JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville native James Weldon Johnson’s birthday is Wednesday.
Johnson was the first of many influencers for the black community and it started on this day in 1871.
From writer to activist, Johnson was a pioneer.
Johnson was the author of the song “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” considered by many to be the “Black National Anthem.”
The words were written by Johnson and put to music in 1919.
“The amazing amount of accomplishments, he was able to pull off, and really horrible Jim Crow era, is both fascinating and breathtaking,” said Antonio Allegretti, Jacksonville History Advocate.
Johnson assisted writers during the Harlem Renaissance and was the first black principal of Stanton School, now Stanton College Preparatory School, the school from which he graduated.
“You could only go to 8th grade as an African American back then, it was illegal to keep going to school. So he had 8th graders come back and surreptitiously go to 9th grade and then 10th grade,” Allegretti said.
Allegretti said Johnson was eventually found out and summoned to Tallahassee.
“‘You know you’re not supposed to do this!?' He had a list of all his students and what they have accomplished,” Allegretti said. “Some had become doctors, some had become newspaper men, etc...thus became high-school for African Americans in Florida.”
Johnson would go on to become a civil rights activist.
“James Weldon Johnson organized the first peaceful protest which was the silent parade in 1917 with 15,000 African Americans who marched in silence down 5th Avenue which was profound part of the movement,” Allegretti said.
Johnson later became the first black man to be admitted to the Florida Bar.
“One-hundred years later, it kinds of speaks to what he was working against, and how far we have come which is obviously not far enough, but the bridges hew as doing then and what is happening now,” Allegretti said.
He would work several years for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and became the first black leader.
“Probably had about 10,000 members when he became field director which was the first person to kind of go out and attract new membership in the south, it went from 10,000 members to 100,000 members,” Allegretti said.
On this day 149 years ago, Johnson was born in a home that sat at the corner of Houston and Lee Streets in Jacksonville’s Lavilla neighborhood. Today, it’s an empty lot, but those at the Durkeeville Historical Society said within the year, they hope to develop the land into a larger park called “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”
On Wednesday, Councilman Garrett Dennis introduced legislation that would rename Hemming Park after Johnson.