WEBVTT 00:00:07.244 --> 00:00:09.364 Over the course of the 1960s, 00:00:09.366 --> 00:00:13.143 the FBI amassed almost two thousand documents 00:00:13.143 --> 00:00:17.246 in an investigation into one of America’s most celebrated minds. 00:00:17.246 --> 00:00:21.321 The subject of this inquiry was a writer named James Baldwin. 00:00:21.321 --> 00:00:22.481 At the time, 00:00:22.487 --> 00:00:25.427 the FBI investigated many artists and thinkers, 00:00:25.427 --> 00:00:29.186 but most of their files were a fraction the size of Baldwin’s. 00:00:29.186 --> 00:00:31.536 During the years when the FBI hounded him, 00:00:31.536 --> 00:00:35.350 he became one of the best-selling black authors in the world. 00:00:35.350 --> 00:00:38.913 So what made James Baldwin loom so large in the imaginations 00:00:38.913 --> 00:00:42.105 of both the public and the authorities? NOTE Paragraph 00:00:42.105 --> 00:00:44.022 Born in Harlem in 1924, 00:00:44.022 --> 00:00:46.344 he was the oldest of nine children. 00:00:46.344 --> 00:00:49.609 At age fourteen, he began to work as a preacher. 00:00:49.609 --> 00:00:53.093 By delivering sermons, he developed his voice as a writer, 00:00:53.093 --> 00:00:55.462 but also grew conflicted about the Church’s stance 00:00:55.462 --> 00:00:59.010 on racial inequality and homosexuality. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:59.010 --> 00:00:59.971 After high school, 00:00:59.971 --> 00:01:04.236 he began writing novels and essays while taking a series of odd jobs. 00:01:04.236 --> 00:01:06.605 But the issues that had driven him away from the Church 00:01:06.605 --> 00:01:09.860 were still inescapable in his daily life. 00:01:09.860 --> 00:01:12.674 Constantly confronted with racism and homophobia, 00:01:12.674 --> 00:01:16.730 he was angry and disillusioned, and yearned for a less restricted life. 00:01:16.730 --> 00:01:20.085 So in 1948, at the age of 24, 00:01:20.085 --> 00:01:23.035 he moved to Paris on a writing fellowship. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:23.035 --> 00:01:25.571 From France, he published his first novel, 00:01:25.571 --> 00:01:28.814 "Go Tell it on the Mountain," in 1953. 00:01:28.814 --> 00:01:29.794 Set in Harlem, 00:01:29.794 --> 00:01:34.467 the book explores the Church as a source of both repression and hope. 00:01:34.467 --> 00:01:37.322 It was popular with both black and white readers. 00:01:37.322 --> 00:01:39.235 As he earned acclaim for his fiction, 00:01:39.235 --> 00:01:43.787 Baldwin gathered his thoughts on race, class, culture and exile 00:01:43.787 --> 00:01:48.490 in his 1955 extended essay, "Notes of a Native Son." NOTE Paragraph 00:01:48.490 --> 00:01:49.580 Meanwhile, 00:01:49.580 --> 00:01:52.422 the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum in America. 00:01:52.422 --> 00:01:56.932 Black Americans were making incremental gains at registering to vote and voting, 00:01:56.932 --> 00:02:01.744 but were still denied basic dignities in schools, on buses, in the work force, 00:02:01.744 --> 00:02:03.834 and in the armed services. 00:02:03.834 --> 00:02:06.751 Though he lived primarily in France for the rest of his life, 00:02:06.751 --> 00:02:09.132 Baldwin was deeply invested in the movement, 00:02:09.132 --> 00:02:12.149 and keenly aware of his country’s unfulfilled promise. 00:02:12.149 --> 00:02:15.075 He had seen family, friends, and neighbors 00:02:15.075 --> 00:02:18.714 spiral into addiction, incarceration and suicide. 00:02:18.714 --> 00:02:21.413 He believed their fates originated from the constraints 00:02:21.413 --> 00:02:23.775 of a segregated society. 00:02:23.775 --> 00:02:25.075 In 1963, 00:02:25.075 --> 00:02:27.669 he published "The Fire Next Time," 00:02:27.669 --> 00:02:29.883 an arresting portrait of racial strife 00:02:29.883 --> 00:02:32.270 in which he held white America accountable, 00:02:32.270 --> 00:02:33.754 but he also went further, 00:02:33.754 --> 00:02:36.721 arguing that racism hurt white people too. 00:02:36.731 --> 00:02:37.821 In his view, 00:02:37.821 --> 00:02:42.048 everyone was inextricably enmeshed in the same social fabric. 00:02:42.048 --> 00:02:43.508 He had long believed that: 00:02:43.508 --> 00:02:47.447 “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” NOTE Paragraph 00:02:47.447 --> 00:02:49.317 Baldwin’s role in the Civil Rights movement 00:02:49.317 --> 00:02:51.347 went beyond observing and reporting. 00:02:51.347 --> 00:02:53.636 He also traveled through the American South 00:02:53.636 --> 00:02:56.613 attending rallies giving lectures of his own. 00:02:56.613 --> 00:02:59.438 He debated both white politicians and black activists, 00:02:59.438 --> 00:03:01.008 including Malcolm X, 00:03:01.008 --> 00:03:04.709 and served as a liaison between black activists and intellectuals 00:03:04.709 --> 00:03:07.567 and white establishment leaders like Robert Kennedy. 00:03:07.567 --> 00:03:09.280 Because of Baldwin’s unique ability 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:11.747 to articulate the causes of social turbulence 00:03:11.747 --> 00:03:14.627 in a way that white audiences were willing to hear, 00:03:14.627 --> 00:03:18.736 Kennedy and others tended to see him as an ambassador for black Americans 00:03:18.736 --> 00:03:20.906 — a label Baldwin rejected. 00:03:20.906 --> 00:03:22.142 And at the same time, 00:03:22.142 --> 00:03:25.852 his faculty with words led the FBI to view him as a threat. 00:03:25.852 --> 00:03:27.608 Even within the Civil Rights movement, 00:03:27.608 --> 00:03:29.978 Baldwin could sometimes feel like an outsider 00:03:29.978 --> 00:03:33.044 for his choice to live abroad, as well as his sexuality, 00:03:33.044 --> 00:03:35.126 which he explored openly in his writing 00:03:35.126 --> 00:03:37.897 at a time when homophobia ran rampant. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:37.897 --> 00:03:39.113 Throughout his life, 00:03:39.113 --> 00:03:42.012 Baldwin considered it his role to bear witness. 00:03:42.012 --> 00:03:43.562 Unlike many of his peers, 00:03:43.569 --> 00:03:46.853 he lived to see some of the victories of the Civil Rights movement, 00:03:46.853 --> 00:03:51.333 but the continuing racial inequalities in the United States weighed heavily on him. 00:03:51.333 --> 00:03:53.981 Though he may have felt trapped in his moment in history, 00:03:53.981 --> 00:03:56.775 his words have made generations of people feel known, 00:03:56.775 --> 00:03:59.475 while guiding them toward a more nuanced understanding 00:03:59.475 --> 00:04:02.524 of society’s most complex issues.