Quick read

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, by James Weldon Johnson. Sometimes, you get what you paid for, which means that a free book can sometimes be a dog of a story. Not so with this book, which I got free for my Nook. Why didn't I read this book before? Why does the book show up on few books other than for African-American Studies courses?

It was a fast read, that engaged me from the the first page. The ending was a foregone conclusion, but much of thebook is a report of life in the early part of the 20th century, when the "Negro question" was the raging social issue of the day. Surprisingly, the question has not been fully resolved some 100 years later, and even more surpisingly, the book retains a great deal of relevance on the issue.

I enjoyed hearing of the unnamed protagonist's travels from the South of his early childhood to Connecticut, to Atlanta, to Florida, to New York, to Europe, and back to New York. I enjoyed his observations of the world of the "Negro" which, according to the one drop rule, he was, despite his father being white and his mother being herself a "mulatto".

His observations on the race questions are keen. Why should whites devote the best of themselves trying to prove the inferiority of blacks? That's just one of the observations made by Johnson. I suppose it was true through the 50s and maybe today that many Southerners tended to be fond of the blacks they knew, but to dislike the race in general and that many Northerners tended to love the race, but to have few personal relationships with blacks.

Over the past few days, as I've been reading this book, the controversy regarding Shirley Sherrod has been raging. A white, conservative blogger edited a speech by Sherrod to make what was a message on overcoming her own prejudices appear to be given by a racist who discriminated against the white farmers she was supposed to be helping. That none of the news outlets vetted the story before publishing it resulted in her firing from the USDA. The blogger's stated purpose: to show that the NAACP, which had sponsored Sherrod's speech, was as racist as the so-called Teabag movement. All that time and energy wasted and such harm done to race relations to prove a point that merits no such proof. If the NAACP is racist in its mission, that will be abundantly clear; no person or organization can hide its true character. What does the blogger's efforts say about the issue when it's all said and done.

Either way, lest I get to far astray, I enjoyed this book. Would I have passed if I could have at that time in history? Would I pass today? Was it a sign of courage or cowardice for the protagonist to let the world define him instead of conceding to the one-drop rule. I don't know, but in the end, I can't fault him for his choice.