Baldwin, James (1924-1987)

James Baldwin's impact on the American consciousness was twofold: as an author, his accounts of his experiences struck a cord with his readers; as an activist, his vision and abilities helped fuel the Civil Rights Movement. A gifted writer, he began his career immersed in artistic expression for the pleasure it offered. By the 1960s, however, he began to pen influential political essays, and by the end of his life he had evolved into one of the twentieth century's most politically charged writers decrying racism in all of its ugly forms.

Born in Harlem to a single mother who was a factory worker, James Baldwin was the first of nine children. Soon after his birth his mother married a clergyman, David Baldwin, who influenced the young James and encouraged him to read and write. He began his career as a storefront preacher while still in his adolescence. In 1942, after graduating from high school, he moved to New Jersey to begin working on the railroads. In Notes of a Native Son he described his experiences working as well as the deterioration and death of his stepfather, who was buried on the young Baldwin's nineteenth birthday. In 1944 he moved back to New York and settled in Greenwich Village where he met Richard Wright and began to work on his first novel, In My Father's House. In the late 1940s he wrote for The Nation, The New Leader, and Partisan Review. In 1948, disgusted with race relations in the United States, he moved to Paris where he lived, on and off, for the rest of his life. In 1953, he finished his most important novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, a semi-autobiographical account of his youth. Baldwin received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1954 and the following year published Giovanni's Room. He is also the author of several plays, including The Amen Corner and Blues for Mr. Charlie.

During the 1960s, Baldwin returned to the United States and became politically active in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1961, his essay collection Nobody Knows My Name won him numerous recognitions and awards. In 1963 he published The Fire Next Time, a book-length essay that lifted him into international fame and recognition. This work represents such a watershed event in his life that many scholars divide his career between "before" and "after" the publication of The Fire Next Time.

Before 1963, Baldwin had embraced an "art for art's sake" philosophy and was critical of writers like Richard Wright for their politically-charged works. He did not believe that writers needed to use their writing as a protest tool. After 1963 and the publication of his long essay, however, he became militant in his political activism and as a gay-rights activist. He passionately criticized the Vietnam War, and accused Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover of plotting the genocide of all people of color. Comparing the Civil Rights Movement to the independence movements in Africa and Asia, he drew the attention of the Kennedys. Robert Kennedy requested his advice on how to deal with the Birmingham, Alabama riots and tried to intimidate him by getting his dossier from Hoover.

In 1968, Baldwin published Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, an account of American racism, bitter and incisive. No Name in the Street (1972) predicted the downfall of Euro-centrism and observed that only a revolution could solve the problem of American racism. In 1985, he published The Evidence of Things Not Seen, an analysis of the Atlanta child murders of 1979 and 1980.

During the last decade of his life Baldwin taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and at Hampshire College, commuting between the United States and France. He died in 1987 at his home in St. Paul de Vence, France.

Metzger, Linda. Black Writers. Detroit, Gale Research, Inc., 1989.

Oliver, Clinton F. Contemporary Black Drama. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971.

Pratt, Louis H. James Baldwin. Boston, G. K. Hall and Company, 1978.

This is the complete article, containing 662 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).