James Baldwin, author of GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN, GIOVANN'S ROOM, NOTES OF A NATIVE SON, ANOTHER COUNTRY, and the recent nationwide sensation, THE FIRE NEXT TIME, has been hailed as one of the great young novelists of ‘ur time. He was awarded a Guggenheim Literary Fellowship, a National Institute of Arts and Let- ters Fellowship, and a Ford Foundation Grant-in- Kid For ten years he lived in Europe as a member of 2 colony of American expatriates. James Bald- win is a Negro, but he is, first and foremost, an ‘American. His roots are American; his torments are American. He has come home now, possessed ‘of broader outlooks and deeper insights, to speak out once again as the harsh, exciting new woice of America Se JAMES BALDWIN NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME MORE NOTES OF A NATIVE SON A DELL Bookubtees by DEL ubihing Ca, Ie. awa Rowe, Reo ah 188 by James Blew 1,5, tm, ts, yigaes sewn Th Bak ey Ln Te Wt BY” errant ‘rgb wi iat ress 2 TH 69510, ustaing Ca, me. fas a priting HEN a teeter? ‘ott belptig come, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Acknowledgment is made to the following publications in whose pages these essays first appeared. The New York Times Book Review for “The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American” (January 25, 1959); Encounter for “Princes and Powers"; Esquire for “Fifth Avenue Uptown: a Letter from Harlem” (July, 1960), reprinted by permission; New York Times Maga- zine for "East River Downtown: Postscript to a Letter from Harlem" (which appeared as “A Negro Assays the Negro Mood,” March 12, 1961); Harper's Magazine for “A Fly in Buttermilk” (which appeared as “The Hard Kind of Courage,” October, 1958); Partisan Review for “Nobody Knows My Name: a Letter from the South” (Winter, 1959) and “Faulkner and Desegregation” (Winter, 1956); Kalamazoo College for “In Search of A livered there as an_ address; Esquire for “Notes For A ‘Hypothetical Novel” (delivered as an address at the third annual Esquire Magazine symposium on the “Role of the Writer in America” at San Francisco State College, Octo- ber 22, 1960); The New Leader for “The Male Prison” (Gwhich’ appeared as “Gide As Husband and Homosexual, December 13, 1954); Esquire for “The Northern Protes- tant” (which appeared as “The Precarious Vogue of Ing- mar Bergman,” April, 1960), reprinted by permission; The Reporter for “Eight Men” (Which appeared as “The Sur vival of Richard Wright,” March 16, 1961); Le Preuve for “The Exile" (February, 1961); and Esquire for “The Black Boy Looks at The White Boy” (May, 1961), re- printed by permission.INTRODUCTION These essays were written over the last six years, in vari- ‘ous places and in many states of mind. These years seemed, on the whole, rather sad and aimless to me. Mj Fife in Burope was ending, not because T had decided that it should, but because it became clearer and clearer —as I dealt with the streets, the climate, and the temper- lament of Paris, fled to Spain and Corsica and Scandina- vvia—that something had ended for me. I rather think now, to tell the sober truth, that it was merely my youth, first youth, anyway, that was ending and I hated to see it go. In the context of my life, the end of my youth was signaled by the reluctant realization that I had, indeed, become a writer; s0 far, so good: now I would have to 4 the distance. In America, the color of my skin had stood between ‘myself and me; in Europe, that barrier was down, Noth ing is more desirable than to be released from an afllic~ tion, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. It tumed out that the question of who T was ‘was not solved because I had removed myself from the social forces which menaced me—anyway, these forces hhad become interior, and I had dragged them across the eccan with me, The question of who Twas had at last ¢ a personal question, and the answer was to Ber Gin thet thera Ivars somcting fit t there is always something frightening about this realization, I know it frightened me—that was2 NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME ‘one of the reasons that I dawdled in the European hax Yen for so long, And yet, T could not escape the knowl. tdige, though God knows I tried, that if T was sil in need of havens, my joumey had been for nothing. Havens are high-priced. ‘The price exacted of the haven-dweller is that he contrive to delude himself into believing that he has found a haven, It would seem, unless one looks more deeply at the phenomenen, that most people are able to ddelude themseives and get through their lives quite hap- pily. But T stil believe that the unexamined Ife is not ‘worth living: and I know that self-delusion, in the serv- jce of no matter what small or lofty cause, is a price no ‘writer can afford, His subject is himself and the world and jt requires every ounce of stamina he can summon to at- tempt to look on himself and the world as they are. ‘What it came to for me was that I no longer needed to fear leaving Europe, no longer needed to hide myself from the high and dangerous winds of the world. The ‘world was enormous and I could go anywhere in it T ‘chose—including America: and I decided to return here because I was afraid to. But the question which con- fronted me, nibbled at me, in my stony Corsican exile was: Am T afraid of returning to America? Or am T ‘afraid of journeying any further with myself? Once this Gquestion had presented itself it would not be it had to be annwered i: “Be careful what you set your heart upon,” someone ence sid to me, “for will surely be yours” Well, Thad said that T was going to be a writer, God, Satan, and ‘Missisippi notwithstanding, and that color did not mat- ter, and that I was going to be free. And, here I was, eft wh ly mello eal with, Hwa ently up me yese essays are a very stall ‘a private ‘The gusty af color taken up much apace in these pages, but the question of clo, especialy in this coun, try, operates to hide the praver questions of the self, That is precisely why what we like to call “the Negro problem” is'bo tenacious in American life, and so dangerous. But INTRODUCTION B iy own experience proves to me that the connection be; tween American whites and blacks is far deeper and Imore passionate tan any of us like to think. And, even in icy Sweden, I found myself talking with a man whose endless questioning has given him himself, and eho re- Ininded me of black Baptist preachers. The questions ‘which one asks oneself begin, at last, to illuminate the ‘world, and become one’s Key fo the experience of others One can only face in others what one can face in oneself. On this confrontation depends the measure of our dom and compassion. This energy is all that ane finds in the rubble of vanished civilizations, and the only hope for ours. Yoorns ALDWaePART ONE SITTING IN THE HOUSE1. THE DISCOVERY OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN “Tt is a complex fate to be an American,” Henry James ‘observed, and the principal discovery an American writer ‘makes in Europe is just how complex this fate is. Ameri- a's history, her aspirations, her peculiar triumphs, her ‘even more peculiar defeats, and her position in the world yesterday and today—are all so profoundly and stub- bbornly unique that the very word “America® remains a ew, aimost completely undefined and extremly conto ‘versal proper noun. No one in the world seems to know exactly what it describes, not even we motley millions who call ourselves Americans, Tieft America because I doubted my ability to survive the fury of the color problem here. (Sometimes T still a I wanted to prevent a from eos sae ‘a Negro; or, even, merely a Negro writer. I wanted to find out in what way the specialness of my experience could be made to connect me with other people instead of dividing me from them. (I was as isolated from Ne- ‘rors as T was from whites, which is what happens when 2 Negro begins, at bottom, to believe what white people say about him.) In my necessity to find the terms on which my experi- ence could be related to that of others, Negroes and ‘whites, writers and non-writers, I proved, to my aston= ishment, to be as American as any Texas G.I. And found my experience was shared by every American writ-8 NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME cer I knew in Paris, Like me, they had been divorced from their origins, and it turned out to make very little differ~ ence that the origins of white Americans were European fand mine were African—they were no more at home in Europe than I was. ‘The fact that I was the son of a slave and they were the tnt of ree men meant ls by de ine we conont Ge Sar Sthce on European wl, than the fact that we Secs bo searching for our separate identities. When we had found these, we seemed to be saying, why, then, we ‘would no longer need to cling to the shame and bitter- Tes which had divided us slong. Tebecaine terbly clear in Buope, at never had been here, that we knew more about each other than any Bue tee at ould” And ital became clear that, no mat ter where our fathers had been born, or what they had Sen et tat of Europe had formed us both, was Si out ideny and part of our inheritance. 1s enn Doi a couple of years before any of thi besnne ca toe When iy Hike many 8 wt [Slot upon du lever dat his props have Rnodked out from under him, suffered a species of break ag was cared off to the mountains of Stet Se eat absolutely alabaster andveaps, tare wa two Bene Smith records and a typewster, Io try to reveeate the fe that Thad fit known a8 ‘a child and from which I had spent so many years in : flight Bessie Smith, through her tone and her cadence, te helped gt dgbck tthe way mysell mnt ave spol when was a plckaniony, dt the ngs I had heard and seen and felt. I had buried them very deep. I had never listened to Besse Smith in Ameri- ta (in the same way that, for years, I would not touch Watermelon), but in Europe she helped to reconcile me to being a “nigger.” ‘THE DISCOVERY OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN 18 T do not think that T could have made this reconciliar tion here, Once T was able to accept my role—as distin~ ‘guished, I must say, from my “place”—in the extraordi- ary diana which is America, I was released from the illusion that T hated America. ‘The story of what can happen to an American Nezro writer in Europe simply illustrates, in some relief, what fan happen to any American writer there. It is not ‘meant, of course, to imply that it happens to them all, for Europe can be very crippling, too; and, anyway, a ‘writer, when he has made his first breakthrough, has sim- ply won a crucial skiemish in a dangerous, unending and mpredictable battle. Still, the breakthrough is impor- tant, and the point is that an American write, in order to achieve it, very often has to leave this country. The Ametican writer, in Europe, is released, frst of all, from the necessity of apologizing for himself. It is not {until he is released from the habit of flexing his muscles 2d proving that hes jut epular guy hat be real- izes how crippling this habit has been. Tt is not necessary for him, there, to pretend to be something he is not, for the artist does not encounter in Europe i tion he encounters here. Whatever the Europeans may Actually think of artists, they have killed ‘of them Off by nov to know that they are as real—and as persst~ fent—as rain, snow, taxes or businessmen. ‘OF course, the reason for Europe's comparative clarity concerning the different functions of men in society is that European society has always been divided into classes in 2 way that American society never has been. European writer considers himself to be part of an old and honorable tradition—of intellectual activity, of let- ters—and his choice of a vocation does not cause him any uneasy wonder as to whether or not it will cost him. all his ends: But this tradition docs not ext in Are ‘the contrary, we have a very deep-seated distrust of real intellectual effort (probably because we suspect that Ht will destroy, as I hope it does, that myth of Americaa NoBODY KNOWS MY NAIE to which we cling 10 desperately). An American writer Fights his way to one ofthe lowest rungs on the American Sheil ladder by means of pure bullheadedness and af Indescribable sotiesof odd Jobs, He probably has been ‘equa fellow” for much of his adult ife, and it s not cary for hitn to step out of that Iukewarm bath. We mus, However, conser aor mrious pardons though American society is more mobile than Europe's ft is easier to cut across social and occupational lines there than itis here, This has something to do, I thik, ide probe of eater in Areca ie Where Tyone has status it i aio perlecty possbie, after {ano one has. it seems inevitable, in any case that & nan may become uneasy as to jurt what his status i Tut European ave ved withthe en of sats fra Jong time: A man ean be as proud of being @ good waiter as of being a good actor, and in nether case fel threat- ned. And this means that the actor and the waiter ean fave a fear and more genuinely endl relationship in Europe than they are likely to have here. The waiter Jno fos, with obscure retentment, Ut the actor as Made fy” and the actor isnot tormented by the fear at he hay fd Ninel worn nce agai wae is lack of what may roughly be called social para in caunes the American writer in Europe to feel—al st certainly for the fist time in hs Hfe—that he can Teach out to everyone, that he is accessible to everyone todos fo eveything This an exeacrdinay ing His folly to speak, his ovm weight, his own value. Tes 2 though he suddenly came out of a dark tunnel and found himself beneath the open sky. And, in fact E'Pans, I began to see the sky for what seemed to be the fst time. Te was borne in on me-and it id not make Ine feel melancholy-—that this sky ad been there befere Twas born and would be there when I was dead. And it twas up to me, therefore, to make of my brief opportunity {he most that could be made. 5 was bor in New York, but have lived only in pockets ‘THE DISCOVERY OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN 21 of it. In Pars, I lived in all parts ofthe city—on the Right Bank and the Left, among the bourgeoisie and among let smisérables, and knew all kinds of people, from pimps and Fost in Pigalle to Egyptian bankers i Neuily is may sound extremely unprincipled or even obscure- ly immoral: I found it healthy. I love to talk to people, all kinds of people, and almost everyone, as I hope we still know, loves a man who loves to listen. ‘This perpetual dealing with people very different from ‘myself caused a shattering in me of preconceptions 1 scarcely knew I held. The writer is meeting in Europe people who are not American, whose sense of reality is entirely different from his own. They may love or hate ‘or admire or fear or envy this country—they see it, in any ase, from another point of view, and this forees the writ- fr to reconsider many things he had always taken for ‘granted. This reasessment, which can be very painful, is algo very valuable, "This freedom, like all freedom, has its dangers and its, responsi ‘One day it begins to be bome in on the writer, and with great force, that he is living in Europe ‘as an American. If he were living there as a European, hhe would be living on a different and far less attractive continent. ‘This crucial day may be the day on which an Algesian taxi-dtver tells Bim how it feels to be an Algerian in Pars, Te ay be the day on which he pases 2 eal tere face and catches a. glimpse of the tense, ineligent and troubled face of Albert Camus. Or it may be the day on whlch mene aks Hin fo explain Lie Rock and be Berins to feel that it would be simpler—and, corny as Begins toa ancl sacs hasorable=" a gota Lass Rock than a in Burope, on an American pasport, tj ing texan isin psu Gay, x trib day the day 0 which his ene sojourn has been tending Tis the day he real foes that there are no untroubled counties inthis fear2 NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME fully troubled works that if he bas ben preparing him- self for anything in Europe, he has been preparing teit—for America. In shor the freedom thatthe Amer ‘can writer finds in Europe brings him, full circle, back to himself, with the responsbility for his development where it always was: in his own hands, Even the most incorrigible maverick has to be born somewhere. He may leave the group that produced him— hhe may be forced to—but nothing will efface his origins, the marks of which he carries with him everywhere. think itis important to know this and even find it a mat- ter for rejoicing, as the strongest people do, regardless of their saden, On tis acosptancey eral the Ife ofa writer depends. ‘The charge has often been made against American ‘writers that they do not describe society, and have no in- terest in it. They only describe individuals in opposition to it, of isolated from it. Of course, what the American writer is describing is his own situation, But what is Anna Karenina describing if not the tragic fate of the isolated individual, at odds with her time and place? The real difference is that Tolstoy was describing an old and dense society in which everything seemed —ts the le in it though not to Tolstoy—to be fixed forever. ed the book ia masterpiece becaute Tolstoy was ab to fathom, and make us see, the hidden laws which really governed this society and made Anna's doom inevitable. ‘American writers do not have a fixed society to de- scribe. The only society they know is one in which noth- ing is fixed and in which the individual must fight for his identity. This isa rich confusion, indeed, and it cre- ates for the American writer unprecedented opportuni- ties, ‘That the tensions of American life, as well as the pos- sibilities, are tremendous is certainly not even a question. ‘But these are dealt with in contemporary literature main: Jy compulsively; that is, the book is more likely to bea symptom of our tension than an examination of it. The | ‘THE DISCOVERY OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN 23 time has come, God knows, for us to examine ourselves, bout we can only do this if we are willing to free ourselves ‘of the myth of America and try to find out what is really happening here. Every society is really governed by hidden Iaws, by un- spoken but profound assumptions on the part of the poo. Ble, and ours is no exception. It is up to the American Writer to find out what these laws and assumptions are. In a society much given to smashing taboos without thereby managing to be liberated from them, it will be no easy matter. J: sno wonder, in the meantime, that the American “writer keeps running off to Europe. He needs sustenance For his joumey and the best models he enn find. Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of trage ey. And we have what they sorely need: a new sense of life's posites. In this endeavor to wed the vision of the Old World with that of the New, its the writer, not the statesman, ‘who is our strongest arm. Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life isa real life, and the intane sible, dreams of people have a tangible effect on the ‘world,