James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was an American author and civil rights activist. A leader of the NAACP, Johnson established his reputation as a writer during the Harlem Renaissance and was known for his poems, novels, and anthologies collecting poems and spirituals of Black culture. He wrote the lyrics for “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which later became known as the Black National Anthem. In 1934, Johnson became the first African American professor to be hired at New York University. Later in his life, he was a professor of literature and creative writing at Fisk University, a historically Black university.