This is going to be the tribute page; a window into some of my (and other colleagues') literary influences. I want this to be a space where we honor our ancestors in storytelling and word-sharing. And I'll admit that I have a very limited knowledge of literature, but this is one of the ways I want to expand my view. So here I'll post a short biography and some samples of writers who have inspired me and others.

Songwriter, poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and autobiographer. James Weldon Johnson, much like his contemporary W. E. B. Du Bois, was a man who bridged several historical and literary trends. Born in 1871, during the optimism of the Reconstruction period, in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson was imbued with an eclectic set of talents. Over the course of his sixty-seven years, Johnson was the first African American admitted to the Florida bar since the end of Reconstruction; the co-composer (with his brother John Rosamond) of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing,' the song that would later become known as the Negro National Anthem; field secretary in the NAACP; journalist; publisher; diplomat; educator; translator; librettist; anthologist; and English professor; in addition to being a well-known poet and novelist and one of the prime movers of the Harlem Renaissance.

~ A good list of James Weldon Johnson's poetry