American musicians, instead of investigating ragtime, attempt to ignore it, or dismiss it with a contemptuous word. But that has always been the course of scholasticism in every branch of art. Whatever new thing the 'people' like is pooh poohed; whatever is 'popular' is spoken of as not worth the while. The fact is, nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best that he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.

— James Weldon Johnson

Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town.

— James Weldon Johnson

In the life of everyone there is a limited number of experiences which are not written upon the memory, but stamped there with a die; and in the long years after, they can be called up in detail, and every emotion that was stirred by them can be lived through anew; these are the tragedies of life.

— James Weldon Johnson

I thought of Paris as a beauty spot on the face of the earth, and of London as a big freckle.

— James Weldon Johnson

It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.

— James Weldon Johnson

My luck at the gambling table was varied; sometimes I was fifty to a hundred dollars ahead, and at other times I had to borrow money from my fellow workmen to settle my room rent and pay for my meals.

— James Weldon Johnson

New York City is the most fatally fascinating thing in America. She sits like a great witch at the gate of the country, showing her alluring white face, and hiding her crooked hands and feet under the folds of her wide garments,--constantly enticing thousands from far within, and tempting those who come from across the seas to go no farther. And all these become the victims of her caprice. Some she at once crushes beneath her cruel feet; others she condemns to a fate like that of galley slaves; a few she favors and fondles, riding them high on the bubbles of fortune; then with a sudden breath she blows the bubbles out and laughs mockingly as she watches them fall.

— James Weldon Johnson

O black and unknown bards of long ago How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? How in your darkness did you come to know The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre?

— James Weldon Johnson

The battle was first waged over the right of the Negro to be classed as a human being with a soul; later, whether he had sufficient intellect to master even the rudiments of learning; and today it is being fought out over his social recognition.

— James Weldon Johnson

The fact is, nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best that he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.

— James Weldon Johnson