James Weldon Johnson 
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man 

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is the story of a young bi-racial man living in post-Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He lives through a variety of experiences, including witnessing a lynching, that convince him to ’pass’ as white to secure his safety and advancement, but he feels as if he has given up his dream of ’glorifying’ the black race.