born June 17, 1871, Jacksonville, Fla., U.S.
died June 26, 1938, Wiscasset, Maine
U.S. writer.
He practiced law in Florida before moving with his brother, the composer J. Rosamond Johnson (18731954), to New York; there the two collaborated on some 200 songs for the Broadway stage. Johnson held diplomatic posts in Venezuela and Nicaragua and served as executive secretary of the NAACP (192030). From 1930 he taught at Fisk University. His writings include the novel Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917), and his best-known work, God's Trombones (1927), a group of dialect sermons in verse. The brothers collaborated on the pioneering anthologies Book of American Negro Poetry (1922) and American Negro Spirituals (1925, 1926). Their most famous original song, "Lift Every Voice and Sing," became an anthem of the civil rights movement.