James Baldwin: 1924-1987

James Arthur Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York City, on August 2, 1924. From ages 14 to 16 he was active as a preacher in a small revivalist church.

After high school he began a restless period of ill-paid jobs, self-study, and literary apprenticeship in New York City. Disgusted with America's racial injustice Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France, but often returned to the USA to lecture or teach.

In 1957 he returned to the U.S. in order to become involved in the Southern school desegregation struggle.

"The Fire next Time", published in 1963, in which he talked about the Black Muslim (Nation of Islam) movement, and warned that violence would result if white America does not change its attitudes toward black Americans, became a bestseller. After the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 and drawbacks in civil-rights movement, Baldwin started bitterly to acknowledge that violence may be the only route to racial justice. He spent his last years in St. Paul de Vence on the Riviera in France, where he died of stomach cancer on November 30, 1987.