James Baldwin
James Baldwin was an American writer and social critic whose essays, novels, and plays examined race, sexuality, and identity in mid-twentieth-century America.
Works like *Go Tell It on the Mountain*, *Notes of a Native Son*, and *The Fire Next Time* made him one of the most influential voices of the civil rights era.
His prose combined personal testimony with political urgency: Baldwin's essays on being Black in America remain essential reading.
Richard Wright · Langston Hughes · Toni Morrison · Maya Angelou · Bobby Kennedy
Writer of prose narratives
- essayistAuthor of short prose
- playwrightAuthor of stage dramas
- proseUnversified language
- narrativeAccount of events
fiction · literary criticism · memoir · expatriate · Paris · American literature
Guaranteed individual legal protections
- racial justiceFairness regardless of ethnicity
- equalitySame status for all
- integrationCombining into a whole
- segregationForced separation by group
racism · discrimination · protest · CORE · March on Washington · Medgar Evers · sit-ins · Black Power
Who someone is
- raceCompetition of speed
- sexualityErotic nature and preferences
- religionSystem of spiritual belief
- loveIntense fond attachment
alienation · exile · masculinity · queerness · homosexuality · faith · Pentecostal · family
Fluent and persuasive
- articulateExpress clearly, or well-spoken
- expressiveShowing feelings outwardly
- persuasiveAble to convince others
- rhetoricalUsing language for effect
compelling · impassioned · poignant · prophetic · lectures · speeches · public intellectual · truth-telling
Martin Luther King Jr.
- Toni Morrison"Song of Solomon"
- Bobby KennedySlain sixties political figure
Malcolm X · Medgar Evers · Nina Simone · Marlon Brando · Richard Wright · Langston Hughes · Maya Angelou
novelist
Writer of prose narratives
- essayistAuthor of short prose
- playwrightAuthor of stage dramas
- proseUnversified language
narrative · fiction · literary criticism · memoir · expatriate · Paris · American literature
civil rights
Guaranteed individual legal protections
- racial justiceFairness regardless of ethnicity
- equalitySame status for all
- integrationCombining into a whole
segregation · racism · discrimination · protest · CORE · March on Washington · Medgar Evers · sit-ins · Black Power · testimony
identity
Who someone is
love · alienation · exile · masculinity · queerness · homosexuality · faith · Pentecostal · family · fatherhood
eloquent
Fluent and persuasive
- articulateExpress clearly, or well-spoken
- expressiveShowing feelings outwardly
- persuasiveAble to convince others
rhetorical · compelling · impassioned · poignant · prophetic · lectures · speeches · public intellectual · truth-telling · confrontational
- American WritersToni Morrison, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, John Updike, Thomas Pynchon
- Black Thoughtdouble consciousness, Pan-Africanism, Afrocentrism, W.E.B. Du Bois, womanism
- AuthorsShakespeare, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Famous AuthorsShakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Hemingway, Twain
- Authors JJ.R.R. Tolkien, Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, John Grisham, Jack London
- American LiteratureThe Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Moby Dick
James BaldwinNorman Mailer