(1935) is the last book of poetry published by James Weldon Johnson. The title poem, “St. Peter Relates an Incident of the Resurrection Day”, had been printed in a limited edition of just 200 copies in 1930. To it, Johnson added many of the poems printed in his 1917 collection
Fifty Years and Other Poems, and four additional poems written since 1917.
The title poem was based on a 1927 incident involving the treatment of a group of African American gold-star mothers. When a group of American mothers whose sons had been killed in World War I was sent to France to view their sons’ graves, the group was divided by race. White mothers sailed on one ship, while the black mothers were assigned a ship that Johnson termed a “second-class
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Citation: Fleming, Robert E.. "St Peter Relates an Incident: Selected Poems". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 October 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2196, accessed 24 November 2024.]
