MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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The political formation of James Baldwin
JENNY FARRELL traces the critical role that the CPUSA played in the education of Harlem’s greatest man of letters
Civil Rights March on Washington, DC (L to R) Charlton Heston, James Baldwin and Marlon Brando, with Sidney Poitier standing behind. August 28 1963
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
JAMES BALDWIN, the important left-wing polemicist, black author and activist, was born one hundred years ago in Harlem, New York, August 2 1924. His writing career encompassed bestselling novels, essays, plays and articles.
Baldwin’s stepfather David, a Pentecostal preacher, was a factory worker, earning too little to provide for his family of nine children. His mother Berdis, a migrant from the South, worked in domestic service. The young James’s first encounter with police at the age of 10 brought home to him the realities of racism. David’s preaching initially led the teenage Baldwin to become a young minister.
During his time at Public School 124 in Harlem (with its first black principal, Gertrude Ayers), Baldwin’s potential was recognised by Orilla Miller, a white teacher and communist from the Midwest. Miller introduced him to literature and theatre, including A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and the landmark play Voodoo Macbeth, directed by Orson Welles with an all-black cast.
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As Caspar David Friedrich’s 250th anniversary is celebrated in Berlin and New York, JENNY FARRELL urges viewers of the German Romantic painter to understand its true historical context, and beware his co-option by the far right
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