Constant Reader discussion

James Baldwin 1924-1985

Born in Harlem Hospital, Baldwin’s mother and father had split up because of his father’s abuse. His mother then married David Baldwin, a Baptist preacher. His stepfather was quite mean to Baldwin, and much of the young writer’s youth was tumultuous because of their relationship.

James was very smart but was continually taunted by racial slurs. In his early teen years, James had a moment in church in which he overcome by the emotions of the moment and was “saved”. This was not enough to please his stepfather, and they continued to be at odds. There are many religious themes in The Fire Next Time, including his meeting with Elijah Muhammad. But his number one motivator was writing. He was cynical about Christianity because it seemed like a phony way of easing the pains of the oppressed lives of Blacks.

I think about 1963, the year this book was published. Jim Crow laws were still and active presence. (Per Wikipedia: “In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederacy and some others, beginning in the 1870s…The legal principle of 'separate but equal' racial segregation was extended to public facilities and transportation…As a body of law, Jim Crow institutionalized economic, educational, and social for many African Americans living in the United States.”

The Fire Next Time, published in 1963, is a book-length essay. It was a national bestseller and gave voice to the civil rights movement. But what impresses me is the books continued relevance in today’s world. The book catapulted Baldwin into national and international fame, as a leading thinker and speaker on “the Negro problem.” There was a famous debate in 1965 at Cambridge University between Baldwin and William S. Buckley that is worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tek9...

In some ways, the time during which Baldwin would have been writing this book was a time of innocence for our country: President Kennedy was assassinated in Nov. 1963. Also, Black activists, who were working to change the Jim Crow mentality and laws, and who James admired a little or a lot, were still alive: Medgar Evers was killed in June of 1963, Malcolm X was murdered in Feb. 1965, and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in April 1968. The effort to silence Black activism was tremendous at this time, but when the book was published, Baldwin still had some small amount of hope.

Also, I draw your attention to a book published this year by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own. This recently published book lays out Baldwin’s life and experiences against the timeline that was a crucial period for so many social issues: race, sexuality, class, and the rumbling political movements of the day, and well worth reading if you want to fill out your Baldwin knowledge.

For our discussion, I will quote some passages from the book, but feel free to jump in at any point.

The first chapter is an open letter to his nephew James. There's a lot to chew over here:

pp. 6-8;
This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry. I know your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying, “You exaggerate.” They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one’s word for anything, including mine—but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to
remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.

I read this just a couple of years ago. I was startled I’d never read it before. You quoted a passage I loved. It’s passionate, honest, inspirational, harsh, hopeful - all of that and more in just a few sentences.

Mary Anne, I am reading this and just finished the first chapter. I was in high school when this was published and I know how much more overt racial discrimination was during this period. However, the entire letter sounds so contemporary that it is almost depressing. I was reminded of Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The basic warnings are still the same.

I was most surprised by the ways that Baldwin referred to white people, their "innocence" in not understanding their own misinformation. I'm sure he was angry, both for himself and for his nephew, but that sounds amazingly tolerant. Have you read anything about why he expressed it in that way?

I will be reading the second part soon and I'm looking forward to watching the debate. I know I've seen parts of it before but not the entire thing.

Mary, I actually thought I had read it before and was surprised that I hadn't as I got into it.

I just got this book but thought the discussion started on 10/15. I'll give it a start tonight, then. Short, at least!

Mary Anne wrote: But what impresses me is the books continued relevance in today’s world.

I think this validates Baldwin's point even in 2021 and beyond. This past year, with the Black Lives Matter movement, books on race have flourished. I read Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, and a point of emphasis is the perniciousness and deep-rooted nature of racism. Nothing seems able to kill it, and many believe it will never disappear.

In the short opening letter, Baldwin refers to the Great Migration when he writes "you really are of another era, part of what happened when the Negro left the land and came into what the late E. Franklin Frazier called 'the cities of destruction.'"

I read that and what immediately came to mind was Robert Blake's Jerusalem poem, which has the memorable lines "And was Jerusalem builded here,/Among these dark Satanic Mills?" He was referring to industrialization and how cities seemed detrimental toward mankind, spawning only new troubles for its citizens.

Another excerpt from this letter that echoes what we are reading today: "I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it."

The "do not want to know it" reverberates especially. I know many otherwise good people who have Blue Lives Matter flags on flagpoles or as stickers on their cars and, it seems, they are a direct repudiation to and caused by the Black Lives Matter movement.

It misses the point. All lives matter. This is not an either/or situation. To embrace an "Us vs. Them" philosophy only makes ending racial strife all the more impossible.

Ken, I appreciated your comment on the deep-rooted nature of racism and its seeming imperviousness to being killed off. Have you read Isabel Wilkerson’s CASTE? It gave me insights I had not previously considered and helped me to look afresh at societal structures that underlie racism and contribute to its durability.

Mary wrote: "Ken, I appreciated your comment on the deep-rooted nature of racism and its seeming imperviousness to being killed off. Have you read Isabel Wilkerson’s CASTE? It gave me insights I had not previou..."

I have not read that one, Mary, but just added it to my tower (a.k.a. the "To-Be-Read" list). I'll get to it. The rating (4.55) is impressive for a GR book!

It's great that you've mentioned Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Mary. And Ken, I agree with regards to Black Lives Matter. As I recall, in Caste, Wilkerson talks about the persistence of the "zero-sum game" in our national mindset. In other words, if you get ahead I must be losing. Of course, this kind of thinking can only lead to hysteria or obsession when those 3 words Black Lives Matter. If we could ever get over the zero-sum thinking, we might start some new thinking.
As mentioned, Baldwin published this book in 1963. Almost 60 years later, it often feels like we're going the wrong way on the one way street of Jim Crow. Voting rights? Challenged all over the nation. Health disparities? Depends on you zip code. Housing? Again, what zip code do you live in? Gender equity? And on, and on. All issues that Baldwin spoke about.

In 1946, Baldwin's good friend, Eugene Worth, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge. Baldwin was himself quite depressed, and he left the country in 1948 for France, where he spent a decade writing and living the lifestyle he wanted. It is not known how many times James attempted suicide, but a 2018 essay by Harmony Holiday, called "God's Suicide" attempts to address his deep depression. https://hyperallergic.com/649322/an-i...

In 1957, Baldwin returned to the U.S. after he was moved by photos of Dorothy Counts, age 15, being spat upon by other students as she tried to integrate an all white high school in Charlotte, NC. Baldwin realized then that he could no longer be part of the fight from afar. He toured the South, met and interviewed Martin Luther King, Jr. and wrote essays on both King and Counts. Even so, James found himself distrusted by King and other Black leaders like Eldridge Cleaver because of his homosexuality. In 1963 he was featured on a Time cover, but at the same time, during the 60s and 70s, the FBI amassed a file of over 1.884 pages on James, perhaps 10% of the amount of Martin Luther King, Jr., but surely quite a substantial file.

Mary Anne wrote: "Almost 60 years later, it often feels like we're going the wrong way on the one way street of Jim Crow. ..."

I think this is part and parcel of the code words "Make America Great Again."

And what's especially scary is the approaching second wave. With Republican-dominated state houses and senates passing election laws (including blatant gerrymandering) to ensure permanent GOP rule, with the conservative Supreme Court being undermined by GOP partisans in robes, and with He Who Must Not Be Named waiting in the 2024 wings, it is not an understatement to say Baldwin's fears are but the tip of the iceberg.

As I read this book, I found his critique of Christianity a surprise inside (Cracker Jacks style). It reminded me of Mark Twain's takedown of the Bible in books like Letters from the Earth, The Diaries of Adam & Eve, and the Autobiography, Twain lays down words that find some echoes in Baldwin here.

Meaning: a book I supposed would be all about race and race alone also takes on religion (Christianity first, followed by Islam with the Elijah meeting in Chicago).

Thanks for nominating this book, Mary Anne, and for posting all the great background information. This is such a powerful, original book, and I am glad that I finally read it.

Barb, I was sometimes a bit confused by the repeated references to the presumed "innocence" of whites too. They could not justifiably claim innocence he angrily said in one part, but later he referred to some "innocent" white people in more positive terms.

I finally looked up "innocent" in the Merriam Webster dictionary, and found this definition "free from guilt or sin especially through lack of knowledge of evil : blameless"

So maybe, he thought that it was finally time for well-meaning white people (and others) to get rid of their ignorance. They could no longer claim "innocence." It was necessary to deal with the truth, and to recognize the terrible injustices done to the blacks in both the past and the present.

It brought to mind the controversy over "critical race theory," which I think is an honest attempt to give Americans that necessary knowledge.

Ken, I was fascinated by the account of Baldwin's youthful ministry and later rejection of Christianity. This had to be deeply tied up with his conflict with his father, an absolutely rigid Pentecostal minister, who was convinced that anyone who didn't accept exactly his version of religion was going straight to hell.

Baldwin writes: "My youth quickly made me a much bigger drawing card than my father. I pushed this advantage ruthlessly, for it was the most effective means I had found of breaking his hold over me." p. 32

But obviously, this wasn't the only thing that drew him to the church. He was deeply afraid of what he saw happening to some of his friends who had no hope, and also the changes that were happening to him physically and mentally as he entered puberty.

Ann D wrote: “I finally looked up ‘innocent’ in the Merriam Webster dictionary, and found this definition ‘free from guilt or sin especially through lack of knowledge of evil : blameless’”

As I read that, I kind of assumed he was relying on a different definition of ‘innocent.’ This from MW: “lacking or reflecting a lack of sophistication, guile, or self-consciousness.” Kind of a mix of ‘ignorant’ and ‘unaware’ (two of the synonyms MW lists). In this case, white people’s innocence may allow them to be forgiven to some extent, but it is also an accusation. Moving through the world with no self-awareness is not really excusable, I don’t think. Given the impact that white people have, and the privilege they are granted, this kind of ‘innocence’ (slash ignorance) can only be willful.

Ken wrote: "Mary Anne wrote: "Almost 60 years later, it often feels like we're going the wrong way on the one way street of Jim Crow. ..."

I think this is part and parcel of the code words "Make America Great..."

Ken raises some interesting points on Baldwin and Christianity. I found this quote on p. 47 that might be of interest: "...whoever wishes to become a truly moral human being (and let us not ask whether or not this is possible; I think we must believe that it is possible) must first divorce himself from all the prohibitions, crimes, and hypocrisies of the Christian church. If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.

Baldwin is also skeptical about the Black Muslim faith: he questions their source of income, which come to think of it, is a good question.

I'm not as familiar as you, Ken, with Twain's writings on Christianity. Sigh: so many wonderful authors, so little time!

On the question of "innocence", I've been to many seminars over the years on diversity, white privilege, or racial equity. Many of these topics are so hard for today's white audience. They/we quickly attest that the issue of slavery was settled so long ago, that our relatives never were slave owners, bounty hunters, etc. or that our relatives were immigrants who had to succeed in America in spite of difficult odds. In other words, they/we are innocent of America's original sin.

But consider the question differently: how many white Americans would be willing to trade places with a Black counterpart? Why or why not? Just some food for thought.

Very good question, Mary Anne. I would guess virtually none would be willing to trade places.

Around my last year of teaching, my school had some anti-racism teaching which centered around the concept of "white privilege." The way it was presented, many of the teachers bristled at the idea that all whites were privileged. I was one of them. After the first meeting, the administration dropped the text.

Since then, I have read more about institutional racism, particularly in the housing market. I still don't like the term white privilege, but I understand that the problems have persisted way beyond slavery. I also thought Wilkerson's book CASTE was excellent.

I listened to the YouTube of James Baldwin and William Buckley speaking at the Cambridge forum. You posted the link in your introductory note. The questions was, "Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of American Negroes?"

James Baldwin was a wonderful speaker. I shouldn't have been surprised after reading about his experience as a youth minister, renowned for his ability to move the congregation. William Buckley was his usual supercilious self.

I finished this a few days ago and my outstanding reaction as I closed the book was "Wow!" It's been a long time since I've read Baldwin and I had forgotten what a great writer he was. I also had never read his nonfiction. He is able to convey deeply felt emotion in a logical, almost methodical way and still keep the reader glued to the page. That is a difficult thing to do.

Thanks for everyone's comments on my "innocence" question. I got a much better understanding of what he meant in this second essay.

So many facets of this are fascinating and a number are already mentioned in our discussion. One which hit me close to the end was when he pointed out that whites in the U.S. perceive ourselves as based on European civilization, a white nation. "We condemn ourselves, with the truly white nations, to sterility and decay, whereas if we accept ourselves, as we are, we might bring new life to Western achievements, and transform them." This really hit home for me. We reject the richness of our culture and lose so much. Of course, he follow this with questioning whether Black people "really want to be integrated into a burning house?"

Another thing that struck me was his repeated observations about why it is difficult for Black people to have truly good friendships with whites. I noticed that he does make reference to his white friends. However, he makes an excellent point that white people have no way to deeply understand, at an almost cellular level as they do, what Black people have experienced in our country for generations, beginning, of course, with slavery but continuing to this day. My husband and I have had lots of Black friends through kids sports and community work but I've always felt like there's a small comfort gap there that we never quite bridge. Reading this essay, I understand why. I have hope for my grandchildren's generation. My 8 year old white granddaughter's best friends are Black and Asian-American. She's learned about racial discrimination in school but there is a total ease in her relationships. The racism that has become even more apparent in our country in the past 5 years, to this white person at least, is painfully discouraging but it helps me to watch these children.

And, Mary Anne, thank you for nominating this. Once again, it is something I probably would never have managed to read, given the length of my TBR list, and I am very glad that I did.

I just finished reading this last night. I, too, was blown away by the book. I wanted to say, "no, no, no" but I knew I could not. This book touched a consciousness in me that will have a lasting effect on my attitudes in life. We are now moving backward and must learn how to fight the Republican Party's racist and facist attitudes or our country will not last as a free democracy.

One more quote: “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

We are not meant to remain in our comfort zone. Baldwin calls us out for that, as he should.

I didn't write it down, but also recall Baldwin saying people don't want to be equal to others, they want to be superior to others.

So much for Tom Jefferson and his truths self-evident.

I wasn’t able to read this with the group but I just read all of the comments and, well, what a discussion. I will read this. It fits in with so much I have been reading and hearing. Great and thoughtful discussion all.

Thanks, Sue. Jump in anytime with your own thoughts.

I was glancing back through some of my highlights in the book, and got to the part where he’s discussing Russia, which obviously was considered the greatest international threat to the US at the time. As he says, their biggest advantage was that our behavior worldwide caused “bewilderment and despair and hunger of millions of people of whose existence we are scarcely aware.”

I’m just struck by how much that same analysis applies today, in thinking about the current primary threat, terrorism.

Our power and our fear of change help bind these people to their misery and bewilderment, and insofar as they find this state intolerable we are intolerably menaced.

Very well put.

Excellent point, spoko. It’s infinitely depressing how some things stay the same over time.

As a movie, Groundhog Day is amusing; as a planet of nations, not so much.

I've been reading the NYTimes Book Review's 125th anniversary edition and just finished James Baldwin's 1976 review of Roots by Alex Haley. Once again, I am bowled over by the quality of his writing. You can read it here: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytim...