Читать книгу Freedom Facts and Firsts - Jessie Carney Smith - Страница 35

James Arthur Baldwin was born in August 2, 1924, in New York City and died December 1987, in southern France. He was concerned with destroying the fantasies and delusions of a contented white America intent on avoiding reality. As a result of his candor, his writing is prophetic and prefigures the Civil Rights Movement. His works, especially the nonfiction The Fire Next Time (1963), emphasize the urgency of the civil rights initiative and the need for love. He rejects Christianity for the way it is practiced, but retains the belief that we must learn to live together in love. Baldwin was out of the country when the actual Civil Rights Movement began. His commitment to the struggle is seen in his writings and speeches in which he talks about race relations and his participation in social protest. He returned to America and participated in marches, met with black leaders, and even took part in a meeting with the U.S. attorney general. He visited the South in an attempt to understand the struggle, only to find the situation there mirrored by conditions in the North; the disenfranchisement of the populace in other parts of the world added to his certainty about his message. Baldwin was ever mindful of the need for the unity of humankind. He called for the oppressed and their oppressors to recognize the humanity in each other. Even though he seemed to despair in his early writings, and he was impatient with the slowness of change in society, in his works he continued to hold out hope for transformation in the world.

Helen R. Houston

Amiri Baraka was born LeRoi Jones in 1934 (AP Photo).