Great American Authors | James Baldwin: The Exile | 5

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Born into poverty in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin rose to become a celebrated novelist, essayist, playwright, and poet, and a leading voice in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. In his debut novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and in his essay collections, Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time, Baldwin wrote eloquently and provocatively about race, religion, sexuality, politics and class.

To distance himself from the racial hatred and discrimination at home, Baldwin spent much of his adult life in France, helping to create a vibrant community for other Black artists, such as Nina Simone, Miles Davis and Josephine Baker. But he returned to America often to provide a fearless and incisive testimony to the events that defined his tumultuous era.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	1st
0:11.0	1st. Imagine it's a Friday night in March of 1943. You're outside a restaurant called the American
0:19.5	Diner in Trenton, New Jersey, trying to catch up to a friend who's walking quickly ahead of you on the sidewalk.
0:25.2	Your friend Jimmy is a young black man from Harlem who works laying railroad tracks for the U.S. Army.
0:30.4	Tonight was supposed to be a break from hard work.
0:33.0	Together you watched a movie and headed to the diner to grab a bite to eat,
0:37.0	but the man at the counter refused to serve Jimmy because he's black.
0:40.0	And you could see the anger and frustration in Jimmy's face when he was turned away.
0:44.8	You know that look, and now you're worried.
0:47.5	You pick up your pace, trying to catch up to him.
0:49.9	He's still glaring back at the diner from the street. Hey Jimmy, wait up, hey come on.
0:55.0	I thought this was the American diner.
0:57.6	Doesn't seem very American to me.
1:00.1	Hey, keep your voice down.
1:02.0	You want them to call the police?
1:04.0	Your friend weaves down the crowded sidewalk and stops and waits for you.
1:08.0	All I wanted was a hamburger and a coffee. Is that a crime?
1:12.0	I'm sorry, it's not fair. It's totally wrong.
1:15.2	He reached to pat him on the back, but he flinches. He pulls away.
1:18.7	I'm so sick of hearing those words. We don't serve colors. We don't serve Negroes. We don't serve colors. We don't serve
1:23.4	Negroes. We don't serve your kind. Not everyone is like that, not in New York at
1:29.0	least. Maybe you should come to Greenwich Village. We never have these problems there. I would if I could,
	...

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