1 00:00:07,244 --> 00:00:09,364 Over the course of the 1960s, 2 00:00:09,366 --> 00:00:13,143 the FBI amassed almost two thousand documents 3 00:00:13,143 --> 00:00:17,246 in an investigation into one of America’s most celebrated minds. 4 00:00:17,246 --> 00:00:21,321 The subject of this inquiry was a writer named James Baldwin. 5 00:00:21,321 --> 00:00:22,481 At the time, 6 00:00:22,487 --> 00:00:25,427 the FBI investigated many artists and thinkers, 7 00:00:25,427 --> 00:00:29,186 but most of their files were a fraction the size of Baldwin’s. 8 00:00:29,186 --> 00:00:31,536 During the years when the FBI hounded him, 9 00:00:31,536 --> 00:00:35,350 he became one of the best-selling black authors in the world. 10 00:00:35,350 --> 00:00:38,913 So what made James Baldwin loom so large in the imaginations 11 00:00:38,913 --> 00:00:42,105 of both the public and the authorities? 12 00:00:42,105 --> 00:00:44,022 Born in Harlem in 1924, 13 00:00:44,022 --> 00:00:46,344 he was the oldest of nine children. 14 00:00:46,344 --> 00:00:49,609 At age fourteen, he began to work as a preacher. 15 00:00:49,609 --> 00:00:53,093 By delivering sermons, he developed his voice as a writer, 16 00:00:53,093 --> 00:00:55,462 but also grew conflicted about the Church’s stance 17 00:00:55,462 --> 00:00:59,010 on racial inequality and homosexuality. 18 00:00:59,010 --> 00:00:59,971 After high school, 19 00:00:59,971 --> 00:01:04,236 he began writing novels and essays while taking a series of odd jobs. 20 00:01:04,236 --> 00:01:06,605 But the issues that had driven him away from the Church 21 00:01:06,605 --> 00:01:09,860 were still inescapable in his daily life. 22 00:01:09,860 --> 00:01:12,674 Constantly confronted with racism and homophobia, 23 00:01:12,674 --> 00:01:16,730 he was angry and disillusioned, and yearned for a less restricted life. 24 00:01:16,730 --> 00:01:20,085 So in 1948, at the age of 24, 25 00:01:20,085 --> 00:01:23,035 he moved to Paris on a writing fellowship. 26 00:01:23,035 --> 00:01:25,571 From France, he published his first novel, 27 00:01:25,571 --> 00:01:28,814 "Go Tell it on the Mountain," in 1953. 28 00:01:28,814 --> 00:01:29,794 Set in Harlem, 29 00:01:29,794 --> 00:01:34,467 the book explores the Church as a source of both repression and hope. 30 00:01:34,467 --> 00:01:37,322 It was popular with both black and white readers. 31 00:01:37,322 --> 00:01:39,235 As he earned acclaim for his fiction, 32 00:01:39,235 --> 00:01:43,787 Baldwin gathered his thoughts on race, class, culture and exile 33 00:01:43,787 --> 00:01:48,490 in his 1955 extended essay, "Notes of a Native Son." 34 00:01:48,490 --> 00:01:49,580 Meanwhile, 35 00:01:49,580 --> 00:01:52,422 the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum in America. 36 00:01:52,422 --> 00:01:56,932 Black Americans were making incremental gains at registering to vote and voting, 37 00:01:56,932 --> 00:02:01,744 but were still denied basic dignities in schools, on buses, in the work force, 38 00:02:01,744 --> 00:02:03,834 and in the armed services. 39 00:02:03,834 --> 00:02:06,751 Though he lived primarily in France for the rest of his life, 40 00:02:06,751 --> 00:02:09,132 Baldwin was deeply invested in the movement, 41 00:02:09,132 --> 00:02:12,149 and keenly aware of his country’s unfulfilled promise. 42 00:02:12,149 --> 00:02:15,075 He had seen family, friends, and neighbors 43 00:02:15,075 --> 00:02:18,714 spiral into addiction, incarceration and suicide. 44 00:02:18,714 --> 00:02:21,413 He believed their fates originated from the constraints 45 00:02:21,413 --> 00:02:23,775 of a segregated society. 46 00:02:23,775 --> 00:02:25,075 In 1963, 47 00:02:25,075 --> 00:02:27,669 he published "The Fire Next Time," 48 00:02:27,669 --> 00:02:29,883 an arresting portrait of racial strife 49 00:02:29,883 --> 00:02:32,270 in which he held white America accountable, 50 00:02:32,270 --> 00:02:33,754 but he also went further, 51 00:02:33,754 --> 00:02:36,721 arguing that racism hurt white people too. 52 00:02:36,731 --> 00:02:37,821 In his view, 53 00:02:37,821 --> 00:02:42,048 everyone was inextricably enmeshed in the same social fabric. 54 00:02:42,048 --> 00:02:43,508 He had long believed that: 55 00:02:43,508 --> 00:02:47,447 “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” 56 00:02:47,447 --> 00:02:49,317 Baldwin’s role in the Civil Rights movement 57 00:02:49,317 --> 00:02:51,347 went beyond observing and reporting. 58 00:02:51,347 --> 00:02:53,636 He also traveled through the American South 59 00:02:53,636 --> 00:02:56,613 attending rallies giving lectures of his own. 60 00:02:56,613 --> 00:02:59,438 He debated both white politicians and black activists, 61 00:02:59,438 --> 00:03:01,008 including Malcolm X, 62 00:03:01,008 --> 00:03:04,709 and served as a liaison between black activists and intellectuals 63 00:03:04,709 --> 00:03:07,567 and white establishment leaders like Robert Kennedy. 64 00:03:07,567 --> 00:03:09,280 Because of Baldwin’s unique ability 65 00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:11,747 to articulate the causes of social turbulence 66 00:03:11,747 --> 00:03:14,627 in a way that white audiences were willing to hear, 67 00:03:14,627 --> 00:03:18,736 Kennedy and others tended to see him as an ambassador for black Americans 68 00:03:18,736 --> 00:03:20,906 — a label Baldwin rejected. 69 00:03:20,906 --> 00:03:22,142 And at the same time, 70 00:03:22,142 --> 00:03:25,852 his faculty with words led the FBI to view him as a threat. 71 00:03:25,852 --> 00:03:27,608 Even within the Civil Rights movement, 72 00:03:27,608 --> 00:03:29,978 Baldwin could sometimes feel like an outsider 73 00:03:29,978 --> 00:03:33,044 for his choice to live abroad, as well as his sexuality, 74 00:03:33,044 --> 00:03:35,126 which he explored openly in his writing 75 00:03:35,126 --> 00:03:37,897 at a time when homophobia ran rampant. 76 00:03:37,897 --> 00:03:39,113 Throughout his life, 77 00:03:39,113 --> 00:03:42,012 Baldwin considered it his role to bear witness. 78 00:03:42,012 --> 00:03:43,562 Unlike many of his peers, 79 00:03:43,569 --> 00:03:46,853 he lived to see some of the victories of the Civil Rights movement, 80 00:03:46,853 --> 00:03:51,333 but the continuing racial inequalities in the United States weighed heavily on him. 81 00:03:51,333 --> 00:03:53,981 Though he may have felt trapped in his moment in history, 82 00:03:53,981 --> 00:03:56,775 his words have made generations of people feel known, 83 00:03:56,775 --> 00:03:59,475 while guiding them toward a more nuanced understanding 84 00:03:59,475 --> 00:04:02,524 of society’s most complex issues.