Person

James Baldwin

August 2, 1924 — December 1, 1987

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biographer died, her niece opened an old desk drawer and discovered a trove of interview material, some of it unpublished.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

Through the Lens of Love

On a new biography of James Baldwin.

by Nicholas Boggs, Danté Stewart via Literary Hub on August 25, 2025

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by AFP via Getty Images and Raph Gatti/AFP via Getty Images.

What Really Happened Inside That Meeting Between James Baldwin and RFK

The emotional roller coaster that changed the course of the Civil Rights Movement.

by Nicholas Boggs via Slate on August 18, 2025

James Baldwin

The Many Lives of James Baldwin

A new biography shows that his life was more complex than his viral fame suggests.

by John Livesey via Jacobin on August 17, 2025

James Baldwin and Lucien Happersberger in bed.

The Lives and Loves of James Baldwin

Once dismissed as passé, since recast as a secular saint, Baldwin’s true message remains more unsettling than readers in either camp recognize.

by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 11, 2025

Photos of William F. Buckley and James Baldwin.

When William F. Buckley Jr. Met James Baldwin

In 1965, the two intellectual giants squared off in a debate at Cambridge. It didn’t go quite as Buckley hoped.

by Sam Tanenhaus via The Atlantic on May 20, 2025

A contact sheet of portraits of James Baldwin, 1972.

For Those Who Would Be Real

James Baldwin’s testimony in images.

by Harmony Holiday via Harper’s on April 29, 2025

New Yorker magazine from November 17, 1962, open to Baldwin's essay.

On James Baldwin’s “Letter from a Region in My Mind”

The essay served as a definitive diagnosis of American race relations. Events soon gave it the force of prophecy.

by Kevin Young via The New Yorker on February 10, 2025

James Baldwin at work on his novel “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone," and smoking.

Refinding James Baldwin

A fascinating new exhibit focuses on Baldwin’s years in Turkey, the country that, in his words, saved his life.

by Doreen St. Félix via The New Yorker on December 28, 2024

James Baldwin sitting among crowd.

James Baldwin and the Roots of Black-Palestinian Solidarity

A consideration of the evolution of Baldwin’s views on Zionism.

by Alexander Durie via Literary Hub on August 2, 2024

James Baldwin

The Brilliance in James Baldwin’s Letters

The famous author, who would have been 100 years old today, was best known for his novels and essays. But correspondence was where his light shone brightest.

by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on August 2, 2024

James Baldwin

Racism, Jazz, and James Baldwin’s “Sonny Blues”

Baldwin wrote with the knowledge that change would be hard and slow to achieve.

by Tom Jencks via OUPblog on August 2, 2024

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

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