My+City+(Block+34)

MY CITY

When I come down to sleep death's endless night, The threshold of the unknown dark to cross, What to me then will be the keenest loss, When this bright world blurs on my fading sight? Will it be that no more I shall see the trees Or smell the flowers or hear the singing birds Or watch the flashing streams or patient herds? No, I am sure it will be none of these.

But, ah! Manhattan's sights and sounds, her smells, Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thrill that comes From being of her a part, her subtle spells, Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums-- O God! the stark, unutterable pity, To be dead, and never again behold my city! **June 17, 1871-June 26, 1938**

**//__BIOGRAPHY__//** James Weldon Johnson was born on June 17th 1871 in Jacksonville,Flordia.He attetend college at Atlanta University.Here he experinced majority of the issues he writes about.In 1903 he decided to take more classes at Columbia University. Three years later he was able to work on a book and write poems in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela.After this he moved to Corinto, Nicaragua where he started his Family. He than moved back to his hometown JAcksonville.After a short while he made his last and final move to New York.

Accomplishments 1899 wrote "Lift Every Voice and Sing" 1916 offered Field Secarity For NAtional Security for NAACP 1920 became general Secuarity resigned in 1930

__BO//OK TIMELINE (some)//__ http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/amlit/johnson/johnson1.html
 * 1922 //The Book of American Negro Poetry//
 * 1925 //The Book of American Negro Spirituals//
 * 1926 //The Second Book of Negro Spirituals//
 * 1927
 * 1930 //Black Manhattan// God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse
 * 1933 //Along This Way//
 * 1934 //Negro Americans, What Now?//

code Lift ev'ry voice and sing, Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the list'ning skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won.
 * Lift Every Voice and Sing ||||  ||
 * by [|James Weldon Johnson] ||

Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chast'ning rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, Till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who hast by Thy might, Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand, True to our God, True to our native land. code ||