Essays on James Baldwin

James Baldwin was born in Harlem in the year 1924. As the oldest out of nine children, his family struggled to stay atop of their financial situation. Since he had trouble developing a proper relationship with his stepfather, he tried to “escape” his harsh reality by taking up a passion for writing when he was 14 years old.

His early career was being a preacher, which inspired him to be a writer later. He was quoted “Those three years in the pulpit – I didn’t realize it then – that is what turned me into a writer, really, dealing with all that anguish and that despair and that beauty.” Some have noted that the tone of Baldwin’s work is close to that of the Holy Bible.

Later, he worked at a railroad and then became a freelance writer. He wrote the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain which was about the hardship of living in Harlem. This novel was soon to be considered an American classic. He continued his writing career, having Giovanni’s Room in 1956, as well as Another Country in 1962. These novels became bestsellers soon enough.

During the Harlem Renaissance, it was believed that Martin Luther King was an “integrationist”, or one who believes to resolve segregation issues in a non-violent demeanor. Malcolm X, on the other hand, was a separationist and believed in fighting back. James Baldwin considered himself to be a mix of the two, both integrationist and separationist. However, he was an integrationist. After he returned from France to the United States, he participated in Martin Luther King’s protests and marches. Baldwin believed that both blacks and whites should live in harmony together, as human beings, and not separated.

This racial struggle started when southerners drove Africans to the north, which unfortunately backfired when the northerners didn’t bode well with the new additions to their populations. Unfortunately for the Africans, the good economy didn’t fix prejudice issues. White workers complained about how they were swarming the employment market, for the worse, as well as lowering wages. This caused them to become segregated into urban hovels and ended out less fortunate.

The Harlem Renaissance ended in the mid-1930s. The 1929 stock market crashed caused everyone to face a new problem, the Great Depression. In March of 1935, a Puerto Rican boy stole a pocket-knife, and was beaten to death by authorities. A riot formed, and rioters looted two hundred stores, and cost two million dollars in property damages. An investigation was later established by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and was led by Edward Frazier, and it was shown that the riot was caused by bitterness towards racial discrimination.

Authors and poets left a great effect on contemporary literature. James Baldwin was no exception. He passed away from stomach cancer in 1987, at 63 years of age. He was said to have given hope to help people face the world. He was given 10 awards from 1945 to 1986, his last one being “La Lйgion D’Honneur” or France’s highest honor. Several eulogies have been made about him, one by Juan Williams in the Washington Post: “The success of Baldwin’s effort as the witness is evidenced time and again by the people, black and white, gay and straight, famous and anonymous, whose humanity he unveiled in his writings. America and the literary world are far richer for his witness. The proof of a shared humanity across the divides of race, class and more is the testament that the preacher’s son, James Arthur Baldwin, has left us.”