autobiogeaphy of an ex colored man
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Essay: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, written by James Weldon Johnson, is a novel that portrays the complexity and paradox of American racial attitudes. The novel is set just a some years after the civil war. The reconstruction era is over and Jim-Crowism is still strident in the south. The novel opens with the main character as a young child. One day he is sitting in class and his teacher asks all the white kids to stand and she begins to scold him when he joins. He reports back to his mother who then explains to him that she is indeed black yet his father white. The novel then turns into a moving account of the life and times of a talented mulatto tormented by the baggage of a problematic ethnicity. The main character struggles between two worlds to find his place in society and uses his ability to "pass" for either race.
After growing up in Connecticut from an upper-class upbringing, the main character moves down to Atlanta to go to school and/or get a part-time job. Living and working conditions for an African-American in the south those days were not the best situations...