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Quick Facts
Best Known For
James Baldwin was an essayist, playwright and novelist regarded as a highly insightful, iconic writer with works like The Fire Next Time and Another Country.
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James Baldwin - Later Years (1:45)
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James Baldwin - Troubled Childhood
As a child, James Baldwin was teased and insulted not only from people within his community, but from his own father as well.
James Baldwin - Later Years
After writing about a variety of controversial issues and making his voice heard through several publications, James Baldwin.
James Baldwin - Sexual Identity
James Baldwin embraced his homosexuality and brought up the topic of sexual orientation in his writings during the mid 20th century, specifically in the novel Giovanni's Room.
James Baldwin - Mini Biography
James Baldwin's written works made him an important spokesman of the Civil Rights Movement. His essays explored the black experience in America and his novel,"Giovanni's Room," was one of the first to tackle homosexuality.
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Play NowJames Baldwin. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 05:57, Jun 19, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635.
James Baldwin. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635 [Accessed 19 Jun 2013].
"James Baldwin." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 19 2013, 05:57 http://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635.
"James Baldwin," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635 [accessed Jun 19, 2013].
"James Baldwin," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635 (accessed Jun 19, 2013).
James Baldwin [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 19] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635.
James Baldwin, http://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635 (last visited Jun 19, 2013).
James Baldwin. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635. Accessed Jun 19, 2013.
I must deal with both," Baldwin once told The New York Times. The move marked the beginning of his life as a "transatlantic commuter," dividing his time between France and the United States.
Early Works
Baldwin had his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, published in 1953. The loosely autobiographical tale focused on the life of a young man growing up in Harlem grappling with father issues and his religion. "Mountain is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else. I had to deal with what hurt me most. I had to deal, above all, with my father," he later said.
In 1954, Baldwin received a Guggenheim fellowship. He published his next novel, Giovanni's Room, the following year. The work told the story of an American living in Paris, and broke new ground for its complex depiction of homosexuality, a then-taboo subject. He also explored interracial relationships in his novels, another controversial topic for the times.
Around this time, Baldwin explored writing for the stage. He wrote The Amen Corner, which looked at the phenomenon of storefront Pentecostal religion. The play was produced at Howard University in 1955, and later on Broadway in the mid-1960s.
Writing About Race
It was his essays, however, that helped establish Baldwin as one of the top writers of the times. Delving into his own life, he provided an unflinching look at the black experience in America through such works as Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961). Nobody Knows My Name hit the best-sellers list, selling more than a million copies. While not a marching or sit-in style activist, Baldwin emerged as one of the leading voices in the civil rights movement for his compelling work on race.
In 1963, there was a noted change in Baldwin's work with The Fire Next Time. This collection of essays was meant to educate white Americans on what it meant to be black. It also offered white readers a view of themselves through the eyes of the African-American community. In the work, Baldwin offered a brutally realistic picture of race relations, but he remained hopeful about possible improvements. "If we...do not falter in our duty now, we may be able...to end the racial nightmare." His words struck a cord with the American people, and The Fire Next Time sold more than a million copies.
That same year, Baldwin was featured on the cover of Time magazine. "There is not another writer—white or black—who expresses with such poignancy and abrasiveness the dark realities of the racial ferment in North and South,"Time said in the feature.
Baldwin wrote another play, Blues for Mister Charlie, which debuted on Broadway in 1964. The drama was loosely based on the 1955 racially motivated murder of a young African-American boy named Emmett Till. This same year, his book with friend Richard Avalon, entitled Nothing Personal, hit bookstore shelves. The work was a tribute to slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
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Famous Harlem Residents
View groupAfter the Civil War, many of the country's best and brightest black advocates, artists, entrepreneurs and intellectuals moved to the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Thanks largely to the efforts of these residents, Harlem became both the cradle of a cultural revolution and the heart of the civil rights movement. Meet some of the many people who gave—and continue to give—this neighborhood a voice, simply by calling it home.
Famous Harlem Residents 62 people in this group
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African-American Expats
View groupMany African-Americans left their country to escape the confines of racism, segregation and McCarthyism in the United States. As a result, an entirely new African-American subculture sprouted up in Europe, Africa and other countries abroad. A street in Paris is named after Josephine Baker, who found acceptance and fame in France that she couldn't achieve in the still-segregated United States. Marcus Garvey was a leader of the Back-to-Africa movement. And singer Nina Simone lived in several different countries, including Liberia, Switzerland, England and Barbados before eventually settling down in the South of France. Find out more about these African-American expats, and the new lives they made for themselves abroad, on Biography.com.
African-American Expats 9 people in this group
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Famous Black Writers
View groupThey are the famous African-American writers who have fearlessly examined cultural stigmas, provided intimate life details, presented new ideas and created remarkable fiction through literary works. For their prophetic genius, these men and women have received Pulitzer Prizes, NAACP awards and even Nobel Prizes, among other honors. Our list of prominent African-American authors includes Toni Morrison, who has detailed the lives of black characters who struggle with identity amidst racism and hostility; Langston Hughes, a founder of the Harlem Renaissance; and Maya Angelou, who has eloquently chronicled various eras of her life through her autobiographies.
Famous Black Writers 38 people in this group
