James Weldon Johnson is the editor of The Book of American Negro Poetry. Johnson compiled this work because it was his belief that a group of people is not known for their greatness until their art and literature is known. Johnson believed that the status of the American Negro would be improved by making their literature known to the general public. The following is a list of poets included in this collection. Paul Dunbar, James, Campbell, James Corrothers, Daniel Davis, William Moore, W E DuBois, George McClellan, William Braithwaite, George Margetson, James Johnson, John Holloway, Leslie Hill, Ray Dandridge, Edward Jones, FentonJohnson, R Nathaniel Dett, Georgia Johnson, Claude McKay, Joseph Cotter Jr., Roscoe Jamison, Jessie Fauset, Anne Spencer, Alex Rogers, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Charles Johnson, Otto Bohanan, Theodore Shackleford, Lucian Watkins, Benjamin Brawley, and Joshua Jones Jr.