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.
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And Satan smiled, stretched out his hand, and said, O War, of all the scourges of humanity, I crown you chief.
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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.
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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.
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And God stepped out on space, and He looked around and said: I'm lonely - I'll make me a world.
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O Black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
James Weldon Johnson
Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town.
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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.
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...one of the best things about running is that no matter how fast you've run in the past, running fast in the future does not come easily or with any guarantees.
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As yet, the Negroes themselves do not fully appreciate these old slave songs.
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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.
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In Berlin I especially enjoyed the orchestral concerts, and I attended a large number of them. I formed the acquaintance of a good many musicians, several of whom spoke of my playing in high terms.
James Weldon Johnson