Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. James Baldwin was born August second, nineteen twenty four,
Speaker 1: or one hundred and one years ago today, on the
Speaker 1: day this episode is coming out, so he is Today's
Speaker 1: Saturday classic. This episode originally came out on June seventeenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, so we recorded it in the immediate aftermath
Speaker 1: of the murder of George Floyd. That may Baldwin's writing
Speaker 1: and work felt deeply relevant in that moment, and that
Speaker 1: continues to be true today. Welcome to Stuff You Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 1: The last thing we recorded before I got to work
Speaker 1: on today's episode was our June fifth behind the Scenes,
Speaker 1: and if you've listened to that, I was clearly having
Speaker 1: a hard time figuring out what to do next, and
Speaker 1: when I remembered that I'd had James Baldwin on my
Speaker 1: list for a while. But my inward response was like, yes, obviously,
Speaker 1: James Baldwin. Of course, why didn't you even think of
Speaker 1: this before? This description by Jan Williams in a piece
Speaker 1: called Baldwin the Witness's testament, which was published in The
Speaker 1: Washington Post the day after Baldwin's death in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: illustrates why I had that response quote. Given the messy
Speaker 1: nature of racial hatred, of the half truths, blasphemies, and
Speaker 1: lies that make up American life, Baldwin's accuracy in reproducing
Speaker 1: that world stands as a remarkable achievement. His accuracy was
Speaker 1: key and his works the reader could resonate to the
Speaker 1: sounds of the street Corner as drawn by Baldwin, could
Speaker 1: feel the anger of Black Americans so long denied a
Speaker 1: role in American life. As Baldwin wrote about that anger,
Speaker 1: black people reading Baldwin knew he wrote the truth. White
Speaker 1: people reading Baldwin sensed his truth about the lives of
Speaker 1: black people in this of a racist nation. Interest in
Speaker 1: James Baldwin's work has just really grown in the United
Speaker 1: States over the last several years, in conjunction with the
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter movement. His nineteen sixty three book The
Speaker 1: Fire Next Time is frequently on anti racism reading lists.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's paired up with Tana Hasse Coats Between the
Speaker 1: World and Me, which was inspired by it, or with
Speaker 1: The Fire This Time a New Generation Speaks about Race.
Speaker 1: That's a book that came out in twenty sixteen. Basically,
Speaker 1: James Baldwin was a brilliant essayist and one of the
Speaker 1: chroniclers of the civil rights movement and a really powerful
Speaker 1: voice against racism. And that is why we are talking
Speaker 1: about him today. So we're going to start with his background.
Speaker 1: James Baldwin was born James Arthur Jones in Harlem, New York,
Speaker 1: on August second, nineteen twenty four. His mother was Emma
Speaker 1: Burtist Jones, and she was a domestic worker when James
Speaker 1: was born. Emma was not married and she never told
Speaker 1: him who his biological father was. When James was three,
Speaker 1: his mother married David Baldie, who was a factory worker
Speaker 1: and an evangelical minister, and they went on to have
Speaker 1: eight children together. The family was really poor. They were
Speaker 1: living in a part of Harlem that Baldwin later called
Speaker 1: Junkie's Hollow, and part of James's early years also took
Speaker 1: place during the Great Depression. David Baldwin was strict, unyielding, authoritarian,
Speaker 1: and cruel, including telling James that he was ugly and
Speaker 1: reminding him of the circumstances of his birth, and of
Speaker 1: course that was heavily stigmatized at the time. As an adult,
Speaker 1: Baldwin described the whole household constantly working to appease his stepfather.
Speaker 1: James also said David taught him to fight because he
Speaker 1: had to continually fight back with patience and a kind
Speaker 1: of ruthless determination, because I had to endure it, to
Speaker 1: go under and come back up to wait. James Baldwin
Speaker 1: attributed his stepfather's treatment of him and his mother and
Speaker 1: siblings as being the product of living as a proud
Speaker 1: man and a racist society where he just could not
Speaker 1: make enough money to really support his family. And Baldwin
Speaker 1: also credited his younger siblings as being a big part
Speaker 1: of what kept him off the streets and largely out
Speaker 1: of trouble in his youth. As the oldest, James was
Speaker 1: always helping to look after the younger ones, and that
Speaker 1: was something he described doing with a book in one hand,
Speaker 1: because reading became one of his biggest means of escape.
Speaker 1: He liked to tell people that he read every volume
Speaker 1: in Harlem's library branches, and that he had to go
Speaker 1: to the New York Public Library on forty second Street
Speaker 1: to find any books that he hadn't read yet. He
Speaker 1: also credited religion with helping to keep him out of trouble.
Speaker 1: He had a religious conversion experience at the age of
Speaker 1: fourteen and became a youth minister at Fireside Pentecostal Assembly.
Speaker 1: He was a youth minister for three years, and during
Speaker 1: that time he crafted his use of language and his
Speaker 1: speaking style. Throughout all this, James had been attending New
Speaker 1: York public schools, first at PS twenty four, whose principle
Speaker 1: was Gertrude Ayers. That was the first black principle new
Speaker 1: York City. From there, he moved to Frederick Douglass Junior
Speaker 1: High School, where Harlem Renaissance poet County Cullen was his
Speaker 1: French teacher and the director of the school's literary club.
Speaker 1: While at Frederick Douglas Junior High James was editor of
Speaker 1: the school's newspaper, The Douglas Pilot, and also tried to
Speaker 1: make money to help the family by shining shoes and
Speaker 1: selling shopping bags. For high school, James was selected to
Speaker 1: attend DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. This was
Speaker 1: one of New York's more elite schools, with a predominantly
Speaker 1: Jewish student body. There, James again worked on the school newspaper,
Speaker 1: The Magpie, and he excelled in his English and history courses.
Speaker 1: He also met painter Viewford Delaney, who became a friend
Speaker 1: and something of a mentor, as he demonstrated for Baldwin
Speaker 1: that a black man could become an artist. James didn't
Speaker 1: do nearly as well in his other courses as he
Speaker 1: did in English and history, and his high school years
Speaker 1: were personally very turbulent. In addition to all the stresses
Speaker 1: of his home life, he had started to question his sexuality.
Speaker 1: He had also started questioning the church as he began
Speaker 1: to learn about the ways that Christianity had been used
Speaker 1: as a weapon during slavery, and as he heard people
Speaker 1: within his church and his stepfather make anti Semitic comments.
Speaker 1: He ultimately left the church in nineteen forty one. James
Speaker 1: Baldwin graduated from high school in nineteen forty two, six
Speaker 1: months after the rest of his class. The internal turmoil
Speaker 1: connected to his faith in his sexuality contributed to a
Speaker 1: mental health crisis that derailed his studies. He had hoped
Speaker 1: to go to the City College of New York, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't afford a tuition Instead, he got a defense
Speaker 1: industry job in Bellmeade, New Jersey, to try to help
Speaker 1: support his family financially. By this point, James's stepfather was
Speaker 1: struggling with his own mental health, with symptoms that included
Speaker 1: depression and paranoia. Baldwin's job in Bellmead involved building a
Speaker 1: new Army quartermaster depot, and it was Baldwin's first real
Speaker 1: experience with overt racism on the job. The US Army
Speaker 1: still segregated, and Baldwin continued to act the way he
Speaker 1: had acted back in Harlem when he was around white
Speaker 1: Southern service members, and they, of course expected him to
Speaker 1: be totally deferential to them and to stay out of
Speaker 1: their way. Of course, racism had existed in Harlem as well,
Speaker 1: but this was a whole different set of social expectations
Speaker 1: and consequences. Baldwin described this experience as learning what it
Speaker 1: meant to be a Negro. He refused to back down
Speaker 1: in the face of racism and harassment on the job,
Speaker 1: and he was fired. A friend helped him get his
Speaker 1: job back, and when the harassment resumed, he again pushed
Speaker 1: back against it and was once again fired. On his
Speaker 1: last night in Bellmead, Baldwin and some friends were refused
Speaker 1: service at a diner because of their race, and Baldwin
Speaker 1: really reached a breaking point. He threw a water pitcher
Speaker 1: and that shattered the mirror behind the bar. He described
Speaker 1: this moment as revelatory, realizing that he had been angry
Speaker 1: enough to kill someone and that his own life was
Speaker 1: in danger. In him words quote from the Hatred I
Speaker 1: Carried in my own Heart. David Baldwin Senior died on
Speaker 1: July twenty ninth, nineteen forty three, which was also the
Speaker 1: day James's youngest sibling, Paula Maria, was born. Two days later,
Speaker 1: on August first, an uprising swept through Harlem. It was
Speaker 1: sparked when a black soldier tried to intervene as a
Speaker 1: white police officer was trying to arrest a black woman.
Speaker 1: The officer shot the soldier, and rumors spread that he
Speaker 1: had been killed. This was one of a series of
Speaker 1: similar riots that took place in cities around the United
Speaker 1: States in nineteen forty three, and in Harlem, six black
Speaker 1: people were killed as thousands of police were dispatched in
Speaker 1: response to the violence. Baldwin really felt like living in
Speaker 1: Harlem had become untenable and he moved to Greenwich Village
Speaker 1: to try to make a living as a writer, while
Speaker 1: also waiting tables and doing other work just to try
Speaker 1: to make ends meet and to send what money he
Speaker 1: could back to his family. He had relationships with men
Speaker 1: and with women, and at one point became engaged to
Speaker 1: a woman, but ultimately broke off that engagement. He also
Speaker 1: became friends with a man named Eugene Wurse, who encouraged
Speaker 1: Baldwin to join the Young People's Socialist League, although it's
Speaker 1: not entirely clear how long Baldwin was involved or exactly
Speaker 1: what his involvement even was. In the years just after
Speaker 1: World War Two, he spent at least some time with
Speaker 1: various political groups that were connected to things like socialism, communism,
Speaker 1: and labor rights, but he didn't become exclusively focused on
Speaker 1: any of them, or in some cases ever officially become
Speaker 1: a member. Yeah One of the biographies that I read
Speaker 1: of him characterize this period as kind of bouncing around
Speaker 1: from one group to another, getting a sense of what
Speaker 1: different ideas were, but not really committing to any of
Speaker 1: them at that point. In nineteen forty four, Baldwin met
Speaker 1: Richard Wright, who helped him get Harper's Eugene F. Saxton Fellowship,
Speaker 1: and that fellowship provided some of the funding to help
Speaker 1: him launch a literary career. He started getting published and
Speaker 1: established magazines, but then in nineteen forty six, Eugene Worth
Speaker 1: died by suicide. That was something that traumatiz and haunted
Speaker 1: Baldwin for the rest of his life. Two years later,
Speaker 1: Baldwin had become certain that he could not live in
Speaker 1: the United States anymore. It circled back to what he
Speaker 1: had realized that last night in bell Mead. He had
Speaker 1: a clear minded certainty that if he didn't leave the
Speaker 1: US in its systematic racism and oppression, he would be
Speaker 1: killed or he would kill someone. He finally decided to
Speaker 1: go to France at the age of twenty four, or
Speaker 1: get to that. After a quick sponsor break, James Baldwin
Speaker 1: left for Paris on November eleventh, nineteen forty eight, using
Speaker 1: the last of the money from a fellowship to pay
Speaker 1: for a one way ticket by sea. Beyond that, he
Speaker 1: had almost no money, virtually no connections, and nowhere to stay.
Speaker 1: He also did not speak French, and his words quote,
Speaker 1: I had no idea what might happen to me in
Speaker 1: France but I was very clear what would happen if
Speaker 1: I remained in New Baldwin faced some criticism for leaving
Speaker 1: the US, with people arguing that he was abandoning a
Speaker 1: country that he should have stayed in and tried to
Speaker 1: help fix, but this first stretch of time in Paris
Speaker 1: was critically important to his work and identity as a writer.
Speaker 1: Unlike many of the other writers and artists who left
Speaker 1: the US for Paris, he didn't think of himself as
Speaker 1: an expatriate, but more as a commuter. He still felt
Speaker 1: a deep connection to the United States, and he made
Speaker 1: frequent trips back, and he spent long stretches of time
Speaker 1: in other parts of the world, including Istanbul. Shortly after
Speaker 1: arriving in Paris, Baldwin met Swiss artist Lucien Happersberger, who
Speaker 1: was white, bisexual, and at one point married to a woman.
Speaker 1: When they met, Baldwin was twenty four and Happersberger was seventeen.
Speaker 1: They eventually started a relationship that went on for almost
Speaker 1: forty years. Baldwin described Happersberger as the love of his life,
Speaker 1: and he became godfather to Happersberger's children. Along with other
Speaker 1: relationships in his life. Happersberger was one of the inspirations
Speaker 1: for Baldwin's novel Giovanni's Room. While in France, Baldwin wrote
Speaker 1: Everybody's Protest Novel, which argued that political novels like Harriet
Speaker 1: Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Richard Wright's Native Son
Speaker 1: were reinforcing stereotypes about black people and in particular, dehumanizing
Speaker 1: black men. Although Wright had helped Baldwin secure his first
Speaker 1: writing fellowship, the two men did not see eye to
Speaker 1: eye on a number of issues, and they frequently criticized
Speaker 1: one another. On December nineteenth, nineteen forty nine, Baldwin was
Speaker 1: arrested for being in receipt of stolen property after he
Speaker 1: borrowed a bedsheet that a friend had stolen from a hotel.
Speaker 1: This whole experience led him to think about identity and
Speaker 1: policing in the United States versus in France. The police
Speaker 1: in France saw him as an American, while police in
Speaker 1: New York would have seen him as an inherently criminal problem.
Speaker 1: But he also became aware that most of the people
Speaker 1: who were in jail with him in Paris were from
Speaker 1: Northern Africa, and the French colonialism had its own part
Speaker 1: to play in Racism in France. This first stretch of
Speaker 1: time in France let Baldwin look back on the US
Speaker 1: from a distance, seeing things from angles that just were
Speaker 1: not possible for him while he was living in it.
Speaker 1: He started coming to terms with both his own history
Speaker 1: and with his sexuality while living in France. In Switzerland,
Speaker 1: he finished his semi autobiographical novel Go Tell It on
Speaker 1: the Mountain she had actually started writing in high school,
Speaker 1: as well as a play called The Amen Corner and
Speaker 1: a series of essays. In nineteen fifty two, Baldwin made
Speaker 1: a trip back to the US with financial help from
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in June
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty four, and other fellowships followed. In nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, he was awarded a Ford Foundation grant to
Speaker 1: work on the novel Another Country. When This novel included
Speaker 1: a fictionalized depiction of his friendship with Eugene Wirth, including
Speaker 1: Worth's suicide. Professor and literary critic Fred Stanley later wrote
Speaker 1: of Another Country quote, Baldwin has been audacious enough prior
Speaker 1: to most other artists to grapple candidly with the usually
Speaker 1: taboosed subjects of American society and culture, interracial sexual intercourse,
Speaker 1: homosexuality as a normative mode of experience, and bisexuality as
Speaker 1: a real phenomenon. After similar back and forth travel, Baldwin
Speaker 1: returned to the US for a longer stretch, starting in
Speaker 1: July of nineteen fifty seven. A lot of his written
Speaker 1: work during this time documents or reflects on the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights movement, a movement that he wasn't really sure how
Speaker 1: he fit into. He had become well known and well
Speaker 1: established as a writer by this point, and while he
Speaker 1: did not want to describe himself as the movement's spokesperson,
Speaker 1: there were definitely people who thought of him that way.
Speaker 1: As the Civil rights movement grew and evolved, Baldwin found
Speaker 1: himself aligned in some ways with Martin Luther King Junior's
Speaker 1: approach through nonviolent action, and in other ways with Malcolm X,
Speaker 1: the Nation of Islam, and the Black Power movement. For example,
Speaker 1: as time went on, Baldwren increasingly favored the Black Power
Speaker 1: movement's focus on immediate radical change instead of non violent
Speaker 1: incremental progress, But he really did not agree with the
Speaker 1: Black power movement's focus on black separatism. One hallmark of
Speaker 1: Baldwin's writing during the Civil rights movement was that it
Speaker 1: was accessible to and sometimes written specifically for a white audience.
Speaker 1: Much of this written work carried an implicit or explicit
Speaker 1: warning that racism was not just harming black people, that
Speaker 1: it was also destroying white people as well. Some of
Speaker 1: it has also been described as prophetic, foreseeing that the
Speaker 1: movement would become more militant if nonviolent activism did not
Speaker 1: meet its goals, and foreseeing that white activism would turn
Speaker 1: away from that militancy. Baldwin's work in the movement was
Speaker 1: not just about writing, though he also made speeches. He
Speaker 1: donated money, wrote letters, sim petitions organized during the lunch
Speaker 1: counter sit ins that we talked about on the show.
Speaker 1: Earlier this year, James Baldwin traveled to Tallahassee to interview
Speaker 1: student demonstrators. In nineteen sixty one, he became a sponsor
Speaker 1: for the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, and
Speaker 1: he also helped sponsor a rally to disband the House
Speaker 1: on American Activities Committee. In nineteen sixty three, he took
Speaker 1: a speaking tour through the South in conjunction with the
Speaker 1: Congress of Racial Equality. During this tour, he met and
Speaker 1: started working with civil rights activists and NAACP Field secretary
Speaker 1: Medgar Evers. Baldwin's book The Fire Next Time came out
Speaker 1: during this tour as well. It contains two essays, My
Speaker 1: Dungeon Shook Letter to my Nephew on the one hundredth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Emancipation and Down at the Cross Letter
Speaker 1: from a Region of My Mind. The latter essay dwells
Speaker 1: on Baldwin's experiences with religion, including both Christianity and the
Speaker 1: Nation of Islam, relating them to race and racism, and
Speaker 1: reflecting on his own beliefs. The Fire Next Time spent
Speaker 1: more than forty weeks in the top five of the
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller list. On May seventeenth, nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: during Martin Luther King Junior's Birmingham campaign, Baldwin was on
Speaker 1: the cover of Time magazine under a banner that read
Speaker 1: Birmingham and Beyond the Negro Push for Equality. A few
Speaker 1: days before that Time magazine cover, Baldwin had sent a
Speaker 1: telegram to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy criticizing the United
Speaker 1: States lack of response to the civil rights movement, especially
Speaker 1: in the face of increasing violence and brutality against the
Speaker 1: people who were participating in that movement. Baldwin framed this
Speaker 1: inaction and the failure of the nation to make black
Speaker 1: liberation a priority, as a moral treason. The result was
Speaker 1: that Kennedy met with Baldwin for breakfast on May twenty third,
Speaker 1: asking him to gather writers and activists to meet with him.
Speaker 1: The next day, they met in Kennedy's apartment in New York,
Speaker 1: where Kennedy was joined by Department of Justice lawyer Burke Marshall.
Speaker 1: Baldwin had brought his brother David, as well as Harry Belafonte,
Speaker 1: Lorraine Hansbury, Lena Horn, and Rip Torn, along with REPAT
Speaker 1: representatives from the Chicago Urban League, Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited,
Speaker 1: the NAACP, and core Clarence Benjamin Jones, who was one
Speaker 1: of Martin Luther King Junior's advisors, was also there. But
Speaker 1: Kennedy's goal for this meeting was not so much to
Speaker 1: get a sense of what Black Americans needed, or what
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement's goals were, or how the government
Speaker 1: might incorporate those goals. He was more focused on figuring
Speaker 1: out who among them might serve as sort of a
Speaker 1: mouthpiece for the government, promoting the government's policies to the
Speaker 1: black community to improve race relations, and also on outlining
Speaker 1: what the government had done already so far to the
Speaker 1: assembled group while basically asking for their patients. This meeting
Speaker 1: consequently did not go well. Baldwin and the other assembled
Speaker 1: activists were trying to describe the systemic racism that went
Speaker 1: well beyond what was encoded in law, while Kennedy was
Speaker 1: talking about how his own family had been oppressed for
Speaker 1: being Irish. Kennedy came off as deeply naive and unwilling
Speaker 1: to listen. Eventually, Lorraine Hansbury walked out and several others followed. Afterward,
Speaker 1: the FBI started monitoring Baldwin, placing him on its security
Speaker 1: Index of potentially dangerous people and amassing a file on
Speaker 1: him that was more than seventeen hundred pages long. This meeting,
Speaker 1: though while not immediately successful, is often credited with starting
Speaker 1: to shift Robert Kennedy's perspectives, leading him to encourage his brother,
Speaker 1: President John F. Kennedy, to address the nation on a
Speaker 1: subject of civil rights. Kennedy gave his Civil Rights Address
Speaker 1: on June eleventh, nineteen sixty three, in the early morning
Speaker 1: hours of June twelfth, Medgar Evers was assassinated in his
Speaker 1: driveway in front of his children. The culprit was Byrondella Beckwith,
Speaker 1: who was found guilty of the crime more than thirty
Speaker 1: years later. Baldwin continued his writing and work during the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, but the assassination of Medgar Evers was the
Speaker 1: first of a series of events that sort of shifted
Speaker 1: his work and his outlook. Others included the Sixteenth Street
Speaker 1: b Baptist Church bombing in nineteen sixty three, as well
Speaker 1: as the assassinations of two other men that he had
Speaker 1: known and worked with, Malcolm X in nineteen sixty five
Speaker 1: and Martin Luther King Junior in nineteen sixty eight. And
Speaker 1: we're going to get to more on that after we
Speaker 1: first have a sponsor break. As we noted earlier, James
Speaker 1: Baldwin never seemed really sure where he fit within the
Speaker 1: civil rights movement. Although he participated in the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: three March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, he wasn't
Speaker 1: a big part of its public presence or its planning.
Speaker 1: There's been some speculation that this was because of his
Speaker 1: sexual orientation, but as We've noted on earlier episodes of
Speaker 1: the show one of the major planners of the march
Speaker 1: was Byered Rustin, who was also gay. It's more likely
Speaker 1: the Baldwin's views were becoming less and less aligned with
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior's nonviolent arm of the movement. As
Speaker 1: time went on, Baldwin became increasingly radical. When the Black
Speaker 1: Panther Party was established in nineteen sixty six, Baldwin supported
Speaker 1: many of its efforts, including school breakfast and lunch programs,
Speaker 1: community healthcare programs, schools, and armed self defense programs meant
Speaker 1: to protect black communities from violence, including violence at the
Speaker 1: hands of police. Baldwin's written work had always been focused
Speaker 1: on both racism and homophobia, and he had been both
Speaker 1: critically acclaimed and a bestseller through this work, but in
Speaker 1: the late sixties and early seventies, reviewers increasingly criticized him
Speaker 1: for becoming more pessimistic, accusatory, and vehement and two directly
Speaker 1: focused on civil rights. This included the three act play
Speaker 1: Blues for Mister Charlie, which was based on the murder
Speaker 1: of Emmett's Hill. And it wasn't just white literary reviewers
Speaker 1: who were criticizing his work. His advocacy for Palestinian liberation
Speaker 1: was criticized as anti semitic, although he also criticized anti
Speaker 1: semitism within black activism. Members of the Black Arts movement
Speaker 1: criticized his work because it was intended, at least in part,
Speaker 1: for white audiences, rather than being written for other black people.
Speaker 1: The non violent arm of the Civil rights movement criticized
Speaker 1: his more radical and confrontational views, while the Black Power
Speaker 1: movement criticized his sexual orientation and his integrationist stances. His
Speaker 1: sexual orientation was also criticized from outside the movement. The
Speaker 1: Kennedys nicknamed him Martin Luther Queen. He basically was criticized
Speaker 1: from every conceivable direction. In nineteen seventy, Baldwin returned to France,
Speaker 1: where he bought a farmhouse in the medieval village of
Speaker 1: Saint Paul de Vance. Although he's still did a lot
Speaker 1: of traveling, thus became his permanent home for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life. Locals named it Shay Baldwin. Baldwin's writing
Speaker 1: in political views had always been anti capitalist, anti colonial,
Speaker 1: anti imperialist, anti racist, anti homophobic, Pan African, pro Palestinian liberation,
Speaker 1: and against mass incarceration. He also made connections between black
Speaker 1: liberation in the US and United States foreign policy, noting
Speaker 1: that a nation that truly supported black liberation would be
Speaker 1: supporting black freedom fighters elsewhere in the world and supporting
Speaker 1: people who were fighting for independence from colonial powers. All
Speaker 1: this work had also been primarily focused on men in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies and eighties. That started to change, in
Speaker 1: part through televised conversations with poets Nikki Giovanni and past
Speaker 1: podcast subject Audrey Lord. Both women really pushed Baldwin on
Speaker 1: issues of gender, gender roles, and sexuality, ultimately leading him
Speaker 1: to criticize the whiteness of the mainstream feminist movement, as
Speaker 1: well as its homophobia and anti lesbianism. But like Bayard Rustin, James,
Speaker 1: Baldwin never took a leadership role within the gay rights
Speaker 1: movement as it became more public and widespread in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and eighties. He also expressed some ambivalence about
Speaker 1: exactly how to describe himself in his own identity. In
Speaker 1: one nineteen sixty five interview, he said, quote those terms homosexual, bisexual,
Speaker 1: heterosexual are twentieth century terms which for me really have
Speaker 1: very little meaning I've never myself, in watching myself and
Speaker 1: watching other people, been able to discern exactly where the
Speaker 1: barriers were. I read one piece as I was working
Speaker 1: on this that noted that this has some similarities to
Speaker 1: conversations happening today about all of these ideas being socially
Speaker 1: constructed and what they mean. Baldwin continued to travel and
Speaker 1: teach and write and work until late in his life,
Speaker 1: but by the late nineteen eighties he was having serious
Speaker 1: issues with his health. He had developed hepatitis and experienced
Speaker 1: liver damage back in the nineteen seventies, followed by two
Speaker 1: heart attacks. Then in nineteen eighty seven, he was diagnosed
Speaker 1: with esophageal cancer. I actually also found references that it
Speaker 1: was stomach cancer or pancreatic cancer, and I don't know
Speaker 1: which of those is correct. Regardless, though the cancer progressed
Speaker 1: really quickly. He gave his last interview to journalist Quincy
Speaker 1: Troop just days before his death. James Baldwin died on
Speaker 1: December one, nineteen eighty seven, at the age of sixty three.
Speaker 1: Lucian Happersberger was there with him, as well as a
Speaker 1: household attendant. His funeral was held at the Church of
Speaker 1: Saint John the Divine in Manhattan with five thousand people
Speaker 1: in attendance. A Mary Baraka delivered the eulogy with tributes
Speaker 1: from others including Maya Angelou and Tony Morrison. In the
Speaker 1: words of a. Mary Baraka's eulogy, quote, this man traveled
Speaker 1: the earth, like its history and its biographer. He reported, criticized,
Speaker 1: made beautiful, analyzed, cajoled, lyricized, attacked, saying made us think,
Speaker 1: made us better, made us consciously human, or perhaps more
Speaker 1: acidly prehuman. And also in the words of Tony Morrison,
Speaker 1: addressing the late Baldwin as Jemmy, quote, in your hands,
Speaker 1: language was handsome again. In your hands we saw how
Speaker 1: it was meant to be, neither bloodless nor bloody, and
Speaker 1: yet alive. It should surprise no one who knows anything
Speaker 1: about Tony Morrison. That tribute to Baldwin from the funeral
Speaker 1: is beautiful and I highly encourage reading it. During his lifetime,
Speaker 1: James Baldwin wrote twenty two books, including six novels. He
Speaker 1: was a member of the National Advisory Board of the
Speaker 1: Congress on Racial Equality, as well as being a member
Speaker 1: of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Speaker 1: The Authors League, the International Pen the Dramatist Guild, the
Speaker 1: Actors Studio, and the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy.
Speaker 1: He also hoped that his Holme in France would be
Speaker 1: turned into a writer's colony after his death, but it
Speaker 1: was eventually sold to developers and torn down. Baldwin had
Speaker 1: been a bestseller during his career, especially during the prolific
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, but by the end of his life he
Speaker 1: was not as widely read. That started to change, as
Speaker 1: we said at the top of the show, with the
Speaker 1: rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the many
Speaker 1: connections between the movement and Baldwin's ideas and writings decades earlier.
Speaker 1: In the last few years, there's also been a film
Speaker 1: adaptation of his novel If Beale Street Could Talk, which
Speaker 1: came out in twenty eighteen, as well as the award
Speaker 1: winning twenty sixteen documentary called I Am Not Your Negro.
Speaker 1: As we said at the top of the show, Baldwin's
Speaker 1: work is frequently part of anti racism courses and reading lists,
Speaker 1: so we thought we would end with just a couple
Speaker 1: of quotes quickly from that work. One is from the
Speaker 1: end of the Fire Next Time quote everything now we
Speaker 1: must assume is in our hands. We have no right
Speaker 1: to assume otherwise. If we, and now I mean the
Speaker 1: relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must,
Speaker 1: like lovers, insist on or create the consciousness of the others,
Speaker 1: do not falter in our duty now we may be
Speaker 1: able handful that we are to end the racial nightmare
Speaker 1: and achieve our country and change the history of the world.
Speaker 1: If we do not now dare everything The fulfillment of
Speaker 1: that prophecy recreated from the Bible in a song by
Speaker 1: a slave is upon us. God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
Speaker 1: no more water, the fire next time. The other quote
Speaker 1: is from an interview that he gave in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: where he said, I'm optimistic about the future, but not
Speaker 1: about the future of this civilization. I'm optimistic about the
Speaker 1: civilization which will replace this one, not as James Baldwin.
Speaker 1: I talked to various friends as I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what I needed to work on next, and
Speaker 1: in every case when I said I think James Baldwin,
Speaker 1: the answer was like, obviously yes, so yeah, I hope
Speaker 1: I have done his life and work justice today. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to send us a note, our email addresses History
Speaker 1: Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe to
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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.