Biography on James Baldwin

James Arthur Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, August 2, 1924 and grew up in a household headed by a loving mother and an abusive stepfather. At an early age, Baldwin began reading very selective book catalogs of various local libraries. By the age of 14, he had become a well-known, young minister at the Fireside Pentecostal Church in Harlem and wrote articles for his church and high school magazines. After graduating from high school, he worked as a journalist writing book reviews and essays for the The New Leader, The Nation, Commentary, and Partisan Review.

Throughout the years, James Baldwin had received many achievements. In 1948, he won a grant from the Rosenwald Fellowship, which motivated him to move to France that same year. In 1953, James Baldwin published his first novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain, which was based on his experiences as a teenage minister in Harlem. His second novel, Giovanni’s Room, spoke about a love triangle between two men and a woman living in Paris. In 1957, he returned to the United States and became a firebrand in the struggle for desegregating Southern schools. He joined forces with Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers and others who worked toward the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s. During the JFK Administration, Baldwin organized a historic meeting between Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and various African American notables, including Lorraine Hansberry and Dr. Kenneth Clark, designed to inform the Attorney General of the Black scene in America. In 1970, he bought a house in the south of France, which became his main residence. In 1983, Baldwin began teaching Afro-American Studies at Five Colleges of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He taught and lectured at many universities and colleges up until he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in 1987, from which he died on November 30, of that year.

Overall, James Baldwin was a very strong and confident young African American. He made changes in many lives and in the African American society. He had a very strong spirit and carried it along with him all the way to his grave. He is definitely a great person to look up to and he has many great achievements.