15 Great Articles and Essays by James Baldwin

The best writing from a master essayist and social critic

Essays

Stranger in the Village

From all available evidence no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came

Notes of a Native Son

On the 29th of July, in 1943, my father died. On the same day, a few hours later, his last child was born

How to Cool It by James Baldwin

How can we get the black people to cool it? It is not for us to cool it

Letter from a Region in My Mind

I underwent, during the summer that I became fourteen, a prolonged religious crisis

A Talk to Teachers

Let’s begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time

The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro by James Baldwin

I find myself, not for the first time, in the position of a kind of Jeremiah...

Autobiographical Notes by James Baldwin

I was born in Harlem thirty-one years ago. I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read...

A Report from Occupied Territory by James Baldwin

I know, in my own flesh, and know, which is worse, in the scars borne by many of those dearest to me, the thunder and fire of the billy club, the paralyzing shock of spittle in the face

If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?

The argument concerning the use, or the status, or the reality, of black English is rooted in American history and has absolutely nothing to do with the question the argument supposes itself to be posing

Many Thousands Gone

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story

A Letter to My Nephew

I have begun this letter five times and torn it up five times

Sonny’s Blues

I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I read it, and I couldn’t believe it, and I read it again

The Creative Process

Perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone