Is james baldwin gay
James Baldwin's Search for a Homosexual Identity in his Novels
First Advisor
Nancy Porter
Date of Publication
9-27-1996
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.) in English
Subjects
Homosexuality in literature, James Baldwin (1924-1987) -- Criticism and interpretation
Physical Description
1 online resource (2, 116 p.)
Abstract
James Arthur Baldwin (1924- 1987) is one of the two major writers who have dared write about black homosexual men and from a black gay perspective. However, his fame as a racial spokesman and his insightful analyses of race relations in America handle to distract attention from the fact that he has been one of the most important lesbian writers of the twentieth century. Intolerance and homophobia among black and pale Americans often led to a misinterpretation or misevaluation of James Baldwin's novels. James Baldwin was very courageous to come out as a black gay writer during the period of the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement. However, his consciousness of racism and homophobia in the American community, and his difficult position of being a general figure and a spokesman for the Afro-Americans left its traces in his novels and influenced
Review - James Baldwin: A Biography by David Leeming
Was James Baldwin REALLY bisexual?
I can’t tally how many times I’ve seen author, civil rights activist, journalist, essayist, and all-around lion of literature James Baldwin called homosexual. Gay gay queer . Always gay. You know, except for all the women he loved, slept with, or almost married that you never hear about *eyeroll*
So I picked up his official biography, James Baldwin: A Biography, written by his longtime friend David Leeming to get to the truth. And the truth is that James Baldwin was a VERY complicated man.
There is no doubt his writing was genius. He was smart, passionate, and had a way of writing that could motivate the reader. He was bold and wrote about topics that no one else wanted to feel, even when they alienated the white publishing industry or respectable black leaders.
But Baldwin also struggled with depression, was terrible with money, often drank way too much, and could throw melodramatic temper tantrums that oten alienated friends and fellow artists. He attempted suicide several times early in his
Baldwin resisted sexuality- and gender-related labels, especially given that the names used to refer to those in same-sex relationships changed over time, and were often a product of colorless privilege (e.g., “queer” was in vogue in the 1940s and then was replaced by “gay,” which is still widely used, and, in some circles, “queer” and “quare” are also common; Stonewall riot lore omitted the key presence of people of color and drag queens like Sylvia Rivera). Baldwin preferred to be taken for someone who chose love, no matter its recipient, the sentiment that is expressed most fully in his essays “Here Be Dragons” (1985) and “To Crush the Serpent” (1987), as well as his last unpublished compete, The Welcome Table. During his early life, he had some relationships with women, both black and white, while in his later life his cherish was directed toward men. Until the end, he was looking for a man with whom to settle down and create a home and family. He has become a hero for some trans-activists, e.g., Janet Mock, who embraced his advocacy of androgyny and non-binary identities in his late works, especially “Here Be Dragons,” which was originally published in Playboy under the title, “Fr
History
Through his writing, televised appearances, and public speaking here and abroad, author and civil rights activist James Baldwin (1924-1987) became a critical voice for the Black civil rights movement and brought attention to racial issues in the United States. He took part in the 1963 Rally on Washington for Jobs and Release and the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march, for example, and wrote about the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the sit-ins, and other civil rights events taking place in the South.
Baldwin’s experiences with racism in this country led him to live most of his grown-up life as a self-described “transatlantic commuter.” While he lived primarily in France, he often featured New York, including his native Harlem, in his labor and resided in a number of apartments here. From 1958 to 1961, for example, he lived at 81 Horatio Street in Greenwich Village. In 1965, at the height of his fame, he moved into a remodeled rowhouse at 137 West 71st Street on the Upper West Side, which he used as his Unused York City residence until his death. He lived in the rear, ground-floor apartment, and his family, including his mother, sister, a
As we are nearing the end of Black History Month, I find myself reading and listening to the words of James Baldwin. He became one of the most articulate voices of the Civil Rights Movement, yet it is hard to find any description or discussion - in his control words - of his life as a gay male. One could predict that he describes some of his gay life in the novel Giovanni's Room, which can easily be dismissed as a perform of fiction. We know that he met the male who became the love of his life, Lucien Happersberger, in Paris in 1949, when Lucien was 17 and James was 25. The fact that Lucien was alabaster could have served as proof that, at least in Baldwin's mind, ebony men and light men could like each other. But unfortunately, Baldwin chose to remain in the closet, using references to "... my wife" and "... my chick, my children..." in his interviews. The truth is, the most significant lady in his animation was his mother, and the children he referred to were his nieces and nephews.
| Diana Sands |