Celebrating the Life of James Baldwin

We are celebrating a master of prose, James Baldwin, the American writer and civil rights activist on what would have been his 100th birthday, August 2nd.  Born in Harlem in 1924, Baldwin was the eldest of nine siblings, who found reading a means to escape the realities of his youth. Whilst still young and immersed in fictional worlds, his own gift for writing short stories and poems emerged.

James Baldwin

The Life of James Baldwin

In his twenties, he worked in Greenwich Village writing book reviews and became close friends with literary great Richard Wright, who helped him secure a grant for his first novel, the semi-autobiographical masterpiece and critically acclaimed Go Tell it on the Mountain published in 1953. The story was based on the three years he spent in the pulpit as a preacher. He had once said “Those three years in the pulpit…that is what turned me into a writer, really, dealing with all that anguish and that despair and that beauty.” 

Baldwin was a social commentator on injustice and inequality, profoundly articulating the complexity of race in America through his writings and as a leading spokesperson for the civil rights movement. He did so with an identifiable style that flowed like poetry. Baldwin’s first published expression of this kind was in his 1948 essay Harlem Ghetto. In 1956, he stirred up controversy with his second novel Giovanni's Room that features a queer love story. He was one of the first Black Americans to write about queer relationships.

In 1987, Baldwin died at the age of 63 in France. However, he lives on as an icon. His essays, novels, plays and words of activism continue to be a source of inspiration and fearlessness against oppression.

James Baldwin

Here are some of James Baldwin’s most iconic quotes

“We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”

“Life is more important than art; that’s what makes art important.”

“I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.”

“The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.”

“I conceive of God, in fact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others.”

“Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.”

“You’ve got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.”

“I believe that if we understood ourselves better, we would damage ourselves less.”

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”