The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

James Weldon Johnson’s trailblazing coming-of-age novel on passing and racial ambiguity at the turn of the 20th century in America, freshly repackaged for the Union Square & Co. Signature Editions line.

From a cigar factory in Jacksonville to an elite gambling club in New York, the unnamed narrator describes his remarkable journey through the strata of Black and white society, rubbing elbows with European aristocrats and ragtime musicians alike. Yet through it all, he struggles to forge an identity in a world that tells him he doesn’t belong. Ultimately, he discovers that the practice of passing brings little more than a ruinous self-denial.