James Baldwin

As a man of faith, James Baldwin led a life different from his beliefs. An openly gay black man, he became a spokesmen condemning discrimination of gays and the Civil Rights of blacks. Nevertheless, Baldwin's attributes as a writer are undeniable. Even the confused of souls serve the purpose of design; spiritually speaking. Oddly enough Jimmy was the epitome, or at least a constant advocate, of universal love and brotherhood. Baldwin, in his lifetime, was able to effect a large population through his works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and plays. The eyes of not only Blacks but also Whites where wide open to the issues of the times thorough this man's creative articulation and imagination, bring his life to the world. James Baldwin's personal life, in some ways, are revealed in writings throw the promise of a transparent sexual utopia grounded in a healing unveiling of a serenely accepted identity. Whether in terms homophobic or racist, or anti-homophobic or anti-racist (rarely, though more often with the former than with the latter, do the poles of either of these oppositions come together), critics have dwelt on a transcendence defined as a coming to terms with one's identity. This transcendence relies on the transparency of revelation in the text and the assertion of this transparency's liberatory potential, regardless of whether or not such liberation is a term of approbation. Such a reading allows "race" and sexuality to disappear from critical view; more precisely, it allows critics to cast them as mere obstructions littering the path of a surpassing transcendence, usually cast in terms of art.

Early Life

James Arthur Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, Aug. 2 1924. Illegitimate

and never knowing his birth father, he grew up in poverty the oldest of nine children. At age 3, his mother married a factory worker who also was a storefront preacher. Feeling trapped by his troubled relationship with his strict religious stepfather; at a young age Baldwin searched for an escape. The inspiration for his passion began in his teens. Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen, his French teacher at Frederick Douglass Junior High, influenced Young Baldwin. Cullen, an elegant cultured black teacher and writer with a Master's Degree from Harvard, showed Jimmy a wider range of possibilities. This led to Baldwin spending much of his time in libraries and finding a passion for writing. Oddly enough, at age 12 his first works, as a writer, appeared in a church newspaper. At age 14 he became a preacher at a revival church, Fireside Pentecostal Church in Harlem. At age 17 he left home. DeWitt Clinton High School provided another outlet for young Baldwin as he served as editor of the school magazine. After gradation, he moved to Greenwich Village where he worked several ill-paid jobs including a stint at the New Jersey Railroad. In 1943 his stepfather died in a mental hospital. Baldwin then immersed himself in self-study and writing.

"And it seemed to me, too, that the violence which rose all about us as my father left the world had been devised as a corrective for the pride of his eldest son, I had declined to believe in that apocalypse which had been central to my father's vision; very well, life seemed to be saying, here is something that will certainly pass for an apocalypse until the real thing comes along. I had inclined to be contemptuous of my father for the conditions of life, for the conditions of our lives. When his life had ended I began to wonder about that life and also, in anew way, to be apprehensive about my own" (Notes of a Native Son 55).Н

Transferred of Faith

In the 1940s, James Baldwin relocated his faith from religion to literature. His book about storefront churches in Harlem with photographer Theodore Pelatowski gained no success. Although publishers rejected his work, Baldwin's book reviews and essays in The New Leader, The Nation, Commentary, and Partisan Review, together with the help of well-known writer Richard Wright, won him a Rosenwald Fellowship. So, in 1948 James Baldwin moved to Paris, France where he lived for eight years often returning to the U.S. to teach and lecture. After writing a number of pieces that were published in various magazines, Jimmy went to Switzerland to finish his first novel, Go Tell it on The Mountain (1953). Back in Paris he would write the essay collection Notes of a Native Son (1955) and his second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956). His second collection of essays, Nobody Knows My Name (1961), brought him into the literary spotlight and established him as a major voice in American literature. After 1969 he divided his time between the south of France, New York, and New England. In 1957 Baldwin began spending half of each year in New York City becoming an active participant in the Civil-Rights struggle allowing his writings to carry the personal sentiment of the time. Just as many authors, Baldwin was guilty of using his life and times as a backdrop for his writings. Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), his first novel, is a partially autobiographical account of his youth. The bestseller The Fire Next Time (1963), appraised the Black Muslim (Nation of Islam) movement and warned that violence would result if white America did not change their attitudes towards black America. Even the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed interest in Baldwin with a 1750-page file. Much to the distress of the public, Jimmy entered an extended fallow period and the question of whether he had stopped writing was widely discussed. After a several year silence, Baldwin published the novel If Beale Street Could Talk (1974). This work deals with the problems facing a ghetto family and the striving for the younger generation to build a life for itself.

"The black people of this country bear a mighty responsibility - which, odd as it may sound, is nothing new - and face an immediate future as devastating, though in a different way, as the past which has led us here: I am speaking of the beginning of the end of the black despise, which mean that I am speaking of the beginning of the end of the world as we have suffered it until now" (The New York Times 1976).Ð

Baldwin's second novel Giovanni's Room (1956) themed a man's struggle with homosexuality. David, the narrator/young bisexual American, tells his one night story. Giovanni is his Italian lover, who is to be executed as a murder, and Hella his would-be-wife.

Behind the Curtin

Baldwin (alternatively his characters) comes to terms with his identity, and this self-acceptance and self-knowledge lead him (or his characters) to a fuller and more mature development as an artist; the achieved