James Baldwin is one of the most preeminent African American novelists, playwrights, poets, activists, and thinkers of the twentieth century.
Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York on August 2, 1924. Being the oldest of nine children and one generation removed from slavery, Baldwin grew up in serious poverty. His parents were among the early African Americans to participate in the Great Migration—the mass exodus from 1916-1970 of African Americans fleeing the post-slavery conditions and Jim Crow laws enacted in the South. During the 1920s, Harlem was bustling and quickly developed into a mecca and center for Black art, community, and culture. Harlem was best known for the many African...
