This is Baldwin's final novel, and also his longest, by far. It is a multi-generational saga, the most crucial stage of which unfolds during the 1950's and 60's. Its narrator Hall Montana reports at the outset he has just lost his brother Arthur, and it sends him into a depression. Baldwin uses the processing of … Continue reading Just Above My Head
Author: jb
The Devil Finds Work
The Devil Finds Work is the last book-length piece of nonfiction (Baldwin calls it an "essay") that Baldwin wrote, and though it's similar to some earlier pieces in its focus on Baldwin's autobiography, and obviously addresses similar themes, it picks a new point of departure: the movies. The sweep of this book is captured really well … Continue reading The Devil Finds Work
If Beale Street Could Talk
When a student told me last year that If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin's 1974 novel which I had not read at the time - was being made into a movie, I was sort of nonplussed. There were other better choices, I thought (even though I hadn't read this one). Why not Giovanni's Room … Continue reading If Beale Street Could Talk
No Name in the Street
It is not true that people become liars without knowing it. A liar always knows he is lying, and that is why liars travel in packs: in order to be reassured that the judgment day will never come for them (James Baldwin, No Name In the Street, 1972). This is the best book by James Baldwin … Continue reading No Name in the Street
James Baldwin – Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone
Though Baldwin wrote about his own life a lot, Baldwin's 1968 novel Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone seems like the closest he came to writing a full-length autobiography. It's written in the first person and as his biographer David Leeming notes, a lot of the micro- and macro-level details of protagonist Leo Proudhammer's … Continue reading James Baldwin – Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone
What I’ve Learned Bringing Kendrick Lamar into my Classroom
[This post is part of a broader project I'm calling "Pop Culture Pedagogy" where I write about ways pop culture finds its way into my classroom] When Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize today, I think more than a few people probably dismissed it as somehow the committee trying to be trendy but that … Continue reading What I’ve Learned Bringing Kendrick Lamar into my Classroom
Ain’t Nothin’ New – Or – James Baldwin – Blues for Mister Charlie
[I put the James Baldwin reading project on hold for a while, but it's back.] In one of my classes, we just finished an almost quarter-long exploration of Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. One of the coolest things about studying this album with my students is that, for whatever reason, kids often share music with … Continue reading Ain’t Nothin’ New – Or – James Baldwin – Blues for Mister Charlie
From Slavery to Freedom – or – Why White People Need to Learn from Black History
I know your countrymen do not agree with me here and I hear them saying, "You exaggerate." They do not know Harlem and I do. So do you. Take no one's word for anything, including mine, but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit … Continue reading From Slavery to Freedom – or – Why White People Need to Learn from Black History
What I Mean by White Supremacy
"The bondage of the Negro brought captive from Africa is one of the greatest dramas in history, and the writer who merely sees in that ordeal something to approve or condemn fails to understand the evolution of the human race." (Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro) Back at that anti-racism workshop in Hyde Park … Continue reading What I Mean by White Supremacy
What is White Supremacy? Does it Exist? One try at explaining these questions
Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shivering and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, … Continue reading What is White Supremacy? Does it Exist? One try at explaining these questions
Original Positions 