“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

“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

“Nothing will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro through the production of literature and art.” – James Weldon Johnson, preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922) It’s his birthday today. An extremely important figure in 20th century American culture, James Weldon Johnson was born in 1871 and died in 1938. He is often lumped in with the Harlem Renaissance,…