Almanac of Story Tellers: James Baldwin

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of Aug. 2nd

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    It is the 214th day of the year, leaving 151 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1924, the novelist and playwright James Baldwin was born.

    He told his stories about race, class, and sexuality -- many of them dealing with characters struggling with their identity and oppression -- in novels, essays, and plays. He also was a civil-rights activist, and wrote about the impact of living as a Black man in the United States.

    Born in New York City, Baldwin grew up in a large family in Harlem. He graduated from Clinton High School, and showed promise in the stories he wrote for the school's magazine. After high school, he moved to Greenwich Village, where he wrote for local periodicals. He started writing a novel.

    He moved to Paris, where he finished his first novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain. Based on Baldwin's early years, it explores the relationship of a young Black man with his family, his sometimes violent father, and his church, where he worked as a teenage preacher. It also discusses his sexuality and his growing sexual interest in other men, and the conflict that poses with his religion.

    It received critical acclaim when it was published in 1953. It remains popular today; and it is considered among Baldwin's best work, along with one of the finest novels of in the 20th Century.

    While living for almost a decade in Paris, Baldwin wrote numerous essays and stories. They included The Negro in Paris, regarding the difference between Black Americans and Africans in the French city. Black Americans, he concluded, had a "depthless alienation" almost unknown among the native Africans. 

    He also wrote a collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son, and a second novel, Giovanni's Room. That novel explored gay men and bisexuality at a time they were virtually ignored among the general public and rarely written about.

    Upon his return to the United States, Baldwin became involved in speaking and writing about the American civil rights movement. Among his works from this period was the non-fiction work, The Fire Next Time, about the role of race and religion -- both Christian and Muslim -- in U.S. society.

    Baldwin died in 1967 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in France.