The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

The narrator frames his narrative by explaining that he feels compelled to tell his story despite the risk in doing so. He wants to explore for himself and the reader how and why he transformed himself into a white man. During early childhood, he lives in a little cottage with his mother, the Black mistress of a powerful white man in Georgia. Their lives change dramatically when the narrator’s father, a man the narrator could only conjure up by his voice and shoes, sends the family away to live up North.

The narrator has an idyllic early life. He begins reading early and shows an aptitude for music. He listens with interest as his mother sings “old Southern songs” (6) and hums wordless melodies as she holds him. The first trial of his life is the discovery at school one day that he is Black, despite his white-presenting appearance. He isolates himself socially after that, and as he enters high school, his white peers increasingly separate themselves from him.

The narrator experiences the typical milestones of childhood and adolescence—his first crush, figuring out what he wants to be (a musician), and school. His father, absent for many years at this point, comes to visit when the narrator is 12. The visit is awkward, although the narrator’s father gives him a ten-dollar gold piece that the narrator has kept ever since.

At school, the narrator struggles to make sense of the importance of his racial identity. He has one white friend who sticks up for him. He admires Shiny, a Black peer who embodies Black excellence and is admired by others, regardless of their race. He eventually concludes that there is a certain dualism to Black people. In his own life, he sees this dualism as he becomes aware of the difference between how he sees himself and how others see him simply because of his race. This dualism makes him hesitant to open up to others, despite everyone’s efforts to approach the question of his identity with care.

By high school, the narrator is an excellent musician and a scholar. After reading Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (an 1852 abolitionist novel in which a saintly enslaved man sacrifices himself), he believes he better understands the question of race and his social status. He begins reading books by important Black authors. He begins to dream of turning his musical talent to producing music that will bring popular and folk music by Black people to the attention of the world.

His mother, a hardworking seamstress, saves to secure the tuition he will need to nurture that talent at a place like Harvard. The narrator, curious about his Southern roots, also considers going to Atlanta University, a school known for Black excellence. His mother mostly refuses to discuss the narrator’s father with the narrator, especially after the man marries and stops corresponding regularly. The narrator’s mother dies; he refuses to go into much detail about his emotional state during this time. The cost of paying her medical bills leaves him little money. However, with help from the community, which contributes to the benefit concerts he puts on, he saves enough money to go to Atlanta University.

The narrator heads to Atlanta, Georgia, eager to see the capital of the state where he got his start in life. The uncouth people and the overt poverty he sees in the streets are thus a disappointment. He secures lodging with the help of another young man (a train porter) he encounters during his travels. Atlanta University has a beautiful campus and staff who give the narrator a sense of attentiveness. When he returns to his lodging house, however, the tuition money and a beloved tie he stored there are gone. The narrator decides to go to Jacksonville to work and save up enough money to return to school. This is the first of several turning points in his life. He runs into the Pullman porter, and the man is wearing the stolen tie.

The narrator starts work in a cigar factory and works there for several years. He gains promotions and even considers training in the well-paid careers of cigar maker. Going to church and offering music lessons to those who can afford it expose him to affluent Black people. He notes that they are so consumed with countering racial stereotypes that it consumes all their potential and intellectual energy. He wonders what such people would accomplish without this burden. He also learns Spanish and explores for the first time the folk music and dance of Black Southerners. He is so moved by the artistic potential of these art forms that he decides to pursue his dream of becoming a great interpreter of this tradition. He heads to New York to pursue this goal.