James Weldon Johnson, author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter and early civil rights leader, was born 17 June 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida.  He earned his B.A. from Atlanta University in 1894. In 1897, he became the first African-American admitted to the Floriday Bar Exam since Reconstruction.  He served in diplomatic corps in the early 1900s being assigned to Venezuela by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. He was one of the first African-American professors at New York University; later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University. He died 26 June 1938 in Wiscasset, Maine.