Writer, Activist James Baldwin Born 100 Years Ago In Harlem

HARLEM, NY – James Baldwin was born in Harlem 100 years ago today, on August 2nd, 1924.

The writer and activist, who died in France in 1987 at the age of 63, is widely considered to be one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century.

The eldest of nine children, Baldwin grew up in Harlem, and said the first home he remembered was along Uptown Park Avenue, near the elevated Metro-North rail line. He would later attend DeWitt Clinton High School, a racially integrated public school in the Bronx.

Baldwin published his first novel, ''Go Tell It on the Mountain,'' in 1953. The book tells the story of John Grimes, a teenager celebrating his fourteenth birthday in the Harlem of the 1930s, and was in part inspired by Baldwin’s own life. Another novel, “Giovanni’s Room,” was published in 1956, and remains an important exploration of gay life.

But Baldwin may be most remembered for his essays, especially ''Notes of a Native Son,'' which was published in 1955 and deals extensively with race and racism in America.

A major figure of the civil rights movement, Baldwin participated in demonstrations, marches, and other engagements, including a famous debate with his friend Malcolm X in 1961.

His 1964 play, “Blues for Mister Charlie,” based in part on the murder of Emmett Till – and dedicated to Baldwin’s friend, civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in 1963 – begins with the following preface:

What is ghastly and really almost hopeless in our racial situation now is that the crimes we have committed are so great and so unspeakable that the acceptance of this knowledge would lead, literally, to madness. The human being, then, in order to protect himself, closes his eyes, compulsively repeats his crimes, and enters a spiritual darkness which no one can describe.

Baldwin left the United States behind in the early 1970s, settling in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, where he lived until his death in 1987.

In New York, he kept an American home at 137 W 71st Street on the Upper West Side. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.

Although Baldwin first departed Harlem in 1943 – for Greenwich Village – his years in Harlem were singularly formative, and he will always be one of the neighborhood’s legends.

Do you have a James Baldwin story you’d like to share? Patch would love to hear from you. Email [email protected].