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