Person

James Baldwin

Bylines

Freedom Day, 1963: A Lost Interview with James Baldwin

After Baldwin’s biographer died, her niece opened an old desk drawer and discovered a trove of interview material, some of it unpublished.

by James Baldwin, Fern Marja Eckman, Leslie J. Freeman via The New Yorker on September 22, 2020
The Shot That Echoes Still

James Baldwin's dispatch from MLK's funeral foreshadowed an America we may never escape.

by James Baldwin, Michael Eric Dyson via Esquire on April 4, 1972
An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis

Since we live in an age in which silence is not only criminal but suicidal, I have been making as much noise as I can.

by James Baldwin via New York Review of Books on January 7, 1971
A Report from Occupied Territory

These things happen, in all our Harlems, every single day. If we ignore this fact, and our common responsibility to change this fact, we are sealing our doom.

by James Baldwin via The Nation on July 11, 1966
‘I Can’t Accept Western Values Because They Don’t Accept Me’

Revolution, the civil rights movement, and African-American identity.

by James Baldwin, Robert Penn Warren via Literary Hub on April 27, 1964

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James Baldwin.

What James Baldwin Saw

A documentary that follows the writer’s late-in-life journey to the South chronicles his vision for Black politics in a post–Civil Rights era world.

by Kelli Weston via The Nation on March 5, 2024

James Baldwin

Reading Baldwin After Kanye

A conversation about James Baldwin’s 1967 essay, “Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because They are Anti-White.”

by Marc Lamont Hill, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Daniel May, Ben Ratskoff, nyle fort via Jewish Currents on September 29, 2023

Sedat Pakay, James Baldwin, Istanbul, 1966.

James Baldwin in Turkey

How Istanbul changed his career—and his life.

by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi via The Yale Review on June 12, 2023

A drawn portrait of James Baldwin in front of a line drawing of a classroom with desks.

The Fire This Time

How James Baldwin speaks to lethal myths of white innocence—and why his work belongs in public-school classrooms.

by Sana Hashmi via The Forum on August 30, 2022

James Baldwin, sitting.

James Baldwin and the FBI

The author was monitored for his political activities, but also for being gay. The surveillance took a toll on him.

by Ashawnta Jackson via JSTOR Daily on June 17, 2021

James Baldwin smoking at a table in the South of France in November 1979.

The Socialism of James Baldwin

By the end of his life, inspired by the radicalism of the Black Panthers, Baldwin was again ready to proclaim himself a socialist.

by Arvind Dilawar via Jacobin on January 2, 2021

James Baldwin, Here and Elsewhere

How the United States terrorizes the rest of the world, Baldwin realized abroad, echoed how it terrorized its inhabitants at home.

by Begum Adalet via Public Books on December 16, 2020

Photographic collage of James Baldwin

Bringing It Back to Baldwin

Joel Rhone reviews Eddie Glaude Jr.’s Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

by Joel Rhone via The Drift on October 21, 2020

James Baldwin.

The Vow James Baldwin Made to Young Civil Rights Activists

How James Baldwin confronted America's most exceptional lie.

by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. via Literary Hub on July 28, 2020

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. via The New Yorker on June 19, 2020

James Baldwin.

James Baldwin’s Ideas and Activism during the 1980s

Baldwin's often overlooked final years of activism during the 1980's.

by Aderson François via Black Perspectives on September 20, 2018

James Baldwin.

The Forgotten Baldwin

Baldwin demands that the Atlanta child murders be more than a mere media spectacle or crime story, and that black lives matter.

by Joseph Vogel via Boston Review on May 14, 2018

Baldwin’s Lonely Country

After MLK's assassination, James Baldwin attempted to reconcile the divide between the civil rights movement and Black Power.

by Ed Pavlic via Boston Review on March 29, 2018

James Baldwin walking in Harlem, 1963.

Jimmy Is Everywhere

James Campbell opens the FBI file on James Baldwin.

by James Campbell via The Times Literary Supplement on March 7, 2018

Banthe Bombers protest photograph by Richard Avedon.

Richard Avedon and James Baldwin’s Joint Examination of American Identity

Their 1964 collaboration, "Nothing Personal," brought together aspects of American life and culture through photographs and text.

by Hilton Als via The New Yorker on November 6, 2017

A Black man in a hoodie.

The Hoodie and the Hijab

Arabness, Blackness, and the figure of terror.

by Leah Mirakhor via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 6, 2015

Man interviewing a group of people on the street.

James Baldwin Comments on the Kerner Commission

The Kerner Commission was credited with exposing systemic racism that inspired resistance in Black communities. James Baldwin argued that it stated the obvious.

by Public Broadcast Laboratory via American Archive of Public Broadcasting on March 3, 1968

A Look Inside James Baldwin’s 1,884 Page FBI File

Memos on "aliases," sexuality, and The Blood Counters.

by William J. Maxwell via Literary Hub on July 8, 1964

South Pacific.

You've Got to Be Carefully Taught

Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific shows the limits–and power–of mainstream entertainment in addressing weighty social topics.

by Stephen Akey via American Purpose on March 1, 2024

A photograph of Billie Holiday singing.

The Perfectionist Tradition

The African American perfectionists offered “faith” instead of “hope”—emphasizing the struggle to realize a vision of justice.

by William P. Jones via Dissent on February 6, 2024

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