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James Arthur Baldwin was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain has been ranked by Time magazine as one of the top 100 English-language novels. His 1955 essay collection Notes of a Native Son helped establish his reputation as a voice for human equality. His 1965 debate with William Buckl…
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culture · American writer and activist (1924–1987) · poet · novelist · playwright · civil rights advocate · essayist · social critic · screenwriter · university teacher · short story writer · gay fiction writer · also James Baldwin, Baldwin
Born 2 August 1924 · Died 1 December 1987 · Q273210
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...but you were never really white in the first place. Nobody is. Nobody has, even, ever wanted to be white, unless they are afraid of being black. But being black is nothing to be afraid of. I knew that before I met you, and I have learned it again, through you. Perhaps being white is not a conceivable condition, but a terrifying fantasy, a moral choice.
No, you liberated me in revealing this to me.
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“...but you were never really white in the first place. Nobody is. Nobody has, even, ever wanted to be white, unless they are afraid of being black. But being black is nothing to be afraid of. I knew that before I met you, and I have learned it again, through you. Perhaps being white is not a conceivable condition, but a terrifying fantasy, a moral choice.”
“No, you liberated me in revealing this to me.”
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“I never had a childhood... I did not have any human identity... I was born dead.”
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Baldwin Park News Online: Baldwin Park Students Can Get Free Backpacks School Supplies and Haircuts at Family Resource Fair Next Thursday
WKRG: $52 million in GoMESA grants fund Mobile and Baldwin County projects
fox10tv.com: Joseph Gurley found guilty of murder and assault in Baldwin County
City of Madison, WI: City of Madison to Host Public Discussion on The City’s Response to Recent Protests and Williamson & Baldwin St. Reopening
The New York Times: ‘Jimmy’ Review: Inhabiting the World of a Young James Baldwin
The Guardian: There is a path to peace for Starmer and Burnham – even as their backers prepare for battle | Tom Baldwin
The Guardian: Electoral reform and reversing Brexit: they’re more connected than you might think | Tom Baldwin
The Guardian: Inside Giovanni’s Room review – pulsing dance retelling of James Baldwin novel
The Guardian: Jimmy review – lyrical and impressionistic vision of James Baldwin in 1940s Paris
Snopes rated the claim “American writer James Baldwin once said: "The state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests."” Correct Attribution.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
Snopes.com rated the claim “Author James Baldwin once said: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."” Correct Attribution.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
The Guardian: The week in audio: The Lost Archive of James Baldwin; Extreme: Muscle Men; Paris Olympics – review
The Guardian: Where to start with: James Baldwin
The Guardian: Meshell Ndegeocello: No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin review – an inspiring homage
The New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture opened an exhibition, "JIMMY
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The Guardian: Meshell Ndegeocello: No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin review – a fire reignited
The Guardian: No Name in the Street; Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin – review
The Guardian: James Baldwin taught us that identities can help us to locate ourselves. But they trap us too | Kenan Malik
Snopes.com rated the claim “James Baldwin said, “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”” Incorrect Attribution.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
A blue plaque was unveiled by Nubian Jak Community Trust/Black History Walks to honour Baldwin at the site where in 1985 he visited the C
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Snopes rated the claim “James Baldwin wrote, "When the South has trouble with its Negroes — when the Negroes refuse to remain in their 'place' — it blames 'outside agitators' and 'Northern interference.' When the nation has trouble with the Northern Negro, it blames the Kremlin."” Correct Attribution.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
Snopes rated the claim “James Baldwin said, "The paradox of education is precisely this — that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated."” Correct Attribution.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
Google celebrated James Baldwin with a Google Doodle
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Appeared as a character in the television series Feud: Capote vs
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Snopes.com rated the claim “The writer of the song "Strange Fruit" was Abel Meeropol, who once taught the writer James Baldwin.” True.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
Paris City Hall announced that the writer's name would be given to the first media library in the 19th arrondissement, which is scheduled to open in 2024
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Construction was completed on an apartment complex that now stands where Chez Baldwin once stood
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Awarded VH1 Trailblazer Honors (2018).
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Scott Timberg wrote an essay for the Los Angeles Times ("30 years after his death, James Baldwin is having a new pop culture moment") in which he noted existing cultural references to Baldwin, 30 years after his death, a
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Raoul Peck released his documentary film I Am Not Your Negro
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East 128th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues was named "James Baldwin Place" to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Baldwin's birth
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The Social Justice Hub at The New School's newly opened University Center was named the Baldwin Rivera Boggs Center after activists Baldwin, Sylvia Rivera, and Grace Lee Boggs
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Baldwin was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood celebrating LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields
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Baldwin was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people
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The United States Postal Service created a first-class postage stamp dedicated to Baldwin, which featured him on the front with a short biography on the back of the peeling paper
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Scholar Molefi Kete Asante included James Baldwin on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans
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Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, established the James Baldwin Scholars program, an urban outreach initiative, in honor of Baldwin, who taught at Hampshire from 1983 to 1986
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Died 1987-12-01.
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Baldwin died from stomach cancer in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France
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“Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex. You thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.”
“Historia mojego dzieciństwa to ponura opowieść, jakich wiele, i możemy ją pominąć, kwitując oględnym stwierdzeniem, że bynajmniej nie zastanawiałbym się nad przeżywaniem jej po raz drugi.”
“Despair is a sin. I believe that. It is easy to be bleak about the human race, but there are people who have proved to me that we can be better than we are.”
“Jednego dowiedział się o Esther w ciągu tych dziewięciu dni: że traktowała jego lęki i niepokoje jako dziecinne i urojone, jako skłonność do niepotrzebnego utrudniania sobie życia.”
“When the South has trouble with its Negroes — when the Negroes refuse to remain in their "place" — it blames "outside agitators" and "Northern interference." When the nation has trouble with the Northern Negro, it blames the Kremlin.”
Kevin Brown, a photojournalist from Baltimore, founded the National James Baldwin Literary Society
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“Jest rzeczą ze wszech miar nieuchronną, że niegdysiejszych upokorzeń nie kojarzy się wyłącznie z odwiecznymi ciemiężcami, ale również z odwiecznymi pobratymcami.”
“Wydawała się osobą przysłaną na świat po to, żeby opiekować się chorymi, pocieszać płaczących i ubierać do trumny zmarłych.”
How he "fell in love with, lived with and almost married" a woman when he was twenty-two, though he considered Lucien Happersberger the "one true love" of his life
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Awarded honorary doctorate from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis (1982).
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“Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity”
“Open Letter to My Sister, Angela Y. Davis”
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Won Langston Hughes Medal (1978).
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Comprehensive Resource of James Baldwin Information at the Wayback Machine (archived April 20, 2008)
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In an old Provençal house beneath the ramparts of the village
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Baldwin signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse to make income tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War
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Baldwin participated in a much publicized debate with William F
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With Belafonte and long-time friends Sidney Poitier and Marlon Brando
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While he was touring the South speaking about the restive Civil Rights Movement
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Conducted a lecture tour of the South for CORE, traveling to Durham and Greensboro in North Carolina, and New Orleans
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Awarded George Polk Award (1962).
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Published the essay that he called "Down at the Cross", and the New Yorker called "Letter from a Region of My Mind"
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When Baldwin had already spent fourteen years as an expatriate living in France, he published his essay Letter from a Region in My Mind in The New Yorker
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“An interview with James Baldwin”
Planning to continue on to Africa, but opting instead to travel to Turkey
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So in early 1956, he decided to enjoy what was to be his last year in France
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Baldwin got word from Dial Press that Giovanni's Room had been accepted for publication
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Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship (1954).
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Baldwin published the three-act play The Amen Corner which features the preacher Sister Margaret—a fictionalized Mother Horn from Baldwin's time at Fireside Pentecostal—who struggles with a difficult inheritance and with
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Baldwin accepted a fellowship at the MacDowell writer's colony in New Hampshire to support the writing of a new novel and he also won a Guggenheim Fellowship
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Baldwin published his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, a semi-autobiographical bildungsroman
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Baldwin wrote several notable works
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Marked "the most important personal event in Baldwin's life" that year
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And Knopf expressed interest in the novel several months later
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However, in Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain, it would be the Black American "uncreated conscience" at the heart of the project
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Baldwin met and fell in love with Lucien Happersberger, a boy aged 17, though Happersberger's marriage three years later left Baldwin distraught
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Baldwin received a $1,500 grant (equivalent to $20,100 in 2025) from a Rosenwald Fellowship in order to produce a book of photographs and essays that was to be both a catalog of churches and an exploration of religiosity
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(though their relationship took a turn for the worse soon after the Paris reunion)
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Baldwin started a literary magazine called The Generation with Claire Burch, who was married to Brad Burch, Baldwin's classmate from De Witt Clinton
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Baldwin met Marlon Brando, to whom he was also attracted, at a theater class at The New School
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And died of tuberculosis on July 29 of that year, the same day Emma had their last child, Paula
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In order to earn money to help support his family
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Baldwin applied to and was accepted at De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx, a predominantly white and Jewish school, where he matriculated that fall
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Jones married David Baldwin, a laborer and Baptist preacher
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Born 1924-08-02.
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Emma Jones was one of many who fled racial segregation and discrimination in the South during the Great Migration
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