Great Writers
James Baldwin
James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) was a leading voice in the Civil Rights Movement, and long after his death, his writing and teachings are central to conversations about race, social inequality, sexual orientation, class, and what it means to be Black in America.
Baldwin's powerful writing about human rights, dignity, racism, and love are as relevant to America today as they were during his lifetime. His forceful and original messages live on, and are often quoted:
- It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. ("No Name in the Street")
- There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain. ("Giovanni's Room")
- One writes out of one thing only—one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art. ("Notes of a Native Son")
- Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. ("As Much Truth As One Can Bear," New York Times essay)
- Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind. ("If Beale Street Could Talk")
Born in Harlem in 1924, Baldwin was raised in New York by his mother and stepfather, a preacher. As the eldest of nine children, he took his role as big brother seriously throughout his life. He took to writing early in life and published his first article for his school magazine at age 13. Between the ages of 14 and 17, he preached at his local Pentecostal church, an experience that honed his rhetorical writing style, but also turned him away from organized religion in favor of humanism.
On his nineteenth birthday in 1943, he witnessed the Harlem race riots, a pivotal experience that he featured in his essay, "Notes of a Native Son." Baldwin left America in 1948, moving to Paris to write and escape the racism and homophobia of his home country. He lived on and off in France for many years until his death there in 1987. In that time, he became established in American literature as one of its most important and influential voices. His works include:
- "Nobody Knows My Name"
- "No Name in the Street"
- "The Fire Next Time"
- "If Beale Street Could Talk"
- "Giovanni's Room"
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