The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
E278417
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a 1912 novel by James Weldon Johnson that explores race, identity, and passing in early 20th-century America through the life story of a mixed-race narrator.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man canonical | 5 |
| the Ex-Colored Man | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2565156 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Context triple: [James Weldon Johnson, notableWork, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man]
-
A.
Notes of a Native Son
Notes of a Native Son is James Baldwin’s influential 1955 collection of essays examining race, identity, and social injustice in mid-20th-century America.
-
B.
The Souls of Black Folk
The Souls of Black Folk is a seminal 1903 collection of essays by W. E. B. Du Bois that explores African American life after the Civil War and famously introduces the concepts of "double consciousness" and "the veil."
-
C.
The New Negro (anthology)
The New Negro is a landmark 1925 anthology edited by Alain Locke that helped define and propel the Harlem Renaissance by showcasing the literature, art, and thought of a new generation of Black American creators.
-
D.
The Dying Negro
The Dying Negro is an 18th-century abolitionist poem co-authored by Thomas Day that powerfully condemns the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade.
-
E.
Negro Life at the South
"Negro Life at the South" is an 1859 genre painting by American artist Eastman Johnson that depicts the everyday lives of enslaved African Americans in a Washington, D.C. backyard, offering a complex, nuanced view of slavery on the eve of the Civil War.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Target entity description: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a 1912 novel by James Weldon Johnson that explores race, identity, and passing in early 20th-century America through the life story of a mixed-race narrator.
-
A.
Notes of a Native Son
Notes of a Native Son is James Baldwin’s influential 1955 collection of essays examining race, identity, and social injustice in mid-20th-century America.
-
B.
The Souls of Black Folk
The Souls of Black Folk is a seminal 1903 collection of essays by W. E. B. Du Bois that explores African American life after the Civil War and famously introduces the concepts of "double consciousness" and "the veil."
-
C.
The New Negro (anthology)
The New Negro is a landmark 1925 anthology edited by Alain Locke that helped define and propel the Harlem Renaissance by showcasing the literature, art, and thought of a new generation of Black American creators.
-
D.
The Dying Negro
The Dying Negro is an 18th-century abolitionist poem co-authored by Thomas Day that powerfully condemns the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade.
-
E.
Negro Life at the South
"Negro Life at the South" is an 1859 genre painting by American artist Eastman Johnson that depicts the everyday lives of enslaved African Americans in a Washington, D.C. backyard, offering a complex, nuanced view of slavery on the eve of the Civil War.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
fictional autobiography
ⓘ
novel ⓘ |
| author | James Weldon Johnson ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| explores |
intersection of race and class in the United States
ⓘ
psychological cost of racial passing ⓘ tension between artistic ambition and material security ⓘ |
| firstPublicationForm | book ⓘ |
| genre |
African-American literature
ⓘ
Bildungsroman ⓘ novel of passing ⓘ social novel ⓘ |
| hasCharacter |
the Ex-Colored Man
ⓘ
linked to:
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
the Ex-Colored Man’s Black mother ⓘ the Ex-Colored Man’s white father ⓘ |
| hasLiteraryForm | pseudo-autobiography ⓘ |
| influenced | later African-American novelists ⓘ |
| initialPublicationStatus | anonymously published ⓘ |
| laterPublicationStatus | republished under author’s name ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | Harlem Renaissance precursor ⓘ |
| literarySignificance |
important work in the literature of the color line
ⓘ
key early text in African-American modernism ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
Jim Crow segregation
ⓘ
linked to:
Jim Crow laws
class and social mobility ⓘ colorism ⓘ passing for white ⓘ race ⓘ racial identity ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | first-person ⓘ |
| narrator | unnamed mixed-race man ⓘ |
| notableFor | early exploration of racial passing in American fiction ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| plotElement |
decision to pass as white
ⓘ
pursuit of a musical career ⓘ witnessing a lynching ⓘ |
| protagonistEthnicity | biracial ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1912 ⓘ |
| publisher | Sherman, French & Company ⓘ |
| republicationYear | 1927 ⓘ |
| settingLocation |
American South
ⓘ
linked to:
Southern United States
Europe ⓘ New York City ⓘ |
| settingPeriod |
early 20th century
ⓘ
late 19th century ⓘ |
| tone |
confessional
ⓘ
reflective ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Description of subject: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a 1912 novel by James Weldon Johnson that explores race, identity, and passing in early 20th-century America through the life story of a mixed-race narrator.
Referenced by (6)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
Weldon
linked to: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
subject linked to:
James W. Johnson