Happy Birthday, James Baldwin

The writer, author and civil rights activist would have been 102 today. Some are taken from us much too soon. Via Literary Hub’s weekly newsletter:

“I find much of so‐called avant‐garde writing utterly trivial. If there is no moral question, there is no reason to write. I’m an old‐fashioned writer and, despite the odds, I want to change the world. What I hope to convey? Well, joy, love, the passion to feel how our choices affect the world . . . that’s all.”

Baldwin’s fame and following came from his powerful writing but it is through scores of recorded interviews, where his concise erudition, wrapped in urgency and brutal honesty and delivered with that passion and power, that he has posthumously landed new generations of followers and fans via social media. Algorithms play a large role, but nonetheless, rarely a day passes that I don’t see a reference to Baldwin on social media platform.

In a 2022 piece, also in Litery Hub, Marc Lamont Hill and Todd Brewster look at how Baldwin, who died in 1987, became a 21st century influencer.

One could argue that the Baldwin we meet on social media trivializes the man, or simply that any representation of Baldwin, broken into fragments, is not Baldwin at all. But Twitter can be deceptive, and in the case of Baldwin, the quotes are often just the tease that brings you to a fuller excerpt or a broader comment, and from there to a deeper conversation, one triggered by Baldwin’s words. Soon, connections start to be made, from Baldwin to Trayvon Martin, to Eric Garner, to Michael Brown, to George Floyd, to, say, Assata Shakur and Richard Wright and then back to Baldwin in a never-ending loop.

Link.