James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida on June 17, 1871. Johnson attended high school and Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia.

After graduation he returned to Jacksonville and established a high school for Blacks. He served as the principal of the school and studied law in his spare time. He became the first Black to be admitted to the Florida Bar in 1897.

Johnson wrote songs with his brother including Lift every Voice and Sing which later became the Black national anthem. He moved to New York in 1901 to continue his studies. He studied at Columbia University and later returned to Atlanta University for his Masters Degree. He was appointed Consul in Porto Cabrello, Venezuela in 1906 and Consul in Corinto, Nicaragua in 1909.

He is best remembered for his novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored man, which he wrote in 1912. This novel listed many of the grievances that black society had against the racial policies of white society. He is also known for his poetry such as, God's Trombones: Negro Sermons in Verse. He was the secretary of the NAACP from 1916 to 1930 and from 1925 he was a professor of creative literature at Fisk University and a visiting professor at New York University.

James Weldon Johnson was killed in an automobile crash on June 26, 1938 near Wiscasset, Maine.