Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. The last
Speaker 1: thing we recorded before I got to work on today's
Speaker 1: episode was our June five behind the scenes, and if
Speaker 1: you've listened to that, I was clearly having a hard
Speaker 1: time figuring out what to do next. And when I
Speaker 1: remembered that I'd had James Baldwin on my list for
Speaker 1: a while, my inward response was like, yes, obviously, James Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Of course, why didn't you even think of this before?
Speaker 1: This description by Juan Williams and a piece called Baldwin
Speaker 1: The Witnesses Testament, which was published in The Washington Post
Speaker 1: the day after Baldwin's death in illustrates why I had
Speaker 1: that response quote. Given the messy nature of racial hatred,
Speaker 1: of the half truths, blasphemies and lies that make up
Speaker 1: American life, Baldwin's accuracy and reproducing that world stands as
Speaker 1: a remarkable achievement. His accuracy was key and his works
Speaker 1: the reader could resonate to the sounds of the street
Speaker 1: corner as drawn by Baldwin, could feel the anger of
Speaker 1: black Americans so long denied a role in American life.
Speaker 1: As Baldwin wrote about that anger, black people reading Baldwin
Speaker 1: knew he wrote the truth. White people reading Baldwin sensed
Speaker 1: his truth about the lives of black people and the
Speaker 1: sins of a racist nation. Interest in James Baldwin's work
Speaker 1: has just really grown in the United States over the
Speaker 1: last several years, in conjunction with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Speaker 1: His nineteen sixty three book The Fire Next Time is
Speaker 1: frequently on anti racism reading lists. Sometimes it's paired up
Speaker 1: with Tana hassy Coats Between the World and Me, which
Speaker 1: was inspired by it, or with The Fire This Time
Speaker 1: a New Generation Speaks about Race. That's a book that
Speaker 1: came out in Basically, James Baldwin was a brilliant essayist
Speaker 1: and one of the chroniclers of the civil rights movement
Speaker 1: and a really powerful voice against racism. And that is
Speaker 1: why we are talking about him today. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: start with his background. James Baldwin was born James Arthur
Speaker 1: Jones in Harlem, New York, on August two. His mother
Speaker 1: was Emma Bertas Jones, and she was a domestic worker
Speaker 1: When James was born, Emma was not married and she
Speaker 1: never told him who his biological father was. When James
Speaker 1: was three, his mother married David Baldwin, who was a
Speaker 1: factory worker and an evangelical minister, and they went on
Speaker 1: to have eight children together. The family was really poor.
Speaker 1: They were living in a part of Harlem that Baldwin
Speaker 1: later called Junkie's Hollow, and part of James's early years
Speaker 1: also took 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. At as
Speaker 1: an adult, Baldwin described as a whole household constantly working
Speaker 1: to appease his stepfather. James also said David taught him
Speaker 1: to fight because he had to continually fight back with patients,
Speaker 1: and a kind of ruthless determination, because I had to
Speaker 1: endure it, to go under and come back up to wait.
Speaker 1: James Baldwin attributed his stepfather's treatment of him and his
Speaker 1: mother and siblings as being the product of living as
Speaker 1: a proud man in a racist society where he just
Speaker 1: could not make enough money to really support his family.
Speaker 1: And Baldwin also credited his younger siblings as being a
Speaker 1: big part of what kept him off the streets and
Speaker 1: largely out of trouble in his youth. As the oldest,
Speaker 1: James was always helping to look after the younger ones,
Speaker 1: and that was something he described doing with a book
Speaker 1: in one hand, because reading became one of his biggest
Speaker 1: means of escape. He liked to tell people that he
Speaker 1: read every volume in Harlem's library branches and that he
Speaker 1: had to go to the New York Public Library on
Speaker 1: Fort Street to find any books that he hadn't read yet.
Speaker 1: He also credited religion with helping to keep him out
Speaker 1: of trouble. He had a religious conversion experience at the
Speaker 1: age of fourteen and became a youth minister at Fireside
Speaker 1: Pentecostal Assembly. He was a youth minister for three years,
Speaker 1: and during that time he crafted his use of language
Speaker 1: and his speaking style. Throughout all this, James had been
Speaker 1: attending New York Public schools, first at PS twenty four,
Speaker 1: whose principle was Gertrude Ayres. That was the first black
Speaker 1: principle in New York City. From there, he moved to
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas Junior High School, where Harlem Renaissance poet County
Speaker 1: Cullen was his French teacher and the director of the
Speaker 1: school's literary club. While at Frederick Douglas Junior High, James
Speaker 1: was editor of the school's newspaper, The Douglas Pilot, and
Speaker 1: also tried to make money to help the family buy
Speaker 1: shining shoes and selling shopping bags. For high school, James
Speaker 1: was selected to attend DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx.
Speaker 1: This was one of New York's more elite schools, with
Speaker 1: a predominantly Jewish student body. There, James again worked on
Speaker 1: the school newspaper, The Magpie, and he excelled in his
Speaker 1: English and history courses. He also meant painter view for Delaney,
Speaker 1: who became a friend and something of a mentor, as
Speaker 1: he demonstrated for Baldwin that a black man could become
Speaker 1: an artist. James didn't do nearly as well and as
Speaker 1: other courses as he did in English and history, and
Speaker 1: his high school years were personally very turbulent. In addition
Speaker 1: to all the stresses of his home life, he had
Speaker 1: started to question his sexuality. He had also started questioning
Speaker 1: the church as he began to learn about the ways
Speaker 1: that Christianity had been used as a weapon during slavery,
Speaker 1: and as he heard people within his church and his
Speaker 1: stepfather make anti Semitic comments. He ultimately left the church
Speaker 1: in ninety one. James Baldwin graduated from high school in
Speaker 1: nineteen two, six months after the rest of his class.
Speaker 1: The internal turmoil connected to his faith in his sexuality
Speaker 1: contributed to a mental health crisis that derailed his studies.
Speaker 1: He had hoped to go to the City College of
Speaker 1: New York, but he couldn't afford a tuition. Instead, he
Speaker 1: got a defense industry job in bell Mead, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: to try to help support his family financially. By this point,
Speaker 1: James's stepfather was struggling with his own mental health, with
Speaker 1: symptoms that included depression and paranoia. Baldwin's job in bell
Speaker 1: Mead involved building a new Army quartermaster depot, and it
Speaker 1: was Baldwin's first real experience with overt racism on the job.
Speaker 1: The U. S Army was still segregated, and Baldwin continued
Speaker 1: to act the way he had acted back in Harlem
Speaker 1: when he was around white Southern service members, and they,
Speaker 1: of course expected him to be totally deferential to them
Speaker 1: and to stay out of their way. Of course, racism
Speaker 1: had existed in Harlem as well, but this was a
Speaker 1: whole different set of social expectations and consequences. Baldwin described
Speaker 1: this experience as learning what it meant to be a Negro.
Speaker 1: He refused to back down in the face of racism
Speaker 1: and harassment on the job, and he was fired. A
Speaker 1: friend helped him get his job back, and when the
Speaker 1: harassment resumed, he again pushed back against it and was
Speaker 1: once again fired. On his last night in Belle Meade,
Speaker 1: Baldwin and some friends were refused service as a diner
Speaker 1: because of their race, and Baldwin really reached a breaking point.
Speaker 1: He threw a water picture and that shattered the mirror
Speaker 1: behind the bar. He described this moment as revelatory, realizing
Speaker 1: that he had been angry enough to kill someone and
Speaker 1: that his own life was in danger, and his words
Speaker 1: quote from the hatred I carried in my own heart.
Speaker 1: David Baldwin Sr. Died on July three, which was also
Speaker 1: the day James's youngest sibling, Paul Maria, was born. Two
Speaker 1: days later on August one, and uprising swept through Harlem.
Speaker 1: It was sparked when a black soldier tried to intervene
Speaker 1: as a white police officer was trying to arrest a
Speaker 1: black woman. The officer shot the soldier, and rumors spread
Speaker 1: that he had been killed. This was one of a
Speaker 1: series of similar riots that took place in cities around
Speaker 1: the United States in ninety three, and in Harlem, six
Speaker 1: black people were killed as thousands of police were dispatched
Speaker 1: in response to the violence. Baldwin really felt like living
Speaker 1: in Harlem had become untenable, and he moved to Greenwich
Speaker 1: Village to try to make a living as a writer,
Speaker 1: while also waiting tables and doing other work just to
Speaker 1: try to make ends meet and to send what money
Speaker 1: he could back to his family. He had relationships with
Speaker 1: men and with women, and at one point became engaged
Speaker 1: to a woman, but ultimately broke off that engagement. He
Speaker 1: also became friends with a man named Eugene Worse, who
Speaker 1: encouraged Baldwin to join the Young People's Socialist League. Although
Speaker 1: it's not entirely clear how long Baldwin was involved or
Speaker 1: exactly what his involvement even was in the years just
Speaker 1: after World War Two, he spent at least some time
Speaker 1: with 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. One of the biography US that I read
Speaker 1: of him characterized this period is 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 them.
Speaker 1: At that point in Baldwin met Richard Wright, who helped
Speaker 1: him get Harper's Eugene F. Saxton Fellowship, and that fellowship
Speaker 1: provided some of the funding to help him launch a
Speaker 1: literary career. He started getting published and established magazines, but
Speaker 1: then in ninety six, Eugene Worth died by suicide. That
Speaker 1: was something that traumatized and haunted Baldwin for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life. Two years later, Baldwin had become certain
Speaker 1: that he could not live in the United States anymore.
Speaker 1: It circled back to what he had realized that last
Speaker 1: night in Belle Meade. He had a clear minded certainty
Speaker 1: that if he didn't leave the US and its systematic
Speaker 1: racism and oppression, he would be killed, or he would
Speaker 1: kill someone. He finally decided to go to France at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty four. We'll get to that. After
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break, James Baldwin left for Paris on
Speaker 1: November eleventh, using the last of the money from a
Speaker 1: fellowship to pay for a one way ticket by sea.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, he had almost no money, virtually no connections,
Speaker 1: and nowhere to stay. He also did not speak French.
Speaker 1: In his words quote, I had no idea what might
Speaker 1: happen to me in France, but I was very clear
Speaker 1: what would happen if I remained in New York. Baldwin
Speaker 1: faced some criticism for leaving the US, with people arguing
Speaker 1: that he was abandoning a country that he should have
Speaker 1: stayed in and tried to help fix. But this first
Speaker 1: stretch of time in Paris was critically important to his
Speaker 1: work and identity as a writer. Unlike many of the
Speaker 1: other writers and artists who left the US for Paris,
Speaker 1: he didn't think of himself as an expatriate, but more
Speaker 1: as a commuter. He still felt a deep connection to
Speaker 1: the United States, and he made frequent trips back, and
Speaker 1: he spent long stretches of time in other parts of
Speaker 1: the world, including Istanbul. Shortly after arriving in Paris, Baldwin
Speaker 1: met Swiss artist Lucien Happersburger, who was white, bisexual, and
Speaker 1: at one point married to a woman. When they met,
Speaker 1: Baldwin was twenty four and Happersburger was seventeen. They eventually
Speaker 1: started a relationship that went on for almost forty years.
Speaker 1: Baldwin described Happersburger as the love of his life, and
Speaker 1: he became godfather to Happersburger's children. Along with other relationships
Speaker 1: in his life, Happersburger was one of the inspirations for
Speaker 1: Baldwin's novel Giovanni's Room. While in France, Baldwin wrote Everybody's
Speaker 1: Protest novel, which argued that political novels like Harriet Beecher
Speaker 1: Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Richard Wright's Native Son were
Speaker 1: reinforcing stereotypes about black people and in particular, dehumanizing black men.
Speaker 1: Although Wright had helped Baldwin secure his first writing fellowship,
Speaker 1: the two men did not see eye to eye on
Speaker 1: a number of issues, and they frequently criticized one another.
Speaker 1: On December nineteenth, Aldwin was arrested for being in receipt
Speaker 1: of stolen property after he borrowed a bed sheet that
Speaker 1: a friend had stolen from a hotel. This whole experience
Speaker 1: led him to think about identity and policing in the
Speaker 1: United States versus in France. The police in France saw
Speaker 1: him as an American, while police in New York would
Speaker 1: have seen him as an inherently criminal problem. But he
Speaker 1: also became aware that most of the people who were
Speaker 1: in jail with him in Paris were from Northern Africa,
Speaker 1: and that French colonialism had its own part to play
Speaker 1: in racism in France. This first stretch of time in
Speaker 1: France let Baldwin look back on the US from a distance,
Speaker 1: seeing things from angles that just were not possible for
Speaker 1: him while he was living in it. He started coming
Speaker 1: to terms with both his own history and with his
Speaker 1: sexuality while living in France. In Switzerland, he finished his
Speaker 1: semi autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain she
Speaker 1: had actually started writing in high school, as well as
Speaker 1: a plague called the Amen Corner, and a series of
Speaker 1: essays in nine In fifty two, Baldwin made a trip
Speaker 1: back to the US with financial help from Marlon Brando.
Speaker 1: He was awarded a Googgenheim Fellowship in June of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four, and other fellowships followed. In nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: he was awarded a Ford Foundation grant to work on
Speaker 1: the novel Another Country, when this novel included a fictionalized
Speaker 1: depiction of his friendship with Eugene Worth, including worth suicide.
Speaker 1: Professor in literary critic Fred Stanley later wrote of Another
Speaker 1: Country quote, Baldwin has been audacious enough, prior to most
Speaker 1: other artists to grapple candidly with the usually taboo subjects
Speaker 1: of American society and culture, interracial sexual intercourse, homosexuality as
Speaker 1: a normative mode of experience, and bisexuality as a real phenomenon.
Speaker 1: After similar back and forth travel, Baldwin returned to the
Speaker 1: US for a longer stretch, starting in July of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven. A lot of his written work during this
Speaker 1: time documents or reflects on the Civil Rights movement, a
Speaker 1: movement that he wasn't really sure how he fit into.
Speaker 1: He had become well known and well established as a
Speaker 1: writer by this point, and while he did not want
Speaker 1: to describe himself as the movement spokesperson, there were definitely
Speaker 1: people who thought of him that way. As the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement grew and evolved, Baldwin found himself aligned in
Speaker 1: some ways with Martin Luther King Jr's approach through non
Speaker 1: violent action, that in other ways with Malcolm X, the
Speaker 1: Nation of Islam, and the Black Power movement, for example,
Speaker 1: As time went on, Baldwin 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 movements 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 non violent activism did
Speaker 1: not meet its goals, and foreseeing that white activism would
Speaker 1: turn away from that militancy. Baldwin's work in the movement
Speaker 1: was not just about writing, though he also made speeches,
Speaker 1: He donated money, wrote letters sci petitions organized during the
Speaker 1: lunch 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 Saying Nuclear Policy, and
Speaker 1: he also helped sponsor a rally to disband the House
Speaker 1: An 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 in double a
Speaker 1: cp field secretary Medgar Evers. Baldwin's book The Fire Next
Speaker 1: Time came out during this tour as well. It contains
Speaker 1: two essays, My Dungeon Shook Letter to my Nephew on
Speaker 1: the one anniversary of the Emancipation and Down at the
Speaker 1: Cross Letter from a Region of My Mind. The latter
Speaker 1: essay dwells on Baldwin's experiences with religion, including both Christianity
Speaker 1: and the Nation of Islam, relating them to race and racism,
Speaker 1: and reflecting on his own beliefs. The Fire Next Time
Speaker 1: spent more than forty weeks in the top five of
Speaker 1: the New York Times bestseller List on May seventeenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, during Martin Luther King Jr's Birmingham campaign, Baldwin
Speaker 1: was on the cover of Time magazine under a banner
Speaker 1: that read Birmingham and Beyond the Negro Pushed for Equality.
Speaker 1: A few days before that Time magazine cover, Baldwin had
Speaker 1: sent a telegram to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy criticizing
Speaker 1: the United States lack of response to the civil rights movement,
Speaker 1: especially in the face of increasing violence and brutality against
Speaker 1: the people who were participating in that movement. Baldwin framed
Speaker 1: this inaction in the failure of the nation to make
Speaker 1: black liberation a priority, as a moral treason. The result
Speaker 1: was that Kennedy met with Baldwin for breakfast on May,
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 Handsbury, Lena Horn, and Ripped Torn, along with representatives
Speaker 1: from the Chicago Urban League, Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, the
Speaker 1: n double A CP, and core Clarence Benjamin Jones, who
Speaker 1: is one of Martin Luther King Junior's advisers, was also there.
Speaker 1: The Kennedy's goal for this meeting was not so much
Speaker 1: to get a sense of what Black Americans needed, or
Speaker 1: what the civil rights movement's goals were or how the
Speaker 1: government might incorporate those goals. He was more focused on
Speaker 1: figuring out who among them might serve as sort of
Speaker 1: a mouthpiece for the government, promoting the government's policies to
Speaker 1: the black community to improve ray relations, and also on
Speaker 1: outlining what the government had done already so far to
Speaker 1: the assembled group while basically asking for their patients uh.
Speaker 1: This meeting consequently did not go well. Baldwin and the
Speaker 1: other assembled activists were trying to describe the systemic racism
Speaker 1: that went well beyond what was encoded in law, while
Speaker 1: Kennedy was talking about how his own family had been
Speaker 1: oppressed for being Irish. Kennedy came off as deeply naive
Speaker 1: and unwilling to listen. Eventually, Lorraine Hansbury walked out and
Speaker 1: several others followed. Afterward, the FBI started monitoring Baldwin, placing
Speaker 1: him on its Security Index of potentially dangerous people and
Speaker 1: amassing a file on him that was more than seventeen
Speaker 1: hundred pages long. This meeting, though while not immediately successful,
Speaker 1: is often credited with starting to shift Robert Kennedy's perspectives,
Speaker 1: leading him to encourage his brother, President John F. Kennedy
Speaker 1: to address the nation on the subject of civil rights okay,
Speaker 1: and he gave his civil rights address on June eleventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three. In the early morning hours of June twelve,
Speaker 1: Medgar Evers was assassinated in his driveway in front of
Speaker 1: his children. The culprit was Byrondella Beckwith, who was found
Speaker 1: guilty of the crime more than thirty years later. Baldwin
Speaker 1: continued his writing and worked during the nineteen sixties, but
Speaker 1: the assassination of Medgar Evers was the first of a
Speaker 1: series of events that sort of shifted his work and
Speaker 1: his outlook. Others included the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three, as well as the assassinations of
Speaker 1: two other men that he had known and worked with,
Speaker 1: Malcolm X in nineteen sixty five and Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty eight, and we're going to get to
Speaker 1: more on that after we first have a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: As we noted earlier, James Baldwin never seemed really sure
Speaker 1: where he fit within the civil rights movement. Although he
Speaker 1: participated in the nineteen sixty three March on Washington for
Speaker 1: Jobs and Freedom, he wasn't a big part of its
Speaker 1: public presence or its planning. There's been some speculation that
Speaker 1: this was because of his sexual orientation, but as we've
Speaker 1: noted on earlier episodes of the show, one of the
Speaker 1: major planners of the march was Bayard Rustin, who was
Speaker 1: also gay. It's more likely that Baldwin's views were becoming
Speaker 1: less and less aligned with Martin Luther King Jr's non
Speaker 1: violent arm of the movement. As time went on, Baldwin
Speaker 1: became increasingly radical. When the Black Panther Party was established
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six, Baldwin supported many of its efforts,
Speaker 1: including school breakfast and lunch programs, community health care programs,
Speaker 1: schools and arms self defense programs meant to protect black
Speaker 1: communities from violence, including violence at the hands of police.
Speaker 1: Baldwin's written work had always been focused on both racism
Speaker 1: and homophobia, and he had been both critically acclaimed and
Speaker 1: a best seller through this work, But in the late
Speaker 1: sixties and early seventies or yours increasingly criticized him for
Speaker 1: becoming more pessimistic, accusatory, and vehement, and too directly focused
Speaker 1: on civil rights, as included the three act play Blues
Speaker 1: for Mr. Charlie, which was based on the murder of
Speaker 1: Emmett's Hill. And it wasn't just white literary reviewers who
Speaker 1: were criticizing his work. His advocacy for Palestinian liberation was
Speaker 1: criticized as anti semitic, although he also criticized anti semitism
Speaker 1: within black activism. Members of the Black Arts movement criticized
Speaker 1: 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: Kennedy's 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 Devance. Although he's still did a lot of traveling,
Speaker 1: this became his permanent home for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: Locals named it Sa Baldwin. Baldwin's writing in political Views
Speaker 1: had always been anti capitalist, anti colonial, anti imperialist, anti racist,
Speaker 1: anti homophobic, Pan African, pro Palestinian liberation, and against mass incarceration.
Speaker 1: He also made connections between black liberation in the US
Speaker 1: and United States foreign policy, noting that a nation that
Speaker 1: truly supported black liberation would be supporting black freedom fighters
Speaker 1: elsewhere in the world and supporting people who were fighting
Speaker 1: for independence from colonial powers. All this work had also
Speaker 1: been primarily focused on men. In the nineteen seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: that started to change, in part through televised conversations with
Speaker 1: poets Nicki Giovanni and past podcast subject Audrey Lord. Both
Speaker 1: Women Really Is to Baldwin on issues of gender, gender roles,
Speaker 1: and sexuality, ultimately leading him to criticize the whiteness of
Speaker 1: the mainstream feminist movement as well as it's homophobia and
Speaker 1: anti lesbianism, but like Bayard Ruston, James Baldwin never took
Speaker 1: a leadership role within the gay rights movement as it
Speaker 1: became more public and widespread in the nineteen seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: He also expressed some ambivalence about exactly how to describe
Speaker 1: himself in his own identity. In one five interview, he said,
Speaker 1: quote those terms homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, our twentieth century terms
Speaker 1: which for me really have very little meaning. I've never myself,
Speaker 1: in watching myself and watching other people, been able to
Speaker 1: discern exactly where the barriers were. I read one piece
Speaker 1: as I was working on this that that noted that
Speaker 1: this has some similarities to conversations happening today about all
Speaker 1: of these ideas being socially constructed and what they mean. Um.
Speaker 1: Baldwin continued to travel and teach and write and work
Speaker 1: until late in his life, but by the late nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties he was having serious issues with his health. He
Speaker 1: had developed hepatitis and experienced liver damage back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, followed by two heart attacks. Then in nineteen
Speaker 1: eight seven he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. I actually
Speaker 1: also found references that it was stomach cancer or pancreatic cancer,
Speaker 1: and I don't know which of those is correct. Regardless,
Speaker 1: though the cancer progressed really quickly. He gave his last
Speaker 1: interview to journalist Quincy Troop just days before his death.
Speaker 1: James Baldwin died on December one, nine seven, at the
Speaker 1: age of sixty three. Lucien Happersberger was there with him,
Speaker 1: as well as a household attendant. His funeral was held
Speaker 1: at the Church of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: with five thousand people in attendance. A Mary Baraca delivered
Speaker 1: the eulogy, with tributes from others including Maya Angelou and
Speaker 1: Tony Morrison, and the words of Amary Baraca's eulogy quote,
Speaker 1: this man traveled the earth, like its history and it's biographer.
Speaker 1: He reported, criticized, made beautiful, analyzed, cajoled, lyricized, attacked, saying
Speaker 1: made us think, made us better, made us consciously human
Speaker 1: or perhaps more acidly pre human. And also in the
Speaker 1: words of Tony Morrison addressing the late Baldwin is Jemmy quote,
Speaker 1: in your hands language was handsome again. In your hands
Speaker 1: we saw how it was meant to be. Neither bloodless
Speaker 1: nor bloody and yet alive. It should surprise no one
Speaker 1: who knows anything about Tony Morrison Um. That tribute to
Speaker 1: Baldwin from the funeral is beautiful and I highly encourage
Speaker 1: reading it. During his lifetime, James Baldwin wrote twenty two books,
Speaker 1: including six novels. He was a member of the National
Speaker 1: Advisory Board of the Congress on Racial Equality, as well
Speaker 1: as being a member of the American Academy and Institute
Speaker 1: of Arts and Letters, the Author's League, the International Pen
Speaker 1: the Dramatist Guild, the Actor's Studio, and the National Committee
Speaker 1: for a Sane Nuclear Paul to See. He also hoped
Speaker 1: that his home in France would be turned into a
Speaker 1: writer's colony after his death, but it was eventually sold
Speaker 1: to developers and torn down. Baldwin had been a best
Speaker 1: seller during his career, especially during the prolific nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: but by the end of his life he was not
Speaker 1: as widely read. That started to change, as we said
Speaker 1: at the top of the show, with the rise of
Speaker 1: the Black Lives Matter movement and the many connections between
Speaker 1: the movement and Baldwin's ideas and writings decades earlier. In
Speaker 1: the last few years, There's also been a film adaptation
Speaker 1: of his novel If Beal Street Could Talk, which came out,
Speaker 1: as well as the award winning documentary called I Am
Speaker 1: Not Your Negro. As we said at the top of
Speaker 1: the show, Baldwin's work is frequently part of anti racism
Speaker 1: courses and reading lists, so we thought we would end
Speaker 1: with just a couple of quotes quickly from that work.
Speaker 1: One is from the end of the Fire Next Time quote,
Speaker 1: everything now we must assume is in our hands. We
Speaker 1: have no right to assume otherwise. If we, and now
Speaker 1: I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks,
Speaker 1: who must, like lovers, insist on or create the consciousness
Speaker 1: of the others, do not falter in our duty. Now
Speaker 1: we may be able handful that we are to end
Speaker 1: the racial nightmare and achieve our country and change the
Speaker 1: history of the world. If we do not now dare
Speaker 1: everything the fulfillment of that prophecy recreated from the Bible
Speaker 1: in a song by a slave is upon us. God
Speaker 1: gave Noah the rainbow sign no more water, the fire
Speaker 1: next Time. The other quote is from an interview that
Speaker 1: he gave in nine where he said I'm optimistic about
Speaker 1: the future, but not about the future of this civilization.
Speaker 1: I'm optimistic about the civilization which will replace this one,
Speaker 1: and that is James Baldwin. UM. I talked to two
Speaker 1: various friends as I was trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: I needed to work on next UM and then every
Speaker 1: case when I said I think James Baldwin, the answer
Speaker 1: was like, obviously yes, UM so yeah, I hope I
Speaker 1: have done his life and work justice today. Would you
Speaker 1: also like to cover some listener mail? I have uh
Speaker 1: some listener mail from Jackie. It goes back to our
Speaker 1: Bureau of Home Economics podcast and Jackie says, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: Holly and Tracy, thank you so much for the wonderful podcast.
Speaker 1: I found the podcast early on last year and was
Speaker 1: hooked immediately. I'm always excited when an episode coincides with
Speaker 1: something or someplace I've experienced. I'm a school counselor for
Speaker 1: a private school in Florida. This morning, as I listened
Speaker 1: to the podcast about the Bureau of Home Economics, I
Speaker 1: realized I can finally share something with you. At my school,
Speaker 1: we still offer family consumer Sciences one and two. I've
Speaker 1: been in a few a few school districts in Florida,
Speaker 1: and this is the first school I've been at with
Speaker 1: this particular program. Family Consumer Science one is for incoming
Speaker 1: freshmen and throughout the year learn about child development, sewing, cooking, nutrition,
Speaker 1: and meal planning. Sewing normally coincides with fall, and the
Speaker 1: students learned to sew pat jama bottoms. It is amusing
Speaker 1: before and after school to see the girls wear they're
Speaker 1: brightly colored pajama bottoms under their school uniforms to keep warm.
Speaker 1: I guess next year they will include face mask patterns.
Speaker 1: Family Consumer Science too, is for juniors and seniors and
Speaker 1: takes an approach to prepare them for going away to college.
Speaker 1: One semester is focused on health, nutrition, and of course food.
Speaker 1: The other semester focuses on management of personal finances. These
Speaker 1: classes are two of the most popular electives that we
Speaker 1: offer and typically have a waitlist. Boys and girls love
Speaker 1: this course and the faculty enjoys getting to sample the
Speaker 1: goodies made. Also thank you for your work on the
Speaker 1: Rosewood incident in the Six Impossible episodes. As a school counselor,
Speaker 1: every spring, I walk students through the application of the
Speaker 1: Florida Bright Future Scholarship, a scholarship award for students who
Speaker 1: decide to tend to higher education institution in the state.
Speaker 1: One of the questions on the application is are you
Speaker 1: a descendant of a family member that was affected by
Speaker 1: the Rosewood incident in Florida during the nineteen twenties. So
Speaker 1: many times students ask what it is, and counselors, including myself,
Speaker 1: glass over it. Up until your episode, I knew it
Speaker 1: was something terrible, but didn't know that details. Now when
Speaker 1: asked about it, I tell students and they get a
Speaker 1: look of disbelief at something like that happened in their state.
Speaker 1: With some it Foster's great conversations about how little Florida
Speaker 1: history they knew. Jackie goes on to talk about being
Speaker 1: really delighted to learn that Frankie Manning was born in Jacksonville. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then says, thank you for your research. I listened
Speaker 1: to the podcast on my way to and from work
Speaker 1: or wherever else I'm traveling. You have made the ride
Speaker 1: more pleasurable and less lonely. Thank you so much, Jackie. Uh. Wow,
Speaker 1: I kind of wish I had had a class specifically
Speaker 1: about like the finances part. Uh. What I actually had
Speaker 1: when I went off to college was this book. There
Speaker 1: were two of them. One was called Where's Mom went?
Speaker 1: Now that I need her? And the other was called
Speaker 1: Where's Dad uh now that I need him, which you
Speaker 1: know is unnecessarily gendered in a way. But the like
Speaker 1: the mom one talked about basic food stuff and basic
Speaker 1: first aid and how to tell if you need to
Speaker 1: get to the doctor now um, and the dad one
Speaker 1: was like basic called maintenance and fixing stuff and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Uh So a class probably would have
Speaker 1: been helpful anyway, Thank you, Jackie. Uh if you would
Speaker 1: like to write to us about the surrending other podcast
Speaker 1: or history podcast at I heart radio dot com that
Speaker 1: we're all over social media at missed in History. That's
Speaker 1: where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, of Pinterest and Instagram,
Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: then I heart radio app and anywhere else you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.