The James Weldon Johnson Residence located at 187 West 135th Street, Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, is where James Weldon Johnson lived from 1925 until his death in 1938. In addition to being a composer, song writer, and author, he was an outspoken advocate for civil rights, working in various roles at the NAACP, including General Secretary.
The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.
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“So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And He spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.”
—James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)
“It’s a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“Young man—Young man—Your arm’s too short to box with God.”
—James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)
“We talked of the education of children; and I asked him what he thought was best to teach them first. JOHNSON. “Sir, it is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learnt them both.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)