The Fierce Mind: James Baldwin and his Many Powers

…I’m fond of the incomparable James Baldwin…. ––TROI “STAR” TORAIN

For Mr. James Baldwin’s one hundredth birthday celebration today, I wanted to refresh my thoughts on the years of study that I had done through books and documentaries and television interviews. I even saw actor Chris Chalk play Mr. Baldwin in the FX miniseries Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024). I read in its brilliant entirety Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953) with the assistance of a YouTube reader. I was enthralled.

The smells, the looks, the sounds, the textures all embodied in this work made my investigations into the oeuvre of Baldwin seem rather tame. It’s explicit and tender and harsh and lovely and breathtaking. The way the story melds together gives a glowing hint of what African American life truly was like in the time leading up to the book’s publication in the twentieth century.

It rocked me. The eloquence and profound manhood of Mr. Baldwin can shake the foundations of the Earth.

Other authors like Toni Morrison and August Wilson have captured the attitudes, the ideals, the passions, and glumness and glories of life for the people with darker hued skin. Mr. Baldwin was a standard bearer who showcased a specific people’s life as individuals, not clumps of gray flesh to be broadcast like a poor seller of knick knacks and tchotchkes.

Baldwin envelopes his characters in a world of their own with ideas springing forth like a well. In his works, he stands as a consummate gentleman detailing horrific scenes and those of delight in just a few pages. In his actual life, he stood as a towering figure of supreme intellect and composure. Was he an angry black man? You’re damned right. But just as he could say “baby” to an interviewer, he was playful, jovial, and forthright. In all of his works and his appearances and speeches, a thread of blood’s memory illustrates the man he designed himself to be.

He was supposed to stay in the slums of Harlem, New York City. He was supposed to just be a preacher of the Word of God from his teenage years until whenever. Although he never professed any atheism, his works suggest a deep understanding and critique of faith and all its machinations. Mr. Baldwin used the power of the English language; he wrestled with it and finally rose up to be a man of divine speech and erudition. Still, he could reach the man in the labor yard, sweating away his years just to put food on his family’s table.

That remained the true mark of the man. He took it all seriously but still had a wink and a smirk to let you know he knew what he was talking about in any given situation.

The spine of the African American man or woman could be straightened in the face of his daring thought and his excellent presence. With his time abroad in places like Paris, France (which is hosting the Olympics this year and also celebrates one hundred years since showcasing the games) Baldwin’s birthday is to be celebrated for his dedication to striving for perfection. In the lowest of circumstances in book form or in his life, he always reached higher. Whatever ideas had to be explored, what sermon had to be expressed, what play or essay had to be written…they all fell from the mind of a fierce mind and a fighting soul.

Mr. Baldwin knew that he could just make up a few words on a page and call it a story or nonfiction work. Instead, he turned those phrases and made a flowerbed of language, imbued with every inclination for poetry and wit. The task he set out for himself remained to be a challenge that would follow him for the rest of his life: Am I dignified? What is my identity? Should I tarry on in the world despite the snarls and snares? He combatted this all with the vividness and the exactness of his prose and poems. It took him no time to realize that he was gifted, not by God or society but with his own recognition of self and the service to the individual.

He took seriously his role as one of the most brilliant minds in all of human history. I stand taller in my writings because of the way Mr. Baldwin set out to keep his own works pure and undiluted by the crowds. He worked strictly for himself and just so happened to trade his art with the planet. In preparing this essay, I tried to think of a point in my life that would justify talking about Mr. Baldwin in such high regard. It happened very recently.

My cousin had just graduated from cosmetology school in Newark, Delaware. Adorned with purple decorations and even an accidentally bursted balloon, she sprang forth from shimmering purple frills in a dazzling silver and purple dress. The shouts of congratulations rose up and fell on her like confetti. The joy in her pretty black face overwhelmed all those who stood in attendance. The sweetness of the moment soon spilled over into a bar where fried and baked chicken, green beans and baked beans (made by the honoreé) and chips and buffalo chicken dip satisfied any hunger that anyone present for her had. Even elaborate purple and silver cupcakes adorned the table. In the darkness, and booming hip hop music laden with coarse language, the so-called “church folk” negated the vulgarity and still enjoyed themselves.

The cap of the night, however, came when my cousin, the graduate, held onto a bottle of champagne. Her father popped the cork with little to no suds. She then took it from him and started pouring it mostly on the street, a tradition of libations dating back to Egypt and Mesopotamia. The reverence remained for her mother who had died when she had turned ten-years-old and for her brother who perished when she turned twelve.

I beheld the scene and looked on with wonder as if everything moved in slow motion. The act caused me to quiver a bit but I stood firm, blissful in the fact that this showed blackness in America in a celebratory way. So, let’s celebrate James Arthur Baldwin in similar fashion. Let the libations flow and may we all know the legendary stature of a literary giant.