James Baldwin: Living in Fire by Mullen Bill V

Author:Mullen, Bill V. [Mullen, Bill V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Memoir
ISBN: 9781786804969
Google: 9LQnzAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 46168328
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2019-07-15T04:12:06+00:00

Baldwin’s call for the “unconditional freedom of the Negro” was his prophetic caution, or jeremiad, to America, a second coming of God’s warning to Noah about the world’s imminent destruction: “this time water/the fire next time.” The book’s lyricism, depth, rage, and appeal to whites to respond to black battles against racism in America made Baldwin an embraceable dissident across a wide political spectrum, from white liberals seeking confirmation that they had a place in the civil rights struggle, to black militants committed to emancipation, as Malcolm X himself would describe it, “by any means necessary.” The book sold 100,000 copies in hard cover, gained exceptional reviews, and brought Baldwin a radical new form of celebrity: on May 17, 1963, he was the subject of a cover story in Time magazine, the first black author so featured. A week later, Life magazine, Henry Luce’s strongly pro-American, pro-capitalist publication, featured a photo-story on Baldwin’s CORE tour of the South.

Baldwin used his new-found social leverage to enhance black political power. On May 12, he wired U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, brother of President John Kennedy, blaming the federal government for failing to protect non-violent black protesters, including children, who had recently been beaten by local police on the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. On May 24, Baldwin organized a group of friends and civil rights activists to meet with Kennedy at his New York City apartment. The group included preeminent black psychologist Dr. Kenneth Clark, Harlem civil rights attorney Clarence Jones, veteran civil rights activist Jerome Smith, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and actor Harry Belafonte. The meeting was a political farce. Kennedy patronized the group, which responded by berating him and the administration for failing to do anything to advance civil rights. Hansberry, by 1963 a seasoned activist and leftist, was especially incensed, and walked out of the meeting. “I’ve only met one person Lorraine could not get through to, and that was the late Bobby Kennedy,” Baldwin later wrote.25

According to scholar William Maxwell, a key fallout of the meeting between Baldwin and Kennedy was ramped-up FBI surveillance of Baldwin and his associates. He was placed on the FBI’s “Security Index,” indicating that the state considered him a high security risk. In 1963, the FBI wiretapped the phones of Clarence Jones. Jones was heard to say that Baldwin was going to “nail them [the FBI] to the wall” for its dirty tricks.26 That threat was all the FBI needed to begin a campaign to dig up dirt on Baldwin, including on his sexuality. Maxwell notes that the FBI began “seeding” attack stories on Baldwin in American newspapers to try and damage his reputation.27 Within a year, Baldwin was publicly promising to write a book, Blood Counters, exposing the FBI and its tactics. The FBI also kept note of and attempted to utilize evidence of homophobia within the civil rights movement itself. Tapping the telephone of Stanley Levinson, the FBI heard Levinson claim that both Baldwin and Bayard Rustin—an openly gay adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr.

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