James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

About
* Marginality may be a requisite for creativity and innovation

* Creation of "pure literature" by a people is their mark of civilization

* The superstructure of conscious black art must be built on the cultural background of black folk--black folk culture and folk art stream

* sociological treatise as well as fictive narrative

* LYNCHING SCENE: narrator's marginality/exile/neitherness "fruitful" here. "Shame, unbearable shame" driving him away from his blackness, not want of fear, or discouragement.