James was a school principal, a lawyer, an NAACP leader, an international diplomat, and a creative writer. He wrote the hymn known as the Black National Anthem, "Lift every voice and sing". He originally wrote it as a poem, and his brother later composed music for the lyrics. Seventeen years later, at age forty-six, he released this book of poems. In Fifty Years and Other Poems, James captures the raw emotion felt by a nation of people. His work is instrumental in understanding the lives and times of black people fifty years after the ending of slavery.