James Baldwin, (August 2, 1924–November 30, 1987)

Biography

James Arthur Baldwin, an African American, was a writer. When he was an infant, his mother, Emma Berdis Joynes, moved to Harlem, NY. When he was still young, his mother married a preacher, David Baldwin, who adopted James. The family was poor; and James and his adoptive father had a tumultuous relationship. James Baldwin attended the prestigious DeWitt Clinton High School in New York. At the age of 14, he joined the Pentecostal Church and became a Pentecostal preacher.

When he was 17 years , Baldwin turned away from religion and moved to Greenwich Village, a New York City neighborhood, famous for its artists and writers. Supporting himself with odd jobs, he began to write short stories, essays, and book reviews, many of which were later collected in the volume Notes of a Native Son (1955).

In 1948, disillusioned by American prejudice against blacks, Baldwin left the United States and departed to Paris, France, where he would live as an expatriate for most of his later life.^[2]

On November 30, 1987 Baldwin died from stomach cancer in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. He was buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, near New York City