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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

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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
Image
Toiling
Baby
Lump
Great
Lumps
Like
Bending
Shaped
Clay
Till
Dust
Mammy

More quotes by James Weldon Johnson

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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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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.
James Weldon Johnson
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As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat.
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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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
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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.
James Weldon Johnson
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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.
James Weldon Johnson
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It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.
James Weldon Johnson
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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
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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.
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.
James Weldon Johnson
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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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My mother was kept very busy with her sewing sometimes she would have another woman helping her.
James Weldon Johnson
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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.
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
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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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And Satan smiled, stretched out his hand, and said, O War, of all the scourges of humanity, I crown you chief.
James Weldon Johnson
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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.
James Weldon Johnson
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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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This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.
James Weldon Johnson