Harlem One Stop

Is James Baldwin America’s Greatest Essayist?

I finished The Fire Next Time on a plane to Greenville, South Carolina. I am here to give a talk tonight about the legacy of the Civil War. I probably should not have read Baldwin before coming into the backyard of John Calhoun and Pitchfork Ben Tillman. I’m all on fire and resolved to bring some of that fire forth tonight.  I have come to places like this before. I have never shrunk from speaking my piece, but I dislike making people directly uncomfortable and have a tendency in person to complicate things that I know are not complicated at all. I am resolving to move away from that. Manners have their place. I should not conflate them with cowardice.

I want to thank everyone who pointed me toward how much Baldwin really does embrace love. I am remembering what I, myself, loved about him as a young man. I came to college a total Malcolmite. I kind of still am. But Baldwin was among a set of influences that talked me out of my younger self.  Read more..

Source: The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates