scholarly journals “Who’s the Nigger Now?”: Rhetoric and Identity in James Baldwin’s Revolution from Within

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-130
Author(s):  
Davis W. Houck
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
American History ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Critical Studies

Despite the proliferation of interest in James Baldwin across popular culture and the academy, few, if any, critical studies of his public oratory have been conducted. This is unfortunate and ironic—unfortunate because Baldwin was a marvelous orator, and ironic in that his preferred solution to what ailed whites and blacks as the Civil Rights movement unfolded was thoroughly rhetorical. That is, Baldwin’s racial rhetorical revolution involved a re-valuing of the historical evidence used to keep blacks enslaved both mentally and physically across countless generations. Moreover, for Baldwin the act of naming functions to chain both whites and blacks to a version of American history psychologically damaging to both. Three speeches that Baldwin delivered in 1963 amid the crucible of civil rights protest illustrate these claims.

James Baldwin

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
American History ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
First Century ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Twenty First Century

The book is devoted to the works of James Baldwin, one of the most compelling writers of the twentieth century. The authors examine his most important contributions – including novels, essays, short stories, poetry, and media appearances – in the wider context of American history. They demonstrate the lasting importance of his oeuvre, which was central to the Civil Rights Movement and continues to be relevant at the dawn of the twenty-first century and the Black Lives Matter era.

Conclusion: The Long Stride Toward Freedom1

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kyle Day
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
American History ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The South ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
Martin Luther King

The conclusion assesses the long term implications of the Southern Manifesto for both the course of the Civil Rights Movement as well as the larger racial dynamic s of Postwar America. Under the circumspect rhetoric of moderation, the Southern Manifesto undermined the efforts of civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to desegregate the South, and empowered southern officials to ignore the Brown decision for years. This conclusion thus places the Southern Manifesto in proper historical perspective and provides a summary of the implications of this event, the greatest episode of antagonistic racial demagoguery in modern American History.

The Newest South

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-108
Author(s):  
Brenda Plummer
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
New South ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Brenda Plummer examines the effect of the U.S. space program on race relations in key areas of the South, and the impact of that connection on popular culture. She also explores the intersection of the struggle for racial equality and aerospace exploration, as both constituted potent narratives of freedom in the American imaginary. Plummer disputes the assumption that NASA as an instrument of modernization and partner in the creation of the New South was implicitly allied with the civil rights movement. While the transformation of parts of the Deep South undeniably broke up earlier political, economic, and cultural patterns, aerospace research and development helped inaugurate a successor regime that neither challenged the structural foundations of racial inequality nor guarded against the production of new disparities.

The Techniques of Disavowal

2021 ◽  
pp. 159-191
Author(s):  
Erin R. Pineda
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Public Memory ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
The South ◽  
Black Activism ◽  
The Public ◽  
The One

This chapter considers the limitations of civil rights disobedience in transforming white citizens. Building on the work of James Baldwin, Charles Mills, and Elizabeth Spelman and chronicling a “failed” protest at the 1964 World’s Fair, this chapter attends to the discursive techniques of disavowal that white citizens and state officials used to dismiss black activism as inappropriate, irresponsible, gratuitous, and violent—thereby avoiding the claims such protest made upon them, while preserving their own innocence and moral standing. In stepping outside the South and the familiar set of events that make up the public memory of the “short” civil rights movement, this chapter also suggests that some aspects of campaigns like the one in Birmingham were enabled—and publicly legitimated—by the very techniques of disavowal that limited the movement’s radical potentialities.

scholarly journals The Divided Mind of James Baldwin

1979 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. W. E. Bigsby
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Lionel Trilling ◽  
New Novel ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Four Books ◽  
Critical Interest

Lionel Trilling once observed that there are certain individuals who contain the “ yes ” and “ no ” of their culture, whose personal ambivalences become paradigmatic. This would seem to be an apt description of a man whose first novel was published twenty-five years ago, a man whose career has described a neat and telling parabola and whose contradictions go to the heart of an issue which dominated the political and cultural life of mid-century America: James Baldwin. And it is perhaps not inappropriate to seize the occasion of this anniversary and of the publication of his new novel, Just Above My Head, to attempt a summation of a writer, once an articulate spokesman for black revolt, now living an expatriate existence in southern France.To date, Baldwin has written six novels: Go Tell it on the Mountain (1954), Giovanni's Room (1956), Another Country (1962), Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), Just Above My Head (1979); four books of essays: The Fire Next Time (1963), Nobody Knows My Name (1964), Notes of a Native Son (1964), No Name in the Street (1972); two plays: Blues for Mr. Charlie (1964), Amen Corner (1968); and one book of short stories: Going to Meet the Man (1965). Born in Harlem in 1924, he left in 1948 for France, driven out by despair of the racial situation. He returned in 1957 and in the heady days of the Civil Rights movement found himself a principal spokesman — his polemical essay, The Fire Next Time, appearing at a crucial moment in black/white relations. Outflanked by the events of the late sixties, he retreated again to Europe. His more recent novels have failed to spark the popular or critical interest of his earlier work.

scholarly journals Baldwin This Time

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-128
Author(s):  
Bill V. Mullen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Third World ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The South ◽  
Psychological Vulnerability ◽  
In Fire ◽  
The U.S

This excerpt from James Baldwin: Living in Fire details a key juncture in Baldwin’s life, 1957–59, when he was transformed by a visit to the South to write about the civil rights movement while grappling with the meaning of the Algerian Revolution. The excerpt shows Baldwin understanding black and Arab liberation struggles as simultaneous and parallel moments in the rise of Third World, anti-colonial and anti-racist U.S. politics. It also shows Baldwin’s emotional and psychological vulnerability to repressive state violence experienced by black and Arab citizens in the U.S., France, and Algiers.

scholarly journals The Great Debate

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-27
Author(s):  
Linfield University
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Great Debate

Born in New York City only fifteen months apart, the Harlem-raised James Baldwin and the privileged William F. Buckley, Jr. could not have been more different, but they both rose to the height of American intellectual life during the civil rights movement. By the time they met in February 1965 to debate race and the American Dream at the Cambridge Union, Buckley—a founding father of the American conservative movement—was determined to sound the alarm about a man he considered an “eloquent menace.” For his part, Baldwin viewed Buckley as a deluded reactionary whose popularity revealed the sickness of the American soul. The stage was set for an epic confrontation that pitted Baldwin’s call for a moral revolution in race relations against Buckley’s unabashed elitism and implicit commitment to white supremacy. In this article I introduce readers to the story at the heart of my new book about Baldwin and Buckley, The Fire Is Upon Us.

A Political Companion to James Baldwin

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
And Gender

In this text, a group of prominent scholars assesses James Baldwin’s relevance to present-day political challenges. Together, they address Baldwin as a democratic theorist, activist, and citizen, examining his writings on the civil rights movement, religion, homosexuality, and women’s rights. They investigate the ways in which his work speaks to and galvanizes a collective American polity, and explore his views on the political implications of individual experience in relation to race and gender. This volume not only considers Baldwin’s works within their own historical context, but also applies the author’s insights to recent events such as the Obama presidency and the Black Lives Matter movement, emphasizing his faith in the connections between the past and present. These incisive essays will encourage a new reading of Baldwin that celebrates his significant contributions to political and democratic theory.

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