8. James Baldwin

CHARLES REESE

8. JAMES BALDWIN

Artist as Activist and the Baldwin/Kennedy Secret Summit of 1963

Let us say that we all live through more than we can say or see. A life, in retrospect, can seem like the torrent of water opening or closing over one’s head and, in retrospect, is blurred, swift, kaleidoscopic like that. One does not wish to remember—one is perhaps not able to remember—the holding of one’s breath under water, the miracle of rising up far enough to breathe, and then, the going under again; or the tremendous difference between the light beneath the water and the light when one comes up to the sky.—James Baldwin (Baldwin & Kenan, 2010, p. 109)

ACT I: ARTIST-ACTIVISTS Quinn Eli (1997), in his book, Many Strong and Beautiful Voices: Quotations from Africans throughout the Diaspora, describes creativity and the qualities of an artist in the following way: Creativity isn’t a quality possessed only by artists. Rather, it’s the most essential ingredient in a meaningful and fulfilling life. The qualities that make an artist—passion, vision, an unerring sense of style, a determination to breathe life into a world grown old and stale—are not limited to those who wield a paintbrush, a pen, or a camera. Anyone can possess an artist’s imagination. We’re challenged to approach everything about our lives with a creative spark. (pp. 35-36) Thus, according to Eli, everyone is an artist—or, at the very least, everybody possesses a creative spark, and that creative spark sometimes shows up in the form of activism. The year 2013 marked the 50th anniversary of the civil rights journey in the United States. The most catalytic events in the struggle for civil rights, also known as the Civil Rights Movement, occurred in 1963: The 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and publication of James Baldwin’s prophetic book, The Fire Next Time (January 1963); Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 1963); the brutal murder of NAACP civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi (June 1963); Malcolm X’s Unity Rally in Harlem, New York (June 1963); the historic march on Washington, DC (August 1963); the devastating death of four young girls (Addie Mae Collins, Denise

McNair, Carol Robertson, and Cynthia Diane Morris Wesley) as a result of the bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama (September 1963); and the shocking assassination of President John Kennedy in Dallas, Texas (November 1963). In many respects, this was really the year of the burning soul of America—a call to use all forms of political action, including art, history, education, and culture, to advance the struggle for human and civil rights in the United States and around the world. American writer and artist-activist James Baldwin played a significant role in literature, politics, art, culture, and activism in 1963. He was the author of dozens of highly praised works, including non-fiction books, essays, plays, and novels. He was passion; he was fire. He was black and homosexual at a moment in history when it could be harmful to be either. He was an expatriate who left New York to live in France in the 1940s, returning to the United States to serve as an artist- activist for the Civil Rights Movement. He utilized his celebrity status as an American writer, the power of his pen, and his unapologetic, challenging voice as a tool for social change.

ACT II: HOWARD SIMON AND JAMES BALDWIN: A SOUL ON FIRE In the fall of 1981, Howard B. Simon enrolled at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. At the same time, Baldwin was spending time on the campus of the Atlanta University Center, also known as the AUC. The AUC is the largest consortium of historically black colleges and universities in the United States. In addition to the all-male Morehouse, there is the all-female Spelman College, Clark College (co-ed), Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University), Morris Brown College (co-ed), and the International Theological Center. Like James Baldwin, Simon as a young child was also encouraged to preach the gospel (as Baldwin would say in his book, Go Tell It On The Mountain). And their journeys would lead both men to the same city at a time when the Atlanta child murders were receiving national and international attention. These murders reminded some of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham; however, this time more than two-dozen black boys had been killed between 1979 and 1981 in the progressive city of Atlanta. (Wayne Williams, a young black man, was eventually tried for those murders.) Baldwin was hired by Playboy magazine to write a story on the murders (he would later describe his task as “bearing witness”). Baldwin’s story eventuated in the publication of his reportage book, The Evidence of Things Not Seen (Page, 1985). Although Baldwin and Simon did not cross paths during that time, Simon’s love for Baldwin’s work grew immensely during his days as an undergraduate at Morehouse, as did his passion for writing and the goal of becoming a writer. After graduating from Morehouse College and reading more of Baldwin’s eclectic works (including Go Tell On Tell On The Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, The Fire Next Time, Nobody Knows My Name, and Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone), Simon (along with his Morehouse College classmate, Charles Reese) went in search of Baldwin at his home in the southern part of France in the summer

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