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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.

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
Rooms
Tables
Rent
Times
Fellows
Gambling
Money
Ahead
Settle
Sometimes
Luck
Settling
Dollars
Meals
Hundred
Fellow
Workmen
Pay
Fifty
Varied
Room
Table
Borrow

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It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.
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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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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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As yet, the Negroes themselves do not fully appreciate these old slave songs.
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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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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.
James Weldon Johnson
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I'm lonely I'll make me a world.
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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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...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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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.
James Weldon Johnson
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So God stepped over to the edge of the world And He spat out the seven seas He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled And the waters above the earth came down, The cooling waters came down.
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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
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O Black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
James Weldon Johnson
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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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And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and my school books.
James Weldon Johnson
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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.
James Weldon Johnson
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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
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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.
James Weldon Johnson
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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.
James Weldon Johnson