Nothing can be Changed Until it is Faced: The Radicalism of James Baldwin
Posted by Pete on Aug 2nd 2020
Born today in 1924, James Baldwin was driven from the US by its entrenched racism but he never gave up the dream of an American society in which all could be at peace and thrive.
"To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time." - James Baldwin (1924-87)
The US has often been a pretty desolate place to live for those who’ve aspired to a truly equal and just society.
For some, the prejudice and inequality embedded in America’s social fabric has proved so unbearable that they’ve packed their bags and left.
Many black radicals, in particular, have preferred escape or exile to living (or dying) in the US.
Baldwin grew up black, working-class, and gay in mid-century Harlem.
Battling racism in 20th century America
Disenchanted and disgusted by racial injustice in America – from slavery to Jim Crow and lynching – many black Americans have left for a fairer or safer life abroad, as long as it was possible for them.
Among them are the thousands of escaped slaves who took the Underground Railroad north to Canada, and freedom.
Later, in the 20 th century, Paul Robeson (1898-1976) ended up choosing a life in the Communist bloc over the endless racism and government persecution he faced in the United States.
In the same era as Robeson, racism in the US drove yet another black radical to emigrate – James Arthur Baldwin, born today in 1924.
A startlingly smart young man, Baldwin grew up black, working-class, and gay in mid-century Harlem.
This put him in the firing line of several, heavy layers of prejudice – racism, classism and homophobia.
Living under this palpable injustice day after day, it was not long before Baldwin’s tolerance for American intolerance ran out.
In 1948, when a New Jersey waitress told him that black people weren’t served at her restaurant, it was Baldwin’s final straw. He packed his bags and emigrated to France, where he hoped to be less oppressed as an African American.
Joining the growing movement for Civil Rights
Moving in the radical intellectual circles of the Parisian Left Bank, Baldwin established his reputation as a world-class author and intellectual, writing with power on themes of race, class, and sexuality.
Then, in 1957, he found himself inspired to return to America.
Baldwin had seen images of Dorothy Counts, a young African American girl who, in the midst of a growing Civil Rights Movement, braved a baying, racist mob to try to desegregate schools in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Baldwin, back in the States, dived headlong into the struggle for black liberation.
He travelled across the South as a journalist, where, in Charlotte, he met Dr King.
Baldwin's vision of peace
In 1963, as a member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Baldwin made a lecture tour of Southern states during which he sketched out his socialist politics as something between the ideologies of MLK and Malcolm X.
Baldwin played a prominent role in the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and also took part in the 1965 Selma march with the late John Lewis.
Baldwin continued to be based in France for the rest of his life but remained committed to the radical cause in America.
He protested against the US invasion of Vietnam and mourned his friends, Dr King, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers, in his 1972 work, No Name in the Street.
Later, Baldwin backed the Black Panther Party of his friend, Huey Newton, and was a magnet and intellectual guide to radicals like Nina Simone, Chinua Achebe, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison.
This wasn't a man who’d given up on the possibility of transformative social change – for America and for the world.
James Baldwin had left America unable to bear the reactionary currents of the time, and millions of its citizens still yearn for the change that is required.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, and grotesque economic inequality remain to be overcome.
It’s a daunting task, but as James used to say
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."