Celebrating James Baldwin

From The New Yorker’s archive: a selection of pieces by and about Baldwin, on the occasion of what would have been his ninety-seventh birthday. View in browser | Update your preferences Celebrating James Baldwin The work of the novelist and essayist James Baldwin demands that we resist the mythologies of history, shed our self-protective innocence, and confront the truth of our history and present condition. In 1962, Baldwin published the essay of his life, a portrait of race, class, history, and religion, in The New Yorker. “Letter from a Region in My Mind,” which was expanded into book form as part of “The Fire Next Time,” traces Baldwin’s early years in his father’s Harlem church and his meeting with the leader of the Nation of Islam; it is a ferocious examination of his inner life and the inner life of this country. “Black people, mainly, look down or look up but do not look at each other, not at you, and white people, mainly, look away,” he writes. “And the universe is simply a sounding drum; there is no way, no way whatever, so it seemed then and has sometimes seemed since, to get through a life.” This week, as we celebrate what would have been Baldwin’s ninety-seventh birthday, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces by and about him. In “The Enemy Within,” Hilton Als writes about the influence of Baldwin on his own life and work. Teju Cole revisits Baldwin’s essay “Stranger in the Village” and explores Baldwin’s evolving perceptions of his life as an expatriate. (“ ‘People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them,’ Baldwin wrote. But it is also true that the little pieces of history move around at a tremendous speed, settling with a not-always-clear logic, and rarely settling for long.”) Finally, in “The History That James Baldwin Wanted America to See,” Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., writes about a meeting between the writer and Martin Luther King, Jr., three weeks before King’s assassination, in Memphis, in 1968. “Baldwin wanted to free us from the shackles of a particular national story, so that we might create ourselves anew,” Glaude observes. “For this to happen, white America needed to shatter the myths that secured its innocence.” —David Remnick From The New Yorker’s Archive Reflections Letter from a Region in My Mind “Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.” By James Baldwin | November 17, 1962 A Critic at Large The Enemy Within The making and unmaking of James Baldwin. By Hilton Als | February 16, 1998 Newsletters Sign Up for the New Yorker Recommends Newsletter Discover what our staff is reading, watching, and listening to each week. Page-Turner The History That James Baldwin Wanted America to See For Baldwin, the past had always been bent in service of a lie. Could a true story be told? By Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. | June 19, 2020 Page-Turner Black Body: Rereading James Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village” American racism has many moving parts, and has had enough centuries in which to evolve impressive camouflage. By Teju Cole | August 19, 2014 You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for the New Yorker Classics newsletter. Was this e-mail forwarded to you? Sign up. Unsubscribe | Manage your e-mail preferences | Send newsletter feedback | View our Privacy Policy Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.