JAMES BALDWIN, the important left-wing polemicist, black author and activist, was born one hundred years ago in Harlem, New York, August 2 1924. His writing career encompassed bestselling novels, essays, plays and articles. 

Baldwin’s stepfather David, a Pentecostal preacher, was a factory worker, earning too little to provide for  his family of nine children. His mother Berdis, a migrant from the South, worked in domestic service. The young James’s first encounter with police at the age of 10 brought home to him the realities of racism. David’s preaching initially led the teenage Baldwin to become a young minister.

During his time at Public School 124 in Harlem (with its first black principal, Gertrude Ayers), Baldwin’s potential was recognised by Orilla Miller, a white teacher and communist from the Midwest. Miller introduced him to literature and theatre, including A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and the landmark play Voodoo Macbeth, directed by Orson Welles with an all-black cast. 

These experiences deepened Baldwin’s literary passion, broadened his cultural horizons and provided a secular alternative to his religious upbringing. The Harlem Renaissance also played a central role in shaping his artistic and intellectual outlook.

The Millers were supportive of the socialist side in the Spanish Civil War, took Baldwin to a May Day parade organised by the Communist Party USA, and significantly influenced Baldwin’s political education. Through them, Baldwin learned that racism could be opposed and solidarity could be built across racial lines.

Baldwin’s political consciousness was further shaped by his English teacher Abel Meeropol, a communist and staunch anti-racist, author of the anti-lynching song Strange Fruit. 

By 1941, Baldwin had lost faith in Christianity and rejected his father’s authority. After leaving school in 1942, he faced economic hardship and was unable to afford college. 

He joined a writers’ workshop taught by communist Mary Elting, aligning with the Communist International’s Popular Front strategy, and received a scholarship from the League of American Writers in January 1942, cementing his connection to left-wing politics. The 1943 Harlem riots and Baldwin’s experiences during this tumultuous period further fuelled his radicalisation. He joined the Young People’s Socialist League (YPSL), navigated various left-wing camps and published poetry in the communist Daily Worker. 

Baldwin was drawn to the communist movement, especially with its anti-racist stand and its influence on African Americans, considering the CPUSA a haven for young black writers. Between 1920 and 1950, many black intellectuals, including Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright, found a political and artistic home here.

Aged 24, he published an essay titled “The Harlem Ghetto,” criticising the conditions affecting African Americans. In this way, he became part of African-American protest literature, articulating the realities of oppression. The rise of Black Power and revolutionary groups made him more optimistic about the possibilities of revolution in the US.

From these early encounters with communists and other progressive political activists, Baldwin knew that his experience was not limited to African Americans but was intrinsic to capitalism and imperialism. Baldwin expressed this understanding on many occasions, related it geopolitically to colonialism in Africa, to South Africa, and Palestine, for example, or here in a later, 1970 letter to the imprisoned Angela Davis: “White lives, for the forces which rule in this country, are no more sacred than black ones, as many and many a student is discovering, as the white US-American corpses in Vietnam prove.”

These formative experiences solidified Baldwin’s commitment to social justice and influenced his decision to move to Paris in November 1948. In Paris, he found the freedom to explore his identity, including his queerness, and to articulate his revolutionary ideas, which would shape his prolific career as a writer and activist. The move solidified his commitment to writing and led to major works like Go Tell It On the Mountain (1953), which drew on his upbringing in Harlem, Notes of a Native Son (1955), a collection of essays tackling race in Europe and the US, and Giovanni’s Room (1956) about a love affair between men. 

In September 1956, Baldwin attended the First Conference of Negro-African Writers and Artists at the Sorbonne, sponsored by the Negritude Movement, a literary, cultural, and political movement developed in the 1930s in response to French colonial rule and the dehumanising effects of colonialism. It sought to reclaim the value of black culture and heritage, promoting a collective black identity and solidarity across the African diaspora. This movement, led by figures like Frantz Fanon, Senghor, and Cesaire, sought to unify the African diaspora’s cultural heritage.

The years 1957-62 were pivotal for Baldwin as he became an internationalist. His experiences with the civil rights movement and French colonialism’s brutality, especially during the Algerian war, reinforced his understanding of international racism and state terror. This period included significant travel, writing, and a deepened interest in Islam and anti-colonial struggles.

His major political works, such as The Fire Next Time (1963) and No Name in the Street (1972), address international issues. No Name in the Street articulates Baldwin’s anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist stance, opposing the Vietnam War, South African apartheid, and Israeli settler-colonialism. He was a vocal supporter of Palestinian self-determination, viewing Israel as a proxy for Western imperialism and Palestinians as oppressed victims. It expresses solidarity with liberation movements and projects a socialist future.

By 1968, Baldwin had become closely affiliated with the Black Panther Party. He endorsed their community programmes and their stance against police violence, viewing them as a challenge to the repressive US state, and his relationship with Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party underscored his commitment to long-term anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle.

Baldwin was pioneering in exposing US racism and drawing parallels with international struggles. His essay “What Price Freedom?” in the journal Freedomways, connected US racism to its imperialist actions abroad, critiquing the US idea of “freedom” imposed by violence. Baldwin’s work increasingly highlighted the similarities between the treatment of African Americans and colonial subjects.

In his 1979 essay “Open Letter to the Born Again,” Baldwin condemned Western anti-semitism and expressed solidarity with Palestinian self-determination, criticising the zionist project and its colonial roots.

The Reagan administration, with its harsh stance on issues like HIV/AIDS, intensified Baldwin’s despair and rage over the United States. By the 1980s, he openly identified as gay and collaborated with black feminists, critiquing both imperialism and white supremacist thinking, including in this context racism, sexism, and homophobia, and towards the end of his life, Baldwin sought to redefine gender and racial identities. 

Diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in early 1987, Baldwin spent his remaining lifetime at his home in St Paul-de-Vence, passing away aged 63 on December 1, 1987.