Historical Figure
James Baldwin
1924–1987
American writer and activist (1924–1987)
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Biography
James Arthur Baldwin was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain has been ranked by Time magazine as one of the top 100 English-language novels. His 1955 essay collection Notes of a Native Son helped establish his reputation as a voice for human equality. His 1965 debate with William Buckley is regarded as one of the most influential debates on race in the United States. Baldwin was an influential public figure and orator, especially during the civil rights movement in the United States.
In Their Own Words (5)
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
"Notes of a Native Son" originally in Harper's (November 1955) , 1955
Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
"As Much Truth As One Can Bear" in The New York Times Book Review (January 14, 1962); republished in The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings (2011), edited by Randall Kenan , 2011
One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found — and it is found in terrible places. … For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
From ''Nothing Personal, a collaboration with the photographer Richard Avedon (1964). Baldwin's text for the volume can be found "here". , 1964
But people can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.
Pt. 1, Ch. 1 - p. 4-5 , 1956
Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty.
Everybody's Protest Novel , 1955
Timeline
The story of James Baldwin, told in moments.
Left for Paris with $40 in his pocket. He said he had to leave America to write about it. He was 24, Black, gay, and broke. Paris let him breathe.
Go Tell It on the Mountain published. Semi-autobiographical. A Harlem teenager, a Pentecostal church, a violent father. Baldwin wrote the church scenes from memory. They burned.
The Fire Next Time published. Two essays on race in America. The book hit the bestseller list the same month Bull Connor turned firehoses on children in Birmingham. Baldwin said everything the Civil Rights movement needed said, and said it better.
Died of stomach cancer in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France at 63. He'd been living there for years. Toni Morrison gave the eulogy. She said he gave her a language to live in.
Artifacts (2)
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