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Writer and social critic James Baldwin is known for addressing the intricacies of African Americans, White America and gay men through his writing. He has become a staple in contemporary literature. Though he passed away on December 1, 1987, his words and mindset —that was far beyond the moment he dwelled in—continue to be relevant in today’s hard reality of injustice, complex social issues and racial dilemmas. Remember his fight with some of his wisest words, below.
01
James Baldwin
“Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”
02
James Baldwin in 1963
“By deciding that they were white. By opting for safety instead of life. By persuading themselves that a Black child’s life meant nothing compared with a white child’s life… In this debasement of and definition of Black people, they debased and defined themselves.”
03
James Baldwin circa 1985 at Hampshire College
“I’m not interested in anybody’s guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, for the very same reason.”
04
James Baldwin
“To be a negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.”
05
James Baldwin at his French home
“The fact that we are still here —even in suffering, darkness, danger, endlessly defined by those who dare not define, or even confront themselves— is the key to the crisis in white leadership.”
06
James Baldwin
“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; Love is growing up.”
07
James Baldwin
“We are very cruelly trapped between what we would like to be and what we actually are. And we cannot possibly become what we would like to be until we are willing to ask ourselves just why the lives we lead on this continent are mainly so empty, so tame, and so ugly.”
08
James Baldwin at his French home
“American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.”
09
James Baldwin
“Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.”
