James Baldwin, American Author

James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 - December 1, 1987) was an American novelist and social critic. Baldwin's novels and plays fictionalize fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures thwarting the equitable integration of not only African-Americans, but also gay and bisexual men, while depicting some internalized obstacles to such individuals quests for acceptance. Disillusioned by American prejudice against blacks, he left the United States at the age of 24 and settled in Paris. In Paris, Baldwin was soon involved in the cultural radicalism of the Left Bank. Baldwin returned to the United States in the summer of 1957 while civil rights legislation of that year was being debated in Congress. He aligned himself with the ideals of the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. By the spring of 1963, the mainstream press began to recognize Baldwin's incisive analysis of white racism and his eloquent descriptions of the Negro's pain and frustration. He rejected the label civil rights activist, or that he had participated in a civil rights movement, instead agreeing with Malcolm X's assertion that if one is a citizen, one should not have to fight for one's civil rights. He died in 1987, at the age of 63, from stomach cancer. Photographed by Carl Van Vechten, September 13, 1955

Restrictions Only for Ireland and United Kingdom

Critic Essayist Expatriate Homosexual Negro Negroes Vechten

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