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Notes of a native son: The world according to James Baldwin - Christina Greer
Notes of a native son: The world according to James Baldwin - Christina Greer
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ترجمة (84)
0:07
Over the course of the 1960s,
0:09
the FBI amassed almost two thousand documents
0:13
in an investigation into one of America’s most celebrated minds.
0:17
The subject of this inquiry was a writer named James Baldwin.
0:21
At the time,
0:22
the FBI investigated many artists and thinkers,
0:25
but most of their files were a fraction the size of Baldwin’s.
0:29
During the years when the FBI hounded him,
0:31
he became one of the best-selling black authors in the world.
0:35
So what made James Baldwin loom so large in the imaginations
0:38
of both the public and the authorities?
0:42
Born in Harlem in 1924,
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he was the oldest of nine children.
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At age fourteen, he began to work as a preacher.
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By delivering sermons, he developed his voice as a writer,
0:53
but also grew conflicted about the Church’s stance
0:55
on racial inequality and homosexuality.
0:58
After high school,
0:59
he began writing novels and essays while taking a series of odd jobs.
1:04
But the issues that had driven him away from the Church
1:06
were still inescapable in his daily life.
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Constantly confronted with racism and homophobia,
1:12
he was angry and disillusioned, and yearned for a less restricted life.
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So in 1948, at the age of 24,
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he moved to Paris on a writing fellowship.
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From France, he published his first novel,
1:25
"Go Tell it on the Mountain," in 1953.
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Set in Harlem,
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the book explores the Church as a source of both repression and hope.
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It was popular with both black and white readers.
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As he earned acclaim for his fiction,
1:39
Baldwin gathered his thoughts on race, class, culture and exile
1:43
in his 1955 extended essay, "Notes of a Native Son."
1:48
Meanwhile,
1:49
the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum in America.
1:52
Black Americans were making incremental gains at registering to vote and voting,
1:56
but were still denied basic dignities in schools, on buses, in the work force,
2:01
and in the armed services.
2:03
Though he lived primarily in France for the rest of his life,
2:06
Baldwin was deeply invested in the movement,
2:09
and keenly aware of his country’s unfulfilled promise.
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He had seen family, friends, and neighbors
2:15
spiral into addiction, incarceration and suicide.
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He believed their fates originated from the constraints
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of a segregated society.
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In 1963,
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he published "The Fire Next Time,"
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an arresting portrait of racial strife
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in which he held white America accountable,
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but he also went further,
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arguing that racism hurt white people too.
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In his view,
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everyone was inextricably enmeshed in the same social fabric.
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He had long believed that:
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“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”
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Baldwin’s role in the Civil Rights movement
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went beyond observing and reporting.
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He also traveled through the American South
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attending rallies giving lectures of his own.
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He debated both white politicians and black activists,
2:59
including Malcolm X,
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and served as a liaison between black activists and intellectuals
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and white establishment leaders like Robert Kennedy.
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Because of Baldwin’s unique ability
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to articulate the causes of social turbulence
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in a way that white audiences were willing to hear,
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Kennedy and others tended to see him as an ambassador for black Americans
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— a label Baldwin rejected.
3:20
And at the same time,
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his faculty with words led the FBI to view him as a threat.
3:25
Even within the Civil Rights movement,
3:27
Baldwin could sometimes feel like an outsider
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for his choice to live abroad, as well as his sexuality,
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which he explored openly in his writing
3:35
at a time when homophobia ran rampant.
3:37
Throughout his life,
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Baldwin considered it his role to bear witness.
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Unlike many of his peers,
3:43
he lived to see some of the victories of the Civil Rights movement,
3:46
but the continuing racial inequalities in the United States weighed heavily on him.
3:51
Though he may have felt trapped in his moment in history,
3:53
his words have made generations of people feel known,
3:56
while guiding them toward a more nuanced understanding
3:59
of society’s most complex issues.
