I have always believed in God and the miracles that He performs daily. I just never thought I would be the recipient of one of those miracles!I like to classify these miracles as two separate entities: “Divine healing,” after something is already there and then suddenly disappears, and “Divine intervention,” something is found when looking for something else and is fixed, therefore saving a life—the latter being my case.I feel like God saved me for a reason, and that reason...

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) exemplified the ideal of the American public intellectual as a writer, educator, songwriter, diplomat, key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, and first African American executive of the NAACP. Originally published anonymously in 1912, Johnson’s novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is considered one of the foundational works of twentieth-century African American literature, and its themes and forms have been taken up by other writers, from Ra...