James Baldwin (1EMB) Group ⑦

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

James Baldwin (1924-1987)

He wrote for civil rights and engaged in a a sea of fights

James Arthur Baldwin was a famous and influential American activist, essayist, novelist, poet and playwright. Baldwin's books took inspiration from different forms of racial prejudice and sexual abuse that he suffered during his life, reflecting upon complex and polemic themes such as racial segregation, LGBTQI+ rights, sexuality, and social class.

CHILDHOOD

James Baldwin was born on August 2, 1924 in Harlem, New York, where he grew up poor during the Great Depression. His mother's name was Emma Berdis Jones. After running away from a problematic relationship with Baldwin’s drug abusive biological father, she married David Baldwin, who was a Baptist preacher, having with him more eight children. James' stepfather was very harsh with him, more than with his other sons and daughters, making him spend most of his time at libraries or churches rather than at home.

Photograph of Emma Berdis Jones in the audience at James Baldwin's birthday celebration (1984)

ADOLESCENCE

Amid his adolescence, Baldwin's troubles, including his stepfather's bad parenting, drove him to look for comfort in religion. By the age of 14, he had gone to many church gatherings and got to be a junior minister. Not long after, he was drawing bigger swarms of people than his stepfather had ever done in his days. However, by the age of 17, Baldwin had come to regard Christianity as based on untrue premises, considering it misleading and bigoted. According to him, “If the concept of God has any use, it is to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God can't do that, it's time we got rid of him." Additionally, as James frequently went to various libraries and stayed long periods of time reading and studying in such places, he discovered that he had a gift for writing and literature as a whole. When he was 13 years old, Baldwin wrote his first article, with the title "Harlem-then and now". Finally, in his teenage years, he started to discover himself as being gay, which inspired him, consequently, to create romances with homossexual characters based on his life experiences.

During the beginning of his adulthood, James worked as a freelancer writer, publishing short stories and reviewing several books. Due to his amazing talent, he received several literary creation grants. In 1948, Baldwin had become exhausted and frustrated with all the racial prejudice and segregation in the United States and decided to settle in Paris, where he stayed for most part of his later life. Whilst traveling to Switzerland, he finished writing his first semi-autobiographical book: Go tell it on the mountain, which was published in 1953.

ADULT LIFE

House in Saint-Paul-de-Vence where James Baldwin died, in 1987

However, there were many moments that he continually used to go back to the United States to require for black and LGBTQ+ rights, meeting several other activists such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
In the 70's, James Baldwin dedicated daytime writing other romances and answering usual letters from his fans all around the world. Furthermore, he learned how to fluently speak French and also had several artistic friends who always visited him.
On the house depicted in the picture, he wrote his last novels, such as Just Above my Head and Evidence of Things Not Seen.
In 1987, Baldwin died of stomach cancer at age 63 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.

Important books written by James Baldwin

“Baldwin's haunting and controversial second novel is his most sustained treatment of sexuality, and a classic of gay literature. In a 1950s Paris swarming with expatriates and characterized by dangerous liaisons and hidden violence, an American finds himself unable to repress his impulses, despite his determination to live the conventional life he envisions for himself. After meeting and proposing to a young woman, he falls into a lengthy affair with an Italian bartender and is confounded and tortured by his sexual identity as he oscillates between the two.
Examining the mystery of love and passion in an intensely imagined narrative, Baldwin creates a moving and complex story of death and desire that is revelatory in its insight.” Goodreads synopsis

"Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.” Goodreads synopsis

“In this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.” Goodreads synopsis

Accomplishments and Conclusion

James Baldwin was one of the first authors that discussed the taboo of LBGTQ+ representation and race segregation or conflicts in his books, which influenced the deconstruction of several stereotypes used over and over again by his time's conservative society.

His first book, Go Tell it On the Mountain, was awarded with an important prize from the Guggenheim Foundation and was considered one of the 100 best English romances of the 20th century by TIME Magazine.

Baldwin was also an important figure in the Washington March for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, alongside Chariton Hestion, Marlon Brando, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Bayard Rustin, etc.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/10427.James_Baldwin

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/james-baldwin-about-the-author/59/

https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/books/a26012817/best-james-baldwin-books/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Baldwin

Bibliographical References