An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted 6/29/2020
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"I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do."
As we finish out Pride Month 2020, we look at the life of James Baldwin. Born into poverty in 1924 Harlem, Baldwin's earliest talents for wordsmithing came out of a desire to follow in the career footsteps of his preacher stepfather. Instead Baldwin became disillusioned with his domineering stepfather and experienced something of a personal "religious awakening" of his own and left the pulpit for the life of a career writer. His semi-autobiographical 1953 novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain, while it made little impact at the time of its publication, is now regarded as one of the definitive English language works on racial injustice. A collection of essays, Notes Of A Native Son, famously challenges some of the underpinnings of author Richard Wright's novel Native Son, and also draws contrasts between the life experiences of black Americans and European blacks (Baldwin was living in France at the time).
Baldwin was far from done, though: in the years that followed he would publish six more novels, three plays, dozens of collaborations, and hundreds more poems and essays. His passions brought him to the forefront of the civil disobedience and civil rights movements of the 1960's; although his frankly-admitted homosexuality did cause friction with some of the movement's leaders, and he was pointedly UNinvited from speaking at the 1963 March on Washington.
Poet Maya Anjelou cited Baldwin as an inspiration to write "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings," and a collection of Baldwin's memoirs of his association with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, was posthumously released in the form of the 2016 documentary I Am Not Your Negro, directed by Raoul Peck and narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.
Next page - Lesson 15: Something you likely didn't know about July 4th