James Baldwin

Baldwin was born at Harlem Hospital to Emma Berdis Jones in 1924. Jones left Baldwin’s biological father, who was a drug addict, before Baldwin was born and married David Baldwin, a Baptist preacher. The couple had eight more children together, and Baldwin’s stepfather had one son from his previous marriage as well. David Baldwin was cruel and abusive, just as Gabriel is to John in Go Tell It on the Mountain, and he later died of tuberculosis when Baldwin was not yet 20. Baldwin attended Public School 24 in New York City and began writing at a young age. He wrote a play that was performed by the student body, contributed to the school newspaper, and is even credited with writing the school’s official song. Like John, Baldwin was expected to become a preacher like his father, but he believed Christianity to be hypocritical and inherently racist, and he left organized religion after his teenage years. By 1948, Baldwin had already been harassed by local police because of his race, and after he was denied service in a New York City restaurant because he was black, he moved to France to escape the racism of American society. Living in Paris, Baldwin continued to write, and in 1953, he published his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, followed by Notes of a Native Son—a book of essays based in part on Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son—just two years later. In 1954, Baldwin won a Guggenheim Fellowship, and later that same year his third book, Giovanni’s Room, was rejected by publishers because of its homosexual content. The novel wasn’t published until 1956. During the 1960s, Baldwin was active in the American Civil Rights Movement and was personal friends with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. He agreed to write a screenplay about the life of Malcolm X, but after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Baldwin left the project and moved back to France. He continued to write into the ‘70s and ‘80s, often exploring issues of racism and homophobia. In 1983, Baldwin accepted a professorship of Literature and African American Studies at the Five College Network in Amherst, Massachusetts, and in 1986, he was made Commandeur de la Légion D’Honneur, France’s highest honor, by French President Mitterand. Baldwin died in 1987 of stomach cancer at his home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. He is buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.