Although
he spent a great deal of his life abroad, James Baldwin always remained
a quintessentially American writer. Whether he was working in Paris or
Istanbul, he never ceased to reflect on his experience as a black man in
white America. In numerous essays, novels, plays, and public speeches,
the eloquent voice of James Baldwin spoke of the pain and struggle of
black Americans and the saving power of brotherhood.
James Baldwin was born in Harlem in 1924. The oldest of nine children,
he grew up in poverty, developing a troubled relationship with his
strict, religious father. As a child, he cast about for a way to escape
his circumstances. As he recalls, “I knew I was black, of course, but I
also knew I was smart. I didn’t know how I would use my mind, or even if
I could, but that was the only thing I had to use.” By the time he was
fourteen, Baldwin was spending much of his time in libraries and had
found his passion for writing.
During this early part of his life, he followed in his father’s
footsteps and became a preacher. Of those teen years, Baldwin recalled,
“Those three years in the pulpit — I didn’t realize it then — that is
what turned me into a writer, really, dealing with all that anguish and
that despair and that beauty.” Many have noted the strong influence of
the language of the church on Baldwin’s style, its cadences and tone.
Eager to move on, Baldwin knew that if he left the pulpit he must also
leave home, so at eighteen he took a job working for the New Jersey
railroad.
After working for a short while with the railroad, Baldwin moved to
Greenwich Village, where he came into contact with the well-known writer
Richard Wright. Baldwin worked for a number of years as a freelance
writer, working primarily on book reviews. Though Baldwin had not yet
finished a novel, Wright helped to secure him a grant with which he
could support himself as a writer in Paris. So, in 1948 Baldwin left for
Paris, where he would find enough distance from the American society he
grew up in to write about it.
After writing a number of pieces that were published in various
magazines, Baldwin went to Switzerland to finish his first novel. Go
Tell It on the Mountain, published in 1953, was an autobiographical work
about growing up in Harlem. The passion and depth with which he
described the struggles of black Americans was unlike anything that had
been written. Though not instantly recognized as such, Go Tell It on the
Mountain has long been considered an American classic. Throughout the
rest of the decade, Baldwin moved from Paris to New York to Istanbul,
writing Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Giovanni’s Room (1956). Dealing
with taboo themes in both books (interracial relationships and
homosexuality, respectively), Baldwin was creating socially relevant and
psychologically penetrating literature.
Being abroad gave Baldwin a perspective on his life and a solitary
freedom to pursue his craft. “Once you find yourself in another
civilization,” he notes, “you’re forced to examine your own.” In a
sense, Baldwin’s travels brought him even closer to the social concerns
of contemporary America. In the early 1960s, overwhelmed with a
responsibility to the times, Baldwin returned to take part in the civil
rights movement. Traveling throughout the South, he began work on an
explosive work about black identity and the state of racial struggle,
The Fire Next Time (1963). For many, Notes of a Native Son and The Fire
Next Time were an early and primary voice in the civil rights movement.
Though at times criticized for his pacifist stance, Baldwin remained
throughout the 1960s an important figure in that struggle.
After the assassinations of his friends Medgar Evers, Reverend Martin
Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, Baldwin returned to France where he
worked on a book about the disillusionment of the times, If Beale Street
Could Talk (1974). Many responded to the harsh tone of If Beale Street
Could Talk with accusations of bitterness. But, even if Baldwin had
encapsulated much of the anger of the times in his book, he always
remained a constant advocate for universal love and brotherhood. During
the last ten years of his life, Baldwin produced a number of important
works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and turned to teaching as a
new way of connecting with the young. By his death in 1987, James
Baldwin had become one of the most important and vocal advocates for
equality. From Go Tell It on the Mountain to The Evidence of Things Not
Seen (1985), James Baldwin created works of literary beauty and depth
that will remain essential parts of the American canon.
