124 Facts About James Baldwin

James Arthur Baldwin was an African-American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems.

James Baldwin's fiction posed fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures.

James Baldwin's protagonists are often but not exclusively African-American; gay and bisexual men feature prominently in his work.

James Baldwin arrived in Harlem, New York, when she was 19 years old.

David James Baldwin was born in Bunkie, Louisiana, and preached in New Orleans, but left the South for Harlem in 1919.

How David and Emma met is uncertain, but in James Baldwin's semi-autobiographical Go Tell It on the Mountain, the characters based on the two are introduced by the man's sister.

James Baldwin moved several times while young but always within Harlem.

James Baldwin did not know exactly how old his stepfather was, but it is clear that he was much older than Emma; indeed, he may have been born before the Emancipation in 1863.

David's mother, Barbara, was born enslaved and lived with the Baldwins in New York before her death when James was seven years old.

James Baldwin referred to his stepfather simply as "father" throughout his life, but David Sr.

David James Baldwin grew paranoid near the end of his life.

James Baldwin was committed to a mental asylum in 1943 and died of tuberculosis on July 29 of that year, the same day Emma had their last child, Paula.

James Baldwin was molded not only by the difficult relationships in his household but by the impacts of the poverty and discrimination he saw all around him.

Ayer stated that James Baldwin derived his writing talent from his mother, whose notes to school were greatly admired by the teachers, and that her son learned to write like an angel, albeit an avenging one.

James Baldwin won a prize for a short story that was published in a church newspaper.

James Baldwin's teachers recommended that he go to a public library on 135th Street in Harlem, a place that became his sanctuary.

However, James Baldwin's mother insisted, reminding his father of the importance of education.

Porter was the faculty advisor to the school's newspaper, the Douglass Pilot, of which James Baldwin would become the editor.

James Baldwin later remarked that he "adored" Cullen's poetry, and his dream to live in France was sparked by Cullen's early impression on him.

In 1938, James Baldwin applied to and was accepted at De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx, a predominantly white and Jewish school, where he matriculated that fall.

James Baldwin worked on the school's magazine, the Magpie with Richard Avedon, who went on to become a noted photographer, and Emile Capouya and Sol Stein, who would both become renowned publishers.

James Baldwin did interviews and editing at the magazine and published a number of poems and other writing.

James Baldwin completed his high school diploma at De Witt Clinton in 1941.

Uncomfortable with his discovery during his high school years that he was attracted to men rather than women, James Baldwin sought refuge in religion.

James Baldwin joined the now-demolished Mount Calvary of the Pentecostal Faith Church on Lenox Avenue in 1937.

James Baldwin then followed Mount Calvary's preacher, Bishop Rose Artemis Horn when she left to preach at Fireside Pentecostal Assembly.

James Baldwin left school in 1941 in order to earn money to help support his family.

James Baldwin secured a job helping to build a United States Army depot in New Jersey.

In Belle Mead, James Baldwin experienced prejudice that deeply frustrated and angered him and that he cited as the partial cause of his later emigration out of America.

James Baldwin took a succession of menial jobs and feared that he was becoming like his stepfather, who had been unable to provide properly for his family.

James Baldwin lost the meat-packing job too, after falling asleep at the plant.

James Baldwin became listless and unstable, drifting from one odd job to the next.

James Baldwin drank heavily and endured the first of his nervous breakdowns.

James Baldwin lived in several locations in Greenwich Village, the first being with Delaney, then with a scattering of other friends.

James Baldwin took a job at the Calypso Restaurant, an unsegregated eatery at which many prominent Black people dined.

At the Calypso, James Baldwin worked under Trinidadian restaurateur Connie Williams.

James Baldwin had numerous one-night stands with various men, and several relationships with women.

James Baldwin's major love during his Village years was an ostensibly straight Black man named Eugene Worth.

James Baldwin never expressed his desire for Worth, and Worth died by suicide after jumping from the George Washington Bridge in 1946.

In 1944, James Baldwin met Marlon Brando, to whom he was attracted, at a theater class at The New School.

In 1945, James Baldwin started a literary magazine called The Generation with Claire Burch, who was married to Brad Burch, James Baldwin's classmate from De Witt Clinton.

Nonetheless, James Baldwin regularly sent letters to Wright in the subsequent years and would reunite with Wright in Paris, France, in 1948.

James Baldwin wrote many reviews for The New Leader, but was published for the first time in The Nation in a 1947 review of Maxim Gorki's Best Short Stories.

James Baldwin's conclusion was that Harlem was a parody of white America, with white American anti-Semitism included.

James Baldwin published his second essay in The New Leader, riding a mild wave of excitement over "Harlem Ghetto": in "Journey to Atlanta", James Baldwin uses the diary recollections of his younger brother David, who had gone to Atlanta, Georgia, as part of a singing group, to unleash a lashing of irony and scorn on the South, white radicals, and ideology itself.

James Baldwin tried to write another novel, Ignorant Armies, plotted in the vein of Native Son with a focus on a scandalous murder, but no final product materialised.

James Baldwin spent two months during the summer of 1948 at Shanks Village, a writer's colony in Woodstock, New York.

Disillusioned by the reigning prejudice against Black people in the United States, and wanting to gain external perspectives on himself and his writing, James Baldwin settled in Paris, France, at the age of 24.

In 1948, James Baldwin received a $1,500 grant from a Rosenwald Fellowship in order to produce a book of photographs and essays that was to be both a catalog of churches and an exploration of religiosity in Harlem.

James Baldwin worked with a photographer friend named Theodore Pelatowski, whom James Baldwin met through Richard Avedon.

James Baldwin gave most of the scholarship funds to his mother.

James Baldwin hoped for a more peaceable existence in Paris.

In Paris, James Baldwin was involved in the cultural radicalism of the Left Bank.

James Baldwin started to publish his work in literary anthologies, notably Zero which was edited by his friend Themistocles Hoetis and which had already published essays by Richard Wright.

James Baldwin spent nine years living in Paris, mostly in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, with various excursions to Switzerland, Spain, and back to the United States.

James Baldwin was extremely poor during his time in Paris, with only momentary respites from that condition.

James Baldwin met Lucien Happersberger, a Swiss boy, 17 years old at the time of their first meeting, who came to France in search of excitement.

Happersberger and James Baldwin began to bond for the next few years, eventually becoming his intimate partner and he became James Baldwin's near-obsession for some time afterward.

James Baldwin wrote "The Preservation of Innocence", which traced the violence against homosexuals in American life back to the protracted adolescence of America as a society.

In December 1949, James Baldwin was arrested and jailed for receiving stolen goods after an American friend brought him bedsheets that the friend had taken from another Paris hotel.

In that essay, James Baldwin described some unintentional mistreatment and offputting experiences at the hands of Swiss villagers who possessed a racial innocence which few Americans could attest to.

In 1954, James Baldwin accepted a fellowship at the MacDowell writer's colony in New Hampshire to support the writing of a new novel and he won a Guggenheim Fellowship.

James Baldwin spent several weeks in Washington, DC, and particularly around Howard University while he collaborated with Owen Dodson for the premiere of The Amen Corner.

James Baldwin decided that he would return to the United States in 1957, so in early 1956, he decided to enjoy what was to be his last year in France.

James Baldwin became friends with Norman and Adele Mailer, was recognized by the National Institute of Arts and Letters with a grant, and he was set to publish Giovanni's Room.

James Baldwin regretted the attempt almost instantly and he called a friend who had him regurgitate the pills before the doctor arrived.

James Baldwin went on to attend the Congress of Black Writers and Artists in September 1956, a conference which he found disappointing in its perverse reliance on European themes while nonetheless purporting to extol African originality.

James Baldwin's first published work, a review of the writer Maxim Gorky, appeared in The Nation in 1947.

James Baldwin continued to publish there at various times in his career and was serving on its editorial board at the time of his death in 1987.

In 1953, James Baldwin published his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, a semi-autobiographical bildungsroman.

James Baldwin began writing it when he was 17 and first published it in Paris.

James Baldwin continued to experiment with literary forms throughout his career, publishing poetry and plays as well as the fiction and essays for which he was known.

James Baldwin again resisted labels with the publication of this work.

James Baldwin grew particularly close to his younger brother, David Jr.

Meanwhile, James Baldwin agreed to rewrite parts of Go Tell It on the Mountain in exchange for a $250 advance and a further $750 paid when the final manuscript was completed.

James Baldwin set sail back to Europe on August 28 and Go Tell It on the Mountain was published in May 1953.

Nonetheless, most acutely in this stage in his career, James Baldwin wanted to escape the rigid categories of protest literature and he viewed adopting a white point-of-view as a good method of doing so.

Shortly after returning to Paris in 1956, James Baldwin got word from Dial Press that Giovanni's Room had been accepted for publication.

Meanwhile, James Baldwin was increasingly burdened by the sense that he was wasting time in Paris.

James Baldwin initially intended to complete Another Country before returning to New York in the fall of 1957, but progress on the novel was slow, so he decided to go back to the United States sooner.

Nonetheless, after a brief visit with Edith Piaf, James Baldwin set sail for New York in July 1957.

James Baldwin completed Another Country during his first, two-month stay in Istanbul.

In 1962, when James Baldwin had already spent fourteen years as an expatriate living in France, he published his essay Letter from a Region in My Mind in The New Yorker.

Around the time of publication of The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin became a known spokesperson for civil rights and a celebrity noted for championing the cause of Black Americans.

James Baldwin frequently appeared on television and delivered speeches on college campuses.

In 1965, Baldwin participated in a much publicized debate with William F Buckley, on the topic of whether the American dream had been achieved at the expense of African Americans.

James Baldwin lived in France for most of his later life, using it as a base of operations for extensive international travel.

James Baldwin settled in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the south of France in 1970, in an old Provencal house beneath the ramparts of the village.

James Baldwin's house was always open to his friends, who frequently visited him while on trips to the French Riviera.

James Baldwin learned to speak French fluently and developed friendships with French actor Yves Montand and French writer Marguerite Yourcenar, who translated James Baldwin's play The Amen Corner into French.

James Baldwin spent 17 years, until his death in 1987, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, in the south-east between Nice and Cannes.

James Baldwin wrote several of his last works in his house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, including Just Above My Head in 1979 and Evidence of Things Not Seen in 1985.

On December 1,1987, James Baldwin died from stomach cancer in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.

James Baldwin was buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, near New York City.

James Baldwin had been in the process of purchasing his house from his landlady, Jeanne Faure.

At the time of his death, James Baldwin did not have full ownership of the home, and it was Mlle.

James Baldwin's home, nicknamed "Chez Baldwin", has been the center of scholarly work and artistic and political activism.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture has an online exhibit titled "Chez James Baldwin", which uses his historic French home as a lens to explore his life and legacy.

Love for James Baldwin cannot be safe; it involves the risk of commitment, the risk of removing the masks and taboos placed on us by society.

James Baldwin returned to the United States in the summer of 1957, while the civil rights legislation of that year was being debated in Congress.

James Baldwin had been powerfully moved by the image of a young girl, Dorothy Counts, braving a mob in an attempt to desegregate schools in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Partisan Review editor Philip Rahv had suggested he report on what was happening in the American South.

James Baldwin expressed the hope that socialism would take root in the United States:.

James Baldwin made a prominent appearance at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28,1963, with Belafonte and long-time friends Sidney Poitier and Marlon Brando.

In March 1965, James Baldwin joined marchers who walked 50 miles from Selma, Alabama, to the capitol in Montgomery under the protection of federal troops.

In 1968, James Baldwin signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse to make income tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.

James Baldwin was a supporter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which prompted the FBI to create a file on Baldwin.

James Baldwin became, for me, an example of courage and integrity, humility and passion.

Later support came from Richard Wright, whom James Baldwin called "the greatest black writer in the world".

Wright and Baldwin became friends, and Wright helped Baldwin to secure the Eugene F Saxton Memorial Foundation $500 fellowship.

In 1949, James Baldwin met and fell in love with Lucien Happersberger, a boy aged 17, though Happersberger's marriage three years later left James Baldwin distraught.

James Baldwin was a close friend of the singer, pianist, and civil rights activist Nina Simone.

Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, and James Baldwin helped Simone learn about the Civil Rights Movement.

James Baldwin provided her with literary references influential on her later work.

James Baldwin influenced the work of French painter Philippe Derome, whom he met in Paris in the early 1960s.

James Baldwin wrote at length about his "political relationship" with Malcolm X James Baldwin collaborated with childhood friend Richard Avedon on the 1964 book Nothing Personal.

James Baldwin was made a Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur by the French government in 1986.

James Baldwin was a close friend of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, who lived for a time in same apartment building in New York.

Literary critic Harold Bloom characterized James Baldwin as being "among the most considerable moral essayists in the United States".

In 2005, the United States Postal Service created a first-class postage stamp dedicated to James Baldwin, which featured him on the front with a short biography on the back of the peeling paper.

In 2012, James Baldwin was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people.

Readings of James Baldwin's writing were held at The National Black Theatre and a month-long art exhibition featuring works by New York Live Arts and artist Maureen Kelleher.

In June 2019, James Baldwin was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in New York City's Stonewall Inn.

James Baldwin published six short stories in various magazines between 1948 and 1960:.

Many essays by James Baldwin were published for the first time as part of collections, which included older, individually-published works of James Baldwin's as well.