From the Harlem ghetto of his childhood, to the affl uent salons of international literati he

came to know in his later years, James Baldwin (1924-87) was perhaps the best-known

African American author, intellectual, and civil rights spokesperson of the 1960s.1 Like

many other writers at mid-twentieth century – amid the post-1945 tumultuous transition

into the Cold War and Civil Rights struggles – Baldwin believed that literature had power to

alter social relations by changing individuals and challenging racialized power structures.2