James Baldwin - Introduction and Biography

                James Arthur Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York City on August 2, 1924.  He spent a great deal of his life overseas.  He always remained an ideally American writer.  It didn’t matter where he was working, he never ceased to reflect on his experience as a black man in white America.  In many of his literary works and public speeches, Baldwin spoke of the pain and struggle of black Americans and the saving power of brotherhood.  He was the oldest of nine children.  He grew up in poverty, developing a troubled relationship with his strict, religious father.  As a child, he cast about for a way to escape his circumstances.  At the age of fourteen he was spending a lot of his time in libraries and had found a passion for writing.  He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a preacher in the early part of his life.  At the age of eighteen he took a job working for the New Jersey railroad.  He then worked for many years as a freelance writer, working primarily on book reviews.  In 1948 Baldwin left for Paris, where he would find enough distance from the American society to write about it.  He wrote a number of pieces which were published in various magazines.  He finished his first novel in Switzerland.  Being overseas gave him a viewpoint on his life and an isolated freedom to follow his abilities.  His travels brought him even closer to the social concerns of present America.  In the 1960’s he returned to take part in the civil rights movement.  He traveled throughout the South and he began work on an explosive work about black identity and the state of racial struggle.  He was criticized for his peacemaker stance but he remained an important figure in that struggle.  Baldwin captured much of his anger in his books but he always remained a constant advocate for universal love and friendship.  In the last ten years of his life he produced a number of important works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.  He turned to teaching as a new way of connecting with the young.  At the time of his death, he had become one of the most important and vocal advocates for equal opportunity.  He died on November 30, 1987.                                           

"James Baldwin - About the Author | American Masters | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. 29 Nov. 2006. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.