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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

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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
Scene
Capital
Boyhood
Imagination
Favors
Atlanta
Friends
Limited
Farewell
Lasts
Held
Fascination
Last
University
September
Train
Scenes
South
Favor
Boarded
Decided
Peculiar
Bade

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And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and my school books.
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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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When we arrived in London, my sadness at leaving Paris was turned into despair. After my long stay in the French capital, huge, ponderous, massive London seemed to me as ugly a thing as man could contrive to make.
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There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.
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Through my music teaching and my not absolutely irregular attendance at church, I became acquainted with the best class of colored people in Jacksonville.
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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.
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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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O Black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
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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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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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When one has seen something of the world and human nature, one must conclude, after all, that between people in like stations of life there is very little difference the world over.
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The Southern whites are in many respects a great people. Looked at from a certain point of view, they are picturesque. If one will put oneself in a romantic frame of mind, one can admire their notions of chivalry and bravery and justice.
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Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
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As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat.
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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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