By Dr Douglas Field
American writer and social critic, James Arthur Baldwin, was awarded an honorary doctorate in Hull in 1976. One of the most acclaimed American writers of the twentieth century, he is perhaps best-known for his first three novels, Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953), Giovanni’s Room (1956) and Another Country (1962). As well as being a renowned novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet, Baldwin was openly homosexual at a time when it was dangerous to be Black in America, difficult to be queer, and perilous to be both. As a writer who explored and embraced complexity, Baldwin is hard to pin down. Critics frequently claim him as either Black or gay, religious or secular, novelist or essayist. Baldwin himself was sceptical of such divisions. As he wrote in his first collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son (1955), “I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one’s own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.”[1] A tireless civil rights campaigner, Baldwin, who died in 1987, is frequently invoked by supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2016 Baldwin was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, I am Not Your Negro, directed by Raoul Peck. In 1976 Baldwin was awarded an honorary doctorate at Hull University, the year that he published his long essay on film, The Devil Finds Work.
At the height of his fame in the mid-1960s, Baldwin was one of the most photographed and frequently sought after American writers, speaking on prime-time television shows, writing for high profile magazines and newspapers and appearing on the cover of Time magazine. His fiery and eloquent best-selling works including the essay The Fire Next Time (1963) drew attention to the psychological damage done, not only to the oppressed, but to the oppressor. He scoffed at the notion of the “black problem,” as it was frequently described in the 1960s, arguing with inimitable eloquence that deep-seated racism was surely a “white problem.” In his work Baldwin repeatedly examines what he would call “the price of the ticket,” the price that white and Black Americans pay for accepting the myths of American history which his own writings critique.
At the height of his fame in the mid-1960s, Baldwin was one of the most photographed and frequently sought after American writers, speaking on prime-time television shows, writing for high profile magazines and newspapers and appearing on the cover of Time magazine. His fiery and eloquent best-selling works including the essay The Fire Next Time (1963) drew attention to the psychological damage done, not only to the oppressed, but to the oppressor. He scoffed at the notion of the “black problem,” as it was frequently described in the 1960s, arguing with inimitable eloquence that deep-seated racism was surely a “white problem.” In his work Baldwin repeatedly examines what he would call “the price of the ticket,” the price that white and Black Americans pay for accepting the myths of American history which his own writings critique.
Although Baldwin is best known for being, in his words, “a disturber of the peace,” his vast body of work is far-reaching in terms of theme, content and genre.[2] Written over four tumultuous decades, Baldwin’s oeuvre comprises six novels, a number of book-length essays, plays, poetry, and book reviews as well as a children’s book and a scenario based on the life of Malcolm X.[3] Baldwin’s own extraordinary journey began in Harlem in 1924 and ended in 1987 thousands of miles away in France, where he lived mostly for forty years of his life. Much of Baldwin’s work is preoccupied with finding-or creating-a place in the world. Working class, African American, attracted both to men and women, Baldwin was, he later wrote, “a kind of bastard of the West.”[4] During his life, Baldwin moved from Harlem, where he had been a child preacher, to the bohemian setting of Greenwich Village, and then to Paris. During the civil rights movement, Baldwin travelled to the American south as an activist and reporter. He also spent an intermittent decade in Turkey, as well as several extended stays in the UK.
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Baldwin made several visits to England; he stayed in London in 1965 and 1968, two eventful and traumatic years which included the respective assassinations of his friends Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. During his second visit to the UK, Baldwin gave a speech at the West Indian Centre in London, along with the late Dick Gregory. The talk was filmed by the Trinidadian film director, Horace Ové, who would go on to make Pressure (1976), the first feature-length fiction film directed by a Black film-maker in Britain.[5] In April 1971 Baldwin gave a stirring speech in support of the Soledad brothers in Westminster, London, which testified to his continuing battle against injustice. [6]
Little is known about Baldwin’s visit to Hull in 1976, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate. Although there are two main biographies—James Campbell’s Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin (1991) and David Leeming’s James Baldwin: A Biography (1994)—neither makes reference to Baldwin’s visit to Hull. It is likely that Baldwin was in the UK for the British launch of his long essay The Devil Finds Work, an extended meditation on film, part of which was used in Peck’s documentary, I am Not Your Negro. Unfortunately Hull University does not appear to have any records or photographs of Baldwin’s appearance at the University. According to Jeff Morgan, who was the university’s official at the degree ceremony in 1976, Baldwin and other honorary graduands were thanked in an official speech by Kingman Brewster, the former US ambassador to the United Kingdom. Baldwin did not, it seems, address the audience in Hull’s City Hall after he was awarded his doctorate.[7] The conferral of Baldwin’s degree preceded a similar honour bestowed to the Trinidadian writer C.L.R. James in 1983. Baldwin and James crossed paths in the early 1940s, during which time Baldwin was a waiter at the Calypso restaurant in New York’s Greenwich Village, a favoured hangout for artists and political radicals, amongst them James and Paul Robeson. Baldwin, whose grandparents were slaves, would no doubt have approved of the city’s connection to William Wilberforce. He might have observed that on 1 August, 1834, England outlawed slavery throughout its colonies; Baldwin was born on 5 August, 1924.
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While there are scant details of Baldwin’s visit to Hull in 1976, the American author was no stranger to British universities. In 1965 he accepted an invitation by Cambridge University to debate the “father of American conservatism” William F. Buckley on the subject, “The American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro.” “It comes as a great shock to discover that the country which is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and your identity, has not, in its whole system of reality, evolved any place for you,” Baldwin told the Cambridge University audience.[8] Baldwin won the debate: the Cambridge Union Society voted 540-160 in his favour. By 1976 Baldwin’s reputation was in decline. For many critics, his skills as a fiction writer dwindled after the publication of Another Country in 1962 and there was a consensus that his dedication of the civil rights movement took its toll on Baldwin’s writing. Such critical pronouncements, it seems, were premature. Baldwin’s relevance, underscored by Peck’s acclaimed documentary, burns fiercely as ever.
Footnotes
[1] James Baldwin, “Autobiographical Notes,” Collected Essays, ed. Toni Morrison (New York: The Library of America, 1998) p. 16.
[2] Eve Auchinloss and Nancy Lynch, “Disturber of the Peace: James Baldwin—An Interview,” in Fred L. Standley and Louis H. Pratt (eds.), Conversations with James Baldwin (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1989), p. 171.
[3] For a useful overview of Baldwin’s life and work, see James Campbell’s biography, Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin. Baldwin’s next three novels were: Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968),If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979). Baldwin’s essays, including his critically acclaimed first book of non-fiction, Notes of a Native Son (1955) can be found in Collected Essays, ed. Toni Morrison (1998).
[4] Baldwin, “Autobiographical Notes,” Collected Essays, p. 6.
[5] Baldwin’s speech was made into a documentary called Baldwin’s Nigger; the film is available through the BFI.
[6] Speeches from the Soledad Brothers Rally, Central Hall, Westminster (London: Friends of Soledad, 1974. The Soledad Brothers were three African-American inmates—George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette, who were charged with the murder of a white prison guard at California's Soledad Prison on January 16, 1970.
[7] I am grateful for Jeff Morgan for sharing his recollections. As there are no records available, neither Jeff nor I could check factual details pertaining to Baldwin’s degree ceremony.
[8] Most of Baldwin’s speech was reprinted in the New York Times in 1965. See: http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/papercuts/baldwin-and-buckley.pdf?mcubz=0
[1] James Baldwin, “Autobiographical Notes,” Collected Essays, ed. Toni Morrison (New York: The Library of America, 1998) p. 16.
[2] Eve Auchinloss and Nancy Lynch, “Disturber of the Peace: James Baldwin—An Interview,” in Fred L. Standley and Louis H. Pratt (eds.), Conversations with James Baldwin (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1989), p. 171.
[3] For a useful overview of Baldwin’s life and work, see James Campbell’s biography, Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin. Baldwin’s next three novels were: Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968),If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979). Baldwin’s essays, including his critically acclaimed first book of non-fiction, Notes of a Native Son (1955) can be found in Collected Essays, ed. Toni Morrison (1998).
[4] Baldwin, “Autobiographical Notes,” Collected Essays, p. 6.
[5] Baldwin’s speech was made into a documentary called Baldwin’s Nigger; the film is available through the BFI.
[6] Speeches from the Soledad Brothers Rally, Central Hall, Westminster (London: Friends of Soledad, 1974. The Soledad Brothers were three African-American inmates—George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette, who were charged with the murder of a white prison guard at California's Soledad Prison on January 16, 1970.
[7] I am grateful for Jeff Morgan for sharing his recollections. As there are no records available, neither Jeff nor I could check factual details pertaining to Baldwin’s degree ceremony.
[8] Most of Baldwin’s speech was reprinted in the New York Times in 1965. See: http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/papercuts/baldwin-and-buckley.pdf?mcubz=0