(June 17, 1871–June 26, 1938), was a popular Black American poet. He was best known for writing a series of verse entitled, God’s Trombones, and editing the Book of Negro Spirituals. His autobiography, Along This Way, won the 1925 Springarn Medal for literature. James Weldon Johnson was a U.S. Consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua; a professor at Fisk University, 1930–38; and served as the secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
In God’s Trombones, 1927, Johnson wrote The Creation:
And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
“I’m lonely—
I’ll make me a world.". …
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder. …
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I’ll make me a man!3167