the Board of Education. It won important key Supreme Court cases and even involved the youth in their hope to gain equal rights for all. The NAACP also pushed for the passages of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act and soon, after the Voting Act (naacp.com). The NAACP encountered many who helped the organization achieve those various victories. One in particular was James Weldon Johnson.
Born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1891 to James and the former Helen Louise Dillet, Johnson would eventually sometime in his lifetime, become a songwriter, poet, novelist, journalist, autobiographer, diplomat, educator, lawyer and later become an active member of the NAACP (English.uinc.edu). He attended Stanton Grammar School, the only school for Afro-Americans in Jacksonville up until the eighth grade and then attended a preparatory school. Soon after completion of the preparatory school, he was enrolled at Atlanta University. Once he graduated, he returned to his grammar school to become the principal (English.uiuc.edu). While serving as principal, he became the first Black admitted to the Florida Bar and studied with a white Lawyer named Thomas A. Ledwith (english.uiuc.edu). In 1895, he founded the "Daily American," a newspaper set out to .
report on the issues in the black communities. It would only last a year (English.uiuc.edu). After becoming bored with practicing law, .
Johnson met up with his brother Rosamond in 1899 and the two of them over the years would compose many pieces of music with the most recognizable being "Lift Every Voice and Sing." The song was soon adopted by the NAACP as the "The Negro National Hymn" (English.uiuc.edu). Following behind his grandfather's footsteps and a nomination from Booker T. Washington, he became a Diplomat to Corinto, Nicaragua in 1909 and Venezuela in 1906. There, he completed his only novel, "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man." Most people felt as if the novel was his life story so later in life, he wrote his autobiography, "Along This Way" (English.
