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Post date: Feb 26, 2010 4:37:14 PM
Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. ----James Baldwin
A writer, a playwright, an essayist, and civil right activist, James Baldwin was an American writer who applied his gift of writing to describe the social issues facing African Americans in the United States. He took the surname of his stepfather, born James Arthur Jones, in Harlem, New York, James Baldwin was raised in poverty. As an adolescence, Baldwin was an avid reader. Between the age of 14 and 16,. Baldwin was a storefront preacher; Baldwin wrote about his experience as storefront preacher in the semi autobiographical Go Tell It on the Mountain. Received by critics as one of his best works, Go Tell It on the Mountain, today, remains as one of his best works. Baldwin attended junior high at Fredrick Douglas Junior high and high school at De Witt Clinton High School in Bronx. At De Witt Clinton High School Baldwin met one the main contributing writers to Harlem Renaissance of the 1920.Countee Cullen was a poet and faculty member at De Witt Clinton High school where Baldwin wrote and helped to edit the school magazine. Later after graduation from high school, in the mid 1940's, Baldwin focused on a full time writing career. Indeed, it has been stated that much of his writing emphasized the importance of building relationships .Certainly, Baldwin’s focus on relationship stemmed from the fact that he did not know his father, and his stepfather was recalcitrant. While in college, I had the privilege of reading several of James Baldwin's literary works . The literary work that stood out the most at the time I was in college was If Beale Street Could Talk a book that reflected the enigmas and social issues facing a young couple, surprisingly some of those issues remain prevalent today. Several years later, disconsolate with the plight of African American in the United States, in 1948, Baldwin immigrated to Paris where he lived in poverty for approximately eight years. Considered a significant critic of the plight facing African Americans during the civil rights movement, James Baldwin wrote on topics varying from racial discrimination to homosexuality. Baldwin's list of works include (The Amen Corner(1965),Notes of a Native Son(1955),Giovanni's Room (1956), Nobody Know My Name(1961),Another Country(1962),The Fire Next Time(1963),and Blues for Mister Charlie(1964).Although, Baldwin departed from the earth in 1987 while living in Paris France, he left a collection of work that remains a part of American Literature and as historical documents of the Afro American culture during Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights Movement.
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C-SPAN.org C-SPAN American Writers II the 20th century: James Baldwin
Pearson Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama
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