The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man written by James Weldon Johnson is a fictionalized account of a young American man's life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because of his bi-racial heritage the Ex-Colored Man is found to be on crossroads. He can either embrace his culture and the ragtime music associated with it or he can live a mediocre life of a middle class man by passing as a white man. The novel is not necessarily an autobiography but much of the experiences described in the book are drawn from Johnson's life or lives of his acquaintances. The narrator is seen to prefer being passed as a white man to safeguard him and his family from violence and a life of uncertainty that comes with being a person of colour. He believes that living as a black man would put a ""label of inferiority pasted across [his] forehead."" Despite that he proclaims that he will neither ""disclaim the black race nor claim the white race"". The novel concludes with the narrator pondering over the decisions he made in his life and whether it was the right thing to do.