Today I want to focus on the piece from “The Autobiography of an ex-colored man” which we read this week. I enjoyed reading the autobiography. Besides being well written, it contains episodes of the author’s real life.
Black and white has always been a contrast to each other. Fortunately, under the present scheme of society this image is vanished. However, if we go back in the early twentieth century, notoriously, the contradiction between black and white had greatly existed. James Weldon Johnson wrote “The Autobiography of an ex-colored man” in 1912. It was written during the time of the first great migration which occurred between 1910 and 1930. During that comparatively short period of time many African-Americans migrated from the South of the United States to the North to try their fates. The whole world knew about the promising prosperity of the post Reconstruction era with the booming of the Harlem Renaissance in the early twentieth century in the North. New York City was one of the largest cities that “warmly” accepted African-American migrants from the South. The “ex-colored man”, whose name stays unknown, was one of the many migrants.
The opening of the story where the author describes New York as “the most fatally fascinating things in America” is very tempting. I believe that it still remains nowadays. The “enchanted spot” is compared to a “great witch”, who is constantly enticing all newcomers. The “dread” power of the city affects everybody in different ways, some people who lose get frustrated with their lives while others who win get a chance to live in prosperity. The ex-colored man is not an exception of this effect. For some inexplicable reasons the young mulatto man felt that he became an integral part of the stimulating power of the “great” city. “I felt that I was just beginning to live”, he utters when he came to New York for the first time.
I like the way the narrator jumps from the addiction to live in New York City to a gambling game. I assume that these two absolutely different things may have an intercept. In fact, living in the city might be a risky game for one who decided to fate his destiny, but the game pays off at the end of the day. The “ex-colored man” is one of the “black fellows” who tries his destiny and wins.
Notoriously, hate and racism existed in the beginning of the twentieth century between the two main races. Yet, “dark” men managed to demonstrate their “natural endowment” through the beautiful and intricate rhythms of the “ragtime music”. That was the time when Harlem Renaissance was prosperously booming. “Black fellows” were able to prove to “white imitators” that they might be better off than “whites” thought they were.
I believe, that the period of time between 1910 and 1930 is very important in American history, in American literature and in American culture in general. It was the time when the first step toward the elimination of racism in the United States was taken.