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PROPHETIC URGENCY: THE 1963 JAMES BALDWIN AND MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. WARNINGS TO AMERICA CARLY LUCAS UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO [email protected]

artin Luther King’s prophetic speaking minister, who eventually settled in southern M skills and poignant rhetoric made the France, was the more cosmopolitan of the of a matter of two. However, while Baldwin left the church, urgent public concern at a crucial moment in the church never left Baldwin. In other words, American history. His “Letter from a Baldwin stayed deeply influenced by his Birmingham Jail” offered a white audience congregation and what he learned during his not only justification for nonviolent civil time at the pulpit. King, on the other hand, disobedience in Alabama and the greater was reared in Black Atlanta and the Baptist South but also a forewarning of the church sustained his commitment to it for the to come, should his words go unheeded. rest of his life. For both activists, the Baptist “Oppressed people," he warned, “cannot church instilled the importance of humanity remain oppressed forever.”1 This 1963 and justice, giving each a rhetorical statement appeared against the background of framework for their prophetic warnings to images of children and nonviolent marchers America. Significantly, there has not been a attacked by hoses and snarling dogs. Also in published historical juxtaposition of these 1963, James Baldwin published The Fire Next men or these works. However, many scholars, Time. His intention was to inform White such as Charles Payne, have spoken to a America of the brutal perils facing African shifting organizing paradigm, embraced by American citizens as a last hope before youth organizers, which started around the America’s already “burning house” turned to time that Baldwin and King’s works were ashes.2 Baldwin called for a full recognition published.3 Comparing Baldwin and King of the effects of a history of institutionalized allows historians to understand what these plaguing African American shifts meant to their generation and how it communities. affected their movement and the discourse on Both pieces, published in 1963, offer race they encouraged up until 1963. an opportunity to compare these two engaged the extraordinary writer-critics: their upbringings, reader in a vivid illustration of the despair connections to their churches, their writing facing , and Black America more styles, and their understandings of race and generally. Similarly, King’s epistle to White racism. Baldwin, a New Yorker, and once a America proclaimed the urgency of African Americans’ demand for social justice. Both

1 essays offered an understanding of the Martin Luther King, Jr., The Autobiography of Martin psychological effects of segregation and racial Luther King, Jr., ed. (New York: Grand Central Publishing and Hatchette Book Group, 1998), 197. 3 For more information see: Charles M. Payne, I've Got 2 James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time in Collected the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and Essays, ed. (New York: Library of the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. (Berkeley: America, 1998), 340. University of California Press, 2007).

Symposia 8 (2017): 1-15. © The Author 2017. Published by University of Toronto. All rights reserved. 2 SYMPOSIA

bigotry in America. This paper analyzes how, that could outweigh the denial of through their writings, James Baldwin and paternal love. A “precocious child of the Martin Luther King, Jr. attempted to find their ghetto,” young James regularly witnessed and places in the Black Freedom Struggle, against analyzed the pervasive degradation of the the backdrop of an increasingly militant lived conditions in his neighborhood in approach to these issues.4 This paper also Harlem.6 His own failings as a son and his studies how the comparison of these activists feelings of hopelessness within Black and their rhetoric offers an understanding of America were mutually reinforcing. the differing influences of the Northern and While Dr. Martin Luther King was Southern wings of the Movement. famous for his pastoral oratory, it is less While this analysis focuses primarily on known, however, that James Baldwin had a The Fire Next Time and “Letter from close affiliation with the church as well. Birmingham Jail,” it addresses additional Baldwin took on a role as a preacher for three sources to supplement the argument. years, starting at fourteen.7 As his dream to Throughout their lives, both writers grew as write was squashed by socially imposed activists and thinkers; however, this paper conceptions of his blackness, he found the does not address political understandings that church to be one of a few “gimmick[s]” that surpass the publications of these documents. was socially acceptable for a young African American man.8 Because of his broken The Church and Fatherly Roles relationship with his father, Baldwin desperately “wanted to be somebody’s little David Baldwin, James Baldwin’s father boy.”9 And, because of his skin, he was at played a painful role in Baldwin’s life, “the mercy of so many conundrums … contributing to his tortured search for someone would have taken [him] over.”10 In acceptance.5 As a child, James longed for the 1940s Harlem, it was either the streets or the church.

4 This paper understands militancy as a non-negotiable demand for authentic Black freedom. It posed an immediate threat the edifice of White Supremacy. This father. For more information see: David Leeming, is not to say that King did not effectively confront James Baldwin: A Biography, (New York: Alfred A American racism. In fact, the efficacy of his movement Knopf, Inc., 1994), 3-29. succeeded in one way because it garnered attention 6 David Leeming, James Baldwin, 13. from J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI as a dangerous 7 James Baldwin, Notes of a in Baldwin: group. However, militancy was often deemed more Collected Essays, vol. 2, ed. Toni Morrison (New radical and harder to digest for mainstream White York: , 1998), 5. America than King’s nonviolent modes of organizing. 8 James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time in Baldwin, 301. Throughout this paper, I examine of Islam 9 In David Leeming’s , James Baldwin: A as the militant activists that King and Baldwin warned Biography, we see how the relationship between of to White America. King’s movement was more Baldwin and his father was strained by Baldwin’s willing to negotiate with White people, whereas the “illegitimacy.” Born out of wedlock, Baldwin’s father denounced all White people and blamed him for the circumstances of his birth. Baldwin sought Black freedom without consideration for and recalled that his father found his existence “primitive” any involvement of White people. King and Baldwin and un-Christlike. This abusive dynamic was at its both understood how these opposing forces would lead most extreme when David suffered from times of to violence and havoc in America. mental instability, which grew more frequent towards 5 The identity of Baldwin’s biological father is the end of his life. He died in 1943. Leeming suggests unknown. However, David Baldwin, his stepfather, that this dynamic is what pushed Baldwin to the pulpit. fulfilled a father-figure role for Baldwin, so much that For more information see: David Leeming, James he seldom refers to David as anything but his “father.” Baldwin, 7. This paper thus refers to David Baldwin as Baldwin’s 10 Ibid., 303. LUCAS / PROPHETIC URGENCY 3

Baldwin temporarily thrived within became the fourth.14 His father, Martin Luther the church; however, he soon became King, Sr. was the son of a sharecropper from disappointed with the lack of motivation Stockbridge, Georgia. King Sr., or Daddy within his congregation. He lamented that King, challenged racism at an early age, after similar principles governed Black and White seeing a white man who demoralized his churches alike: “Blindness, Loneliness, and father.15 Daddy King acted as president of the Terror, the first principle necessarily and Atlanta NAACP and fought for equal salaries actively cultivated in order to deny the two for teachers and against “Jim Crow elevators others.”11 Baldwin saw the therapeutic in the courthouse.”16 As opposed to Baldwin, function of the Northern church: songs and who grew up witness to a father traumatized rhythmic clapping superficially distracted by internalized racism, King grew up with from self-loathing and despair, brought about constant affirmations of self-love and models by an internalized racism. His time in the of activism. In The Autobiography of Martin pulpit further developed his understanding of Luther King, Jr., King explained that his the ways that racism was not only mother “instilled a sense of self-respect in all institutionalized, but also psychologically of her children from the very beginning.”17 ingrained into Americans. King’s hopeful stance regarding African In one part of The Fire Next Time, American advancement, through , “My Dungeon Shook,” a letter written to his was a legacy of this parental support. It is namesake and nephew, Baldwin warned his significant that though Baldwin’s father was nephew not to succumb to these racial less resilient to racial trauma than King’s realities. In this letter, Baldwin spoke of an father was, both men’s mothers offered love inferiority complex that afflicted African in the face of adversity. Baldwin’s mother Americans. His most significant experience of exhibited adoration and encompassing this disparaging social construction was that it tenderness that countered internalized killed his father. He explained to his nephew racism.18 that his grandfather “was defeated long before The ideals present in King’s home he died because, at the bottom of his heart, he were also represented in the larger Baptist really believed what white people said about community. The Southern church provided a him.”12 Baldwin, although not a father haven for African American Christians, a himself, hoped that his nephew would not place that reminded people of their worth and take on the same insufferable bitterness that fortified them to prevail against the woes of he had inherited.13 segregation and bigotry. During his first In contrast, Martin Luther King, Jr. sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, inherited a model of self-love, almost 1954, King preached, “Dexter, like all impervious to racism, from both his parents churches, must somehow lead men and and the church. Southern deeply women of a decadent generation to the high cemented the Black South. King, born from mountain of peace and salvation.”19 To King, three generations of preachers, eventually the church brought those “on the brink of

11 Ibid., 305. 14 King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Autobiography of 12 Ibid., 291. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1. 13 Phillip Lopate, “Teaching James Baldwin,” in The 15 Ibid, 4. Teachers & Writers Guide to Classic American 16 Ibid, 5. Literature, ed., Christopher Edgar and Gary Lenhart, 17 Ibid, 3. (Teachers & Writers Collaborative in Association with 18 David Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 8. the Library of America, 2001), 183. 19 Ibid, 45. 4 SYMPOSIA

despair, a new bent on life.”20 The promises situated this trust with respect to the larger of racial and spiritual uplift through the social context, reflecting that the success of church’s continual emphasis on human the Montgomery Boycott fortified the dignity emboldened him. congregation’s hope. He explained, “The joy While Baldwin was cognizant of the which filled this church … was the joy despair that he and other churchgoers were achieved by people who had ceased to delude tormented by, the Northern church did not themselves about an intolerable situation, who alleviate his inherited anguish, but further have found their prayers for a leader awakened him to disheartening oppression. miraculously answered, and who now know To Baldwin, the Northern church lacked the that they can change their situation.”26 In therapeutic efficacy that the Southern church other words, to Baldwin, the difference cultivated. Its vision was too narrow and between the Northern and Southern churches exclusive. In the early forties, when Baldwin was in part influenced by the relationship of parted from the church, he had an inchoate its activists to the movement. understanding of his queerness, and began to Baldwin’s experiences in the Northern perceive the world around him through an church emphasized the importance of artistic perspective.21 Most significantly, in togetherness, but only in the sense that all the 1940, Baldwin realized his “illegitimacy” and members were equally lost. The lack of his father’s hatred of him because of it.22 organization in the Northern church as Questioning the authenticity of his church, he compared to that in the South troubled decided to leave it. Baldwin’s biographer, Baldwin. He recalled how as a preacher he David Leeming explains, “The wider wished to tell his congregation “to throw possibilities of the arts and the flesh had won away their Bibles and get off their knees and out over the narrowness of the church.”23 go home and organize, for example a rent Baldwin’s analytical tendencies, strike.”27 In King’s church, Baldwin intersectional identity, and rearing in the experienced been a genuine sense of North made him more critical of the church in community centered around religious ideas, The Fire Next Time, than King was in “Letter where members experienced strength in the from Birmingham Jail.” face of struggle and social optimism. However, the Southern church had Furthermore, although Baldwin never something that churches in the North did not. fathered children, King used his fatherly role Baldwin experienced this in 1959, upon to garner support for the Movement in “Letter hearing King preach for the first time. He from Birmingham Jail.” King responded to a reflected: “There was a feeling in this church white summons for patience within the Black which quite transcended anything I have ever Freedom Movement, explaining how difficult felt in a church before.”24 Baldwin it is to “Wait.”28 He protested that the white experienced an environment where trust in clergymen will never “suddenly find [their] spiritual truth allowed for the “sustenance for tongue twisted and your speech stammering another day’s journey.”25 However, he as [they] seek to explain to [their] six-year-old daughter why … Funtown is closed to colored children … and see ominous clouds of 20 Ibid. inferiority beginning to form in her little 21 Ibid, 27-33. 22 Ibid, 31. 23 Ibid. 26 Ibid., 644. 24 Baldwin, “The Dangerous Road Before Martin 27 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time in Baldwin, 309. Luther King” in Baldwin, 643. 28 King, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., 25 Ibid. 192. LUCAS / PROPHETIC URGENCY 5 mental sky.”29 This, King insisted, was why projects and playgrounds have his community could no longer “Wait.” Here, failed to do: to heal and he stressed that though the white clergy would redeem drunkards and junkies, never viscerally understand the plight of the to convert people who have “,” they must open their eyes to the come out of prison and to keep realities of their fellow Americans. them out.32 Baldwin, too, reflected on his fears for His followers—known as Black Muslims— the next generation, explaining that racism, had established a substantial place in African from a young age, is internalized, and thus American life by 1961.33 Muhammad’s controls its victims.30 King emphasized the charisma and validation of African increased responsibility of fatherhood within Americans’ humanity empowered the NOI Black America in order to combat this and its movement. external influence. Baldwin also depicted Desensitized to Muslim discourse in racism’s affliction on youth, tending to see Harlem, Baldwin explained that he was most African American children as spiritual impressed by the fear that Muhammad’s orphans like him. organization instilled in White America. Normally, Baldwin reflected, the police Takes on Militancy dispersed African American political gatherings, but they acted cautiously around By 1963, demands for freedom and dignity NOI speaking events. Their sudden change in had become urgent. In the South, nonviolent attitude did not come from a newly born protests turned into frustrated riots.31 The humanity, but “because they were afraid,” dominant Southern approach to nonviolent Baldwin explained, “and I was delighted to organizing was losing momentum. In the see it.”34 Where the Northern church lacked North, a different religious response the organizational force that we see in its germinated. The Honorable Elijah Southern counterpart, the NOI, through Muhammad founded the Nation of Islam militancy, gave African Americans a power (NOI) in 1930. Muhammad grew up with which White people in power were not traumatized by racism, after seeing his father ready to reckon.35 This willingness to act by lynched when Muhammad was six years old. their own script appealed to Northern African In The Fire Next Time, Baldwin described Americans, who were socially slighted by Muhammad's reactionary organization as a racist legislation and whose grievance went reverberation of discourses that he had heard unrecognized. The unpredictability of the throughout his life. For Baldwin, NOI came from their bold approach to race Muhammad’s relationship to African relations. They would not determine their Americans was in certain respects actions based on the White stage and its rules. revolutionary. According to Baldwin, he was The NOI was able to relate to Northern able to do what generations of African Americans so to offer them an intense welfare workers and

committees and resolutions 32 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time in Baldwin, 316. and reports and housing 33 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 188. 34 Ibid., 314. 35 This paper understands militancy as an unrelenting 29 Ibid. mobilized force against racism and racially oppressive 30 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time in Baldwin, 303. institutions. A militant movement promotes racial 31 , Parting The Waters: America in the consciousness, determined nonnegotiable goals. It is King Years, 1954-63 (New York: Touchstone, 1988), often seen as “radical” and a national threat by the 618. status quo. 6 SYMPOSIA

hope, in exchange for their dedication.36 Thus, White claims of superiority and denied their the NOI created a power that the police could justification to his followers. White people, he not overthrow. For the first time, Baldwin saw asserted, were evil and their powerful reign the police intimidated, unsure of themselves. was coming to an end. According to Baldwin, The force of the NOI convinced Baldwin that Muhammad meant every word he spoke: his its founder deserved his attention. discourse, though far-fetched at times, was Baldwin’s appreciation from a empowering. His proclamations disavowed distance for intensified the truths White America professed, exposed after an engagement with the leader and his the silent suffering of African Americans, and NOI members. As described in The Fire Next offered African Americans an unapologetic Time, Baldwin accepted a request to have and unashamed confidence. dinner at the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s However, James Baldwin was not house.37 Muhammad’s presence eased totally convinced. He understood Baldwin, “how his smile promised to take the Muhammad’s efficacy and even appreciated burden of [Baldwin’s] life off [his] his ideology, but he could not totally align shoulders.”38 Baldwin recalled feelings of himself with their movement. First, Baldwin acceptance that compared to familial unity. questioned the promised solutions of the NOI. Baldwin’s need for a validating father figure On the car ride home from dinner, because could, in part, account for his immediate Black Muslims always promised their guest’s veneration for Muhammad.39 Further, contact safety from the “white devils,” he discussed with Muhammad's prophecy of White racial solutions with his driver.42 He did not America's impending comeuppance and his intend to challenge the driver’s beliefs, in vision of black beauty and destiny seemed to fact, he felt a connection to him, and he respond to Baldwin ideas about race, wanted to convince himself of the feasibility grounded in the recognition of his wounded of the proposed solutions. To Baldwin’s sense of self.40 dismay, “He was held together, in short, by a Muhammad uplifted a frustrated and dream … united with his ‘brothers’ on the tired population, especially in the North, basis of their color.”43 Baldwin hoped that where racial cruelties were ignored by White Muhammad and his organization could America and hidden behind a curtained effectively lift up Northern African ghetto. If the Southern movement opposed Americans, but instead he saw his tactics as blatant bigotry, how could the North fight lacking strategy. what was systematized and invisible? Baldwin disagreed with the color Muhammad responded to oppression rooted ideologies of the Elijah Muhammad. To the in economic inequality and internalized NOI, the demonized white man could never within a racial hierarchy that insisted Black out step the lowly boundaries of his skin. people’s situations were spurred by their own Baldwin did not hold such disdain for the inadequacies. He unapologetically asserted, White race. While he felt, and witnessed, the “There is thus, by definition, no virtue in terror campaign of the general White public, white people.”41 With his boldness, he refused he trusted and befriended some White people. As a child, Baldwin met a young White woman: “It was certainly partly because of 36 Ibid, 315. 37 Ibid, 323. her, who arrived in my terrifying life so soon, 38 Ibid. 39 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 189. 40 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time in Baldwin, 324, 327. 42 Ibid, 331. 41 Ibid., 325. 43 Ibid, 333. LUCAS / PROPHETIC URGENCY 7 that I never really managed to hate white political, racial, and social agenda. In his people.’”44 Significantly, in The Fire Next Autobiography, King wrote of the NOI: Time, he reflected on the irony that after his “Nourished by the Negro’s frustration of the meeting with Muhammad, he “was going to continued existence of racial discrimination, have a drink with several [of the] white this movement is made up of people who devils” from whom the NOI wanted to protect have lost faith in America, who have him.45 Although similarly terrorized by absolutely repudiated Christianity.”49 He did racism, as were NOI members, Baldwin could not deeply consider or assess the ways that not repress his doubts about their solutions. Islamic doctrine could have helped NOI To White America, the NOI, its followers overcome their racial traumas, as policies, and beliefs were incomprehensible. Christianity did for him and other African White liberals could not bypass what they saw Americans in the South. as the irrational radicalism of Black Muslims’ King trusted that his movement was “dream.” This blinkered perception White America’s last chance to negotiate with disallowed an understanding or even an African Americans. He stood in between the awareness of the NOI’s Islam’s ability “to more militant African American movement provide the African American with a pride and white moderates. He described a middle that the Christian church had failed to ground between Black-only Nationalist furnish.”46 In order for White people to movements and the complacency of the White understand the power of the NOI, they would majority.50 Without a nonviolent movement have had to understand the emotional truths of protest, King asserted, the streets would that lay behind its Black-only ideology. This flow with blood.51 Equally troubling, he required a capacity for self-reflection that acknowledged that if white people insisted on White America could not muster. White the status quo, and continued to see him and America, Baldwin believed, was in denial of his organization, the Southern Christian its racial injustice, and in order to recognize Leadership Conference (SCLC), as outsiders its brutal behavior would need to face and “rabble-rousers,” frustrated African reality.47 Baldwin knew they were actually Americans would see no other solution than projecting a skewed reality, in which the the “solace and security in Black Nationalist White man judged before he could be judged. ideologies—a development that would Escaping from the influence of this distorted inevitably lead to a frightening racial reality “is to be released from the tyranny of nightmare.”52 The two men’s description of this mirror.”48 White people’s dismissal of the is the most cunning NOI, he asserted, emphasized their intersection between “Letter from disconnection from Black suffering, and thus Birmingham Jail” and The Fire Next Time.53 their role as perpetuators of this suffering. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that 49 King, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., Elijah Muhammad’s following resulted from 197. 50 a latent disdain for an incurably racist nation. Ibid, 197. 51 Ibid. It is notable that King, here, mainly described 52 Ibid. the pulls of the NOI as pertaining to its 53 Black Nationalism discourse stressed that people of African descent constitute a political nation. To achieve the political power for this nation required 44 Leeming, James Baldwin, 14. structures and resources that spoke to the community’s 45 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 331. needs. Some Nationalists focused on the cultural 46 Leeming, James Baldwin, 188. components of Nationalist discourse. For example, 47 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 340. Black people, globally, should embrace Africanness 48 Ibid, 341. and a commitment to the African Diaspora. For the 8 SYMPOSIA

King was a devout Christian and a [was] moving with a sense of great urgency preacher of Jesus. It is, therefore, not toward the promised land of racial justice.”56 surprising that his understanding of the NOI King’s language is notable. He identified this depicted members as having lost sight of the sense of “urgency” as unstoppable. The Christian message and in search of something authors depicted Nationalism within their untainted by whiteness. Baldwin, on the other, warning to White America as a foil to hand had a more nuanced critique of religion, demonstrate the necessity that they negotiate as he often even scrutinized his own beliefs with the nonviolent movement. and their contradictions. While he recognized that Black Muslims willfully embraced the Nonviolence notion that their oppressors were indeed the devils they experienced them to be, his Mindful of increasing militancy within the analysis of the NOI, its ideologies, and Movement, King continued to stress the practices dovetailed his critique of importance of nonviolence: “For there is the Christianity. He said, “The crowd seemed to more excellent way of love and nonviolent swallow this theology with no effort—all protest.”57 To him and many nonviolent crowds do swallow theology this way, I activists, nonviolence was not only a gather, in both sides of Jerusalem, in Istanbul, mechanism to achieve equality but more and in Rome.”54 This is not to say King importantly a lifestyle. Both Christianity and disavowed the NOI. Rather King understood Gandhi’s methods influenced his nonviolent that, if African Americans could not achieve lifestyle. As a leader of the struggle, King freedom through nonviolent civil could not fathom a response to bigotry with disobedience, the discourses of the NOI and any other forms of action than nonviolence. Black Nationalism would there support them. During his student years, before 1950, King And this was King’s warning. By disallowing saw armed revolt as the only solution to marches and protests, White America segregation.58 However, after hearing Dr. suppressed African Americans’ anger. King Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard recognized the need for these “latent University, speak in Philadelphia on Gandhi, frustrations” to find release, and if that were he was changed. Especially impressed by not done nonviolently, America would Gandhi’s Salt to the Sea and other succumb to a more extreme approach. forms of civil disobedience, King’s In King and Baldwin’s understanding “skepticism concerning the power of love of nationalism, we see their preference for gradually diminished.”59 For King, Gandhi’s nonviolence, universal love, and integration. movement wholeheartedly mirrored Jesus’ Both authors were vigilant and acute teachings of love.60 King modeled his observers of the racial environment. As activism after Gandhi’s movement, so much activists, they preferred a movement based on so that his biographer, Dr. Lawrence Reddick, love and human dignity.55 However, they both assured King that the success of his remained mindful of the dwindling patience nonviolent movement would be judged upon of their oppressed communities. King recognized that his people had been “caught up by the Zeitgeist … the United States Negro 56 King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., 197. purposes of this analysis, I understood the NOI in 57 Ibid. terms of both of these definitions. 58 Ibid., 23. 54 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 340. 59 Ibid. 55 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 145. 60 Ibid, 24. LUCAS / PROPHETIC URGENCY 9 the approval it gained from Gandhi and the movement. Baldwin was looking at the people of India.61 movement from the outside, while King was Baldwin's skepticism on this score inside looking out. Baldwin was primarily a again illuminated the differences between the scholar and observed and analyzed the North and the South. Upon hearing King movement’s activism, though he also preach, in 1958, about the power of love to participated in movement conversations with cure the diseased bigot, Baldwin “could not exceptional activists and members of the help but be impressed by the success of this Kennedy administration.65 His role outside of gospel in the face of bombs that had damaged the movement mirrored the way he chose to the very church in which King preached.”62 live his life. Baldwin, Leeming quotes, saw Baldwin did not see such tendencies in the himself as a sort of “bastard of the West.”66 Northern church. The Southern church, with This feeling emanated from his racial status in all its religious zeal, was the breeding ground America, as well as from his home-life, and for a vibrant nonviolent movement, making it his father’s rejection of him. He constantly difficult for the NOI or any other ideology moved in and out of settings, which almost spread to the early South. While aided his analysis and observation of them. Baldwin admired nonviolence, he also saw its From an early age, he researched and wrote pitfalls. He explained that nonviolence was brilliantly. As a teenager, he desired to move effective in that the White man did not want out of Harlem and relocated to Greenwich his body or property harmed.63 In this sense, Village, though he did not stop questioning Baldwin too believed that nonviolence was the sociohistorical circumstances that not an appeal to White morality, but a Harlem’s communities experienced. At centralized fight for freedom that did not twenty-four, he moved to to escape a damage White interests. Furthermore, he saw disillusioned sense of sexuality and race that the limits of nonviolence. It was America fostered. Baldwin’s lifestyle was that psychologically damaging to African of an observer, thinker, and writer. He had a Americans, because, within such a violent profound awareness of himself and society. country, “the only time that nonviolence has According to Baldwin, his been admired is when the Negroes practice understanding of American racism deepened it.”64 Baldwin underscored the fact that the with his travel experience. Baldwin escaped status quo expected African Americans to the biases of living within the American racial operate on different social standards. In the problem as an in Paris. In James heat of segregational vengeance, such as the Baldwin: A Biography, David Leeming violence that afflicted African American described Baldwin’s move as an effort to protesters in Birmingham, White America evade “the racial realities at home so that he expected protesters to respond peacefully. could become the writer he wanted to be.”67 In The Fire Next Time, Baldwin Baldwin removed himself from habitual agreed with King that nonviolent discourse American stances on class, race, and writing, stood between racism and explosive freeing him to examine his country. He reactionary violence. It is significant that explained, “Once you find yourself in another Baldwin and King’s different roles as activists civilization … you’re forced to examine your influenced their different takes on the

61 Ibid., 123. 62 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 145. 65 Ibid, 809. 63 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 321. 66 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 145. 64 Branch, Parting The Waters, 895. 67 Ibid., 56. 10 SYMPOSIA

own.”68 This realization reinforced Baldwin’s “a special army, with no supplies but its role in the movement as an outsider who often sincerity … no arsenal except its faith.”71 To looked inward to seek understanding, giving the shock of news viewers, throughout the him a different, and more radical perspective world, ruthless violence met King’s than that of King. nonviolent army, blown into walls with fire King, in contrast, acted on the hoses held by White government officials. frontlines of the Movement. Theorizing was The violence was clear and undeniable; secondary. Therefore, it was easier for segregationists even attacked nonviolent Baldwin to play with different ideas of children. These brutalities had to be activism, never having to pick one to perform. addressed. To King, not only was nonviolence morally These brutalities set the stage for righteous, but it also brought about an King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” After effective tension. In “Letter from Birmingham being arrested in Birmingham, King saw a Jail,” he explained that nonviolent direct newspaper in which White clergymen, of action catalyzed a tension in such a way “that various faiths, criticized his demonstrations.72 a community which has constantly refused to King answered the article with his famous negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”69 “Letter.” In it, King cautioned the eight Here, for King, there was only one feasible critical clergymen of the danger of their way to create a solution: by seeking dialogue complacency. Taylor Branch argued, in his in the South through this creative tension. Parting the Waters, the “unexpected miracles King’s impassioned nonviolent of the Birmingham movement later discourse instilled confidence in activists that transformed King’s letter from a silent cry of followed the minister’s lead. In an interview desperate hope to a famous pronouncement of with Henry Morgenthau III, Baldwin attested moral triumph.”73 While King had tangible to King’s impressive nonviolent commitment: evidence of Southern racial realities, his “Martin’s a very rare, very great man … He’s argument for the necessity of nonviolent a real Christian. He really believes in action was indisputably moral. King’s nonviolence.”70 By 1963, activists attuned to commitment to nonviolence offered him the King’s allegiance to nonviolence and to the righteous authority to respond to criticisms of high moral authority he had earned from that his movement while exposing the racist commitment. King gave African Americans terrorism that white people refused to hope that through a moral struggle, they could confront. achieve their freedom. However, this hope dwindled as the immorality of White America King’s Dilemma proved unrelenting. With the SCLC, King led nonviolent In 1961, Baldwin predicted that King’s in Southern cities, culminating movement would not succeed in transforming with the Birmingham Movement in 1963. America’s toxic racial atmosphere. In a piece With the global media focused on what was entitled “The Dangerous Road Before Martin described as “Bombingham,” King organized Luther King,” Baldwin explained to Harper’s Magazine readers that King’s efficacy as a leader was fading. Baldwin explicitly stated, 68 PBS, “James Baldwin, About the Author,” , November 29, 2006. 69 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 190. 71 King, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., 70 PBS Video, KQED. “James Baldwin from ‘The 179. Negro and the American Promise.” American 72 Ibid.. 187. Experience, http://video.pbs.org/video/2112495022/. 73 Branch, Parting The Waters, 744. LUCAS / PROPHETIC URGENCY 11

“King has had an extraordinary effect in the and Southern responses to the Movement and Negro world ... and is now in the center of an organizational methods. In other words, the extremely complex crossfire.”74 The politics North, having more religious diversity, made of the Movement put tremendous pressure on room for diverse ideological responses to King, bringing his successes to a standstill. oppression and movement strategy. White people’s belief in African American Nevertheless, the analytical Baldwin saw the inferiority continued to mold race relations. benefits to nonviolence and the threat it posed How was King’s genuine dialogue possible to the American social structure. He predicted with a White America that was unwilling to what King fearfully realized in a 1963 face its own egregious ? Montgomery jail cell—the African American Furthermore, as a result of King’s lack community would find another solution to of political pull, Baldwin anticipated a racism and inequality should nonviolence not revolutionary response to King’s dilemma. He answer their call. observed a “moral revolution” of the young people, as a gap emerged between “official Telling Rhetoric leadership” and youthful activists: “the sons and daughters of the beleaguered bourgeoisie King was wholeheartedly committed to the … have begun a revolution in the nonviolent ideology that he articulated so consciousness of this country which will eloquently. Baldwin praised King for his inexorably destroy nearly all that we now conceptualization of the racial issue and saw think of as a concrete and indisputable.”75 his “honesty and courage … [as] most They would not, like King, pursue a cautious impressive.”78 He believed that King’s and measured response to skewed racial relationship to his audience, whether in perceptions. Instead, they would be willing to speaking or writing, was powerful because of uproot America’s social structure. The early his intimate understanding of that audience, sixties suggested to Baldwin that freedom both Black and White.79 These skills made could not be achieved through a patient and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” connect to the peaceful movement, but something more White reader, who desperately tried to remain urgent would respond. distanced from King’s movement. To King, Black Nationalism was In his “Letter” King exemplified, both rooted in hate.76 Baldwin was better able to a deep understanding of African Americans’ understand its complexities because its roots affliction, as well as a compassionate started and gained popularity in the North. connection to his White critics. In Parting the Baldwin understood that Elijah Muhammad’s Waters, Branch analyzes King’s literary Black Nationalism ideology brought strategy: “At first King denounced the white “religious hope to the black dispossessed.”77 preachers for their shortcomings, as though Whereas in the South, King, and activists like speaking from a pulpit … As he continued him, were focused on the Church. This with his usual themes on the failures of the difference between King and Baldwin showed church his wrath turned slowly into a the fundamental disparities within Northern lament.”80 For example, after his three-

74 Baldwin, “The Dangerous Road Before Martin 78 Baldwin, James Baldwin to Martin Luther King, Jr. 6 Luther King” in Baldwin, 643. May 1960, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project, 75 Ibid., 656. Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. 76 King, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., 79 Baldwin, “The Dangerous Road Before Martin 197. Luther King” in Baldwin, 644. 77 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 213. 80 Branch, Parting The Waters, 742. 12 SYMPOSIA

hundred-word explanation of why Black Baldwin, with no such ties to protect, could people can no longer “Wait,” he did not speak with unapologetic urgency about the chastise the white oppressor.81 Rather, he plight of Black America, as he did in a heated used his eloquence to make his struggle confrontation with Robert Kennedy that poignant and vivid. He even sympathized stunned the Attorney General.85 with White people for their inability to His penchant for prophecy in the viscerally relate to the Black struggle, apocalyptic sense is visible at the end of The offering them a common ground to meet— Fire Next Time’s longer , “Down at the Christian brotherhood.82 As Baldwin certified, Cross.” At a time of explosive crossfire, King had a gentle and intimate way of Baldwin gave one solution: relating to his readers, one that transcended If we—and now I mean the racial tension and frustration so to give hope relatively conscious whites and to a new, loving future. the relatively conscious blacks, Baldwin’s rhetoric was less emollient. who must, like lovers, insist First, it is important to recognize that Baldwin on, or create, the did not have to cater his words to the consciousness of the others— sensitivities of his readers. King, as a do not falter in our duty now, figurehead of the Black Freedom Struggle, we may be able, handful that needed to maintain a certain political we are, to end the racial correctness and soften his lament to provide nightmare, and achieve our comfort to White listeners and satisfy White country … If we do not now standards of acceptability. As Baldwin dare everything, the fulfillment explained, the White community was not able of that prophecy, re-created to take accountability for the pangs that from the Bible in song by a afflicted African Americans. King’s job was slave, is upon us: G[-]d gave to negotiate for Black Freedom with the Noah the rainbow sign, No White power structure. It was a delicate more water, the fire next balance, to speak the truth of his people time!86 without offending White people and their His ominous words seared the consciousness denial, which would likely cause them leave of his readers, offering a fearful ultimatum. the conversation altogether. While Baldwin Here, Baldwin circumnavigated the context of rose to acclaim, especially after The Fire Next his book. He explicated the racial experience Time released, he did not have to worry about of the Harlem “Negro,” and warned of the maintaining ties with the Kennedy desperate methods that this “Negro” was administration at this time, whereas King taking on to validate blackness. However, he did.83 The necessity that King stay within the still offered hope. The conscious members of bounds of their expectations became evident both races must sensually and years later when he spoke against President wholeheartedly, the way lovers intimately Johnson’s stance on Vietnam and was come together, expand their consciousness. consequently shunned by the administration.84 He warned that if this did not happen the racial injustices that have pervaded history would be replaced by a “fire” that would 81 King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., 198. smother the earth, like G-d’s flood. Baldwin 82 Ibid., 204. 83 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 214. 84 King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Autobiography of 85 Branch, Parting The Waters, 812. Martin Luther King, Jr., 342. 86 Baldwin, The Fire Next Time in Baldwin, 346. LUCAS / PROPHETIC URGENCY 13 does not sugarcoat his depiction of the race Movement. In The Fire Next Time, one of his issue or his depiction of what would happen less radical pieces, Baldwin illustrated the should it go unrecognized. Instead, the writer Northern Ghetto through his experiences in builds upon his readers' fears, promising their Harlem. He spoke of African American’s fulfillment should they not act on his word. internalization of white understandings of By calling upon biblical imagery, both Blackness, as seen in his father’s self-hatred. authors depict the need for White America to Baldwin understood why the NOI was able to act in the interests of Black people as if it heal this wound in way that the Northern were viewed under the scrutiny of divine church could not. judgment. They warned that should these In contrast to Baldwin, Martin Luther individuals not heed Baldwin and King’s call King’s experiences in a loving nuclear family for equality and freedom the consequences and uplifting, soul empowering church would resemble the wrath of a higher power. provided the foundations for his embrace of Baldwin, in The Fire Next Time, took love, nonviolence, and human dignity. To on the active role of the omniscient narrator. King, Christianity offered strength and He delved into a holy warning, invoking in justification to go on despite racial cruelties. “preacher-fashion the image of cosmic In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he apocalypse.”87 These essays, published in forthrightly expressed love for his White magazines widely read by white people, Christian brothers and sisters. The sincerity of transcended the cultural marginalization of his hope, expressed in this letter and the black voice, making him an international throughout his leadership, garnered a large writer.88 While King offered an olive branch following of American activists who trusted to his white audience, a vision of social his guidance and the power of nonviolent civil justice and inclusive community achieved disobedience. through moral action, Baldwin invoked King's vision was perceived as another kind of biblical imagery, that of the inclusive. His style in his “Letter” was fiery trial. famously syncretic, fusing disparate sources (Socrates, Gandhi, Thoreau, Niebuhr) with Final Thoughts the biblical cadences of the social gospel tradition of his beloved father. Baldwin's A comparison of James Baldwin and Martin imagination, shaped by his experience of Luther King offers an understanding of the Harlem rather than Atlanta, and by a more Movement and its complexities. Baldwin, a fraught conflict with his tormented father, was Northern-born African American, was more apocalyptic. His best essays, Phillip Lopate attuned to the complexities of Black has observed, end not with visions of justice Nationalism, the oppression of internalized and harmony, but with powerful opposites in racism, as well as the complacency of the unresolved tension with each other. Harlem White North and its more insidious racism. and Atlanta, North and South, outsider and As a Movement outsider and thinker, he was insider—the two men were themselves able to conceptualize and compare King’s opposites in many ways. But they admired tactics to those of other leaders and activists. and respected each other, played His experiences as a queer Black man, world complementary roles in the history of their traveler, and international writer helped him time, and produced works of such eloquence to develop a distinctive perspective on the and power that they have transcended the particular circumstances of 1963 and become 87 Lopate, “Teaching James Baldwin,” 185. 88 Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography, 214. 14 SYMPOSIA

permanent contributions to American literature. America in the King Years, 1954-63. New York: Touchstone, 1988. Bibliography Carson, Clayborne. Martin’s Dream. Palgrave Macmillan, New York: Baldwin James, Baldwin: Collected Essays, 2013. 2 vols., ed. Toni Morrison. New King, Martin Luther, Jr. The Autobiography York: Library of America, 1998. of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. ———. “The Dangerous Road Before Clayborne Carson. New York: Grand Martin Luther King,” in Baldwin: Central Publishing and Hatchett Collected Essays, vol. 1, ed. by Toni Book Group, 1998. Morrison. New York: Library of Leeming, David. James Baldwin: A America, 1998. Biography. New York: Alfred A ———. The Fire Next Time in Baldwin: Knopf, Inc., 1994. Collected Essays, vol. 2, ed. Toni ———. “James Baldwin,” PBS: Morrison. New York: Library of American Masters. America, 1998. Lopate, Phillip. “Teaching James Baldwin,” ———. “” in The Teachers & Writers Guide to Baldwin: Collected Essays, vol. 2, Classic American Literature, eds. ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Christopher Edgar and Gary Lenhart, Library of America, 1998. Teachers & Writers Collaborative in ———. The Price of the Ticket: Collected Association with the Library of Nonfiction 1948-1985, New York: America, 2001. St. Martin’s Press, 1985. Payne, Charles M. I've Got the Light of ———, in Baldwin: Freedom: The Organizing Tradition Collected Essays, vol. 2, ed. Toni and the Mississippi Freedom Morrison. New York: Library of Struggle. Berkeley: University of America, 1998. California Press, 2007. ——— . “They Can’t Turn Back” in PBS. “Take This Hammer,” James Baldwin Baldwin: Collected Essays, vol. 2, and PBS Archive, 1963, AM ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Archive August 13, 2013. Library of America, 1998. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanm ———. James Baldwin to Martin Luther asters/episodes/james-baldwin/am- King, Jr. 26 May 1960, in The archive-take-this-hammer/2332/ Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers PBS and KQED. “James Baldwin from ‘The Project, Stanford University Press, Negro and the American Promise.” Palo Alto, California. American Experience Boyd, Herb. Baldwin’s Harlem: A http://video.pbs.org/video/21124950 Biography of James Baldwin. New 22/. York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2008. Reader’s Almanac: The official blog of The Branch, Taylor. The King Years: Historic Library of America, January, 14, Moments in the Civil Rights 2011, “James Baldwin on hearing Movement. New York: Simon & Martin Luther King preach in Shuster, Inc., 2013. Montgomery.” Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: http://blog.loa.org/2011/01/james LUCAS / PROPHETIC URGENCY 15 baldwin-on-hearing-martin- luther.html