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Books by James Weldon
Johnson
Lift Every
Voice and Sing /
The
Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
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God’s Trombones
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Black Manhattan
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Along This Way
The Creation
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The Books of the American Negro Spirituals.
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God's Trombones: A Review
By
Amin Sharif I am old enough to remember when every black child was
required to memorize and recite the poems of Langston Hughes or
James Weldon Johnson. The recitation of these works usually took
place at church or in school. And these occasions came as close
to a rite of passage as anything possessed by the Black
Community in those days. Each child practiced for weeks to stand
before parents and friends to recite the words of these two
great poets. And woe unto the child who forgot his lines or who
gave a recitation that did not move those assembled. For the
younger children, Langston Hughes was more than appropriate. But
for those in the upper grades, James Weldon Johnson’s works
were the only ones that would suffice. And among Johnson’s
works, only
The Creation was
deemed a masterwork. Only the best of the best was ever allowed
to present this work to a congregation or the school assembly.
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The Creation
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And God stepped
out on space
And he looked
around and said:
I'm lonely --
I'll make me a world.
And as far as the
eye of God could see
Darkness covered
everything,
Blacker than a
hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp
Then God smiled,
And the light
broke,
And the darkness
rolled up on one side,
And the light
stood shining on the other,
And God said: that's good! |
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I can clearly remember an assembly at my old elementary
school # 138 when a senior from Douglas High School came to
present Johnson’s masterwork to my schoolmates and me. The
orator was a very dark skinned, youth with a deep bass voice.
Standing in a spotlight, the youth stretched out his arms and
became his dramatic presentation. There seemed to be no other
sound in the world but his voice as he described how God made
the world. Though the poem is relatively short, this youth
seemed to make time stand still for us. In our mind’s eye, we
saw God fling His heavenly Light against the Eternal Deep. And,
we saw how “like a mammy” the Creator knelt down to make Him
“a man.” To me, the recitation was like a song--an old Negro
spiritual--that I heard my great-grandmother sing while hanging
out wash. Yet, at the same time, the verses seemed more holy
than a spiritual. We all sat there mesmerized as the
presentation went on. And when the last words of the poem had
been spoken, we had the same strange feeling a child gets when
he emerges from baptismal waters.
It was with these memories that I sat down to watch a
presentation of James Weldon Johnson’s
God’s Trombone:
A Trilogy of African American Poems shown of WHUT
(Howard University’s channel).
Though this program was only a half-hour long, it was a
magnificent mixture of oration, animation, and music. The poems
(The Creation, The
Prodigal Son, and Go Down Death) were read by the well known
actors: James Earl Jones and Dorian Haywood. James Earl Jones
signature voice was perfect for Johnson’s Creation.
But Haywood’s masterful
presentation of Johnson’s The
Prodigal Son and Go Down Death was equally impressive.
Though I have never been a fan of claymation, this technique
along with stirring music made Haywood’s reading of The
Prodigal Son the high point of the program. Haywood’s voicing was
in the style of the great Black Southern Church Tradition. And,
one could visualize a congregation with white handkerchiefs and
fans shouting out their “amens” against a tide of singing
and clapping. All in all, the Trilogy
was well worth watching and a fitting tribute to the works of
Johnson.
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