king james.

words.

"Long before it was fashionable to argue that race was a social construct, Baldwin famously said, “Insofar as you think you’re white, you’re irrelevant,” during a 1979 speech in Berkeley, Calif., a sentiment he repeated in his writing and public appearances. Racism was not a stain on American exceptionalism, Baldwin argued, but a deliberate feature of a country that he said routinely terrorized black people. He moved to France in the late 1940s to escape racism, but he returned home often, and he helped to articulate the pains of the civil rights movement.

“He was one of the fiercest critics of the American race problem who ever put pen to paper," said Khalil G. Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Trying to Bring Baldwin’s Complex Voice Back to the Classroom: James Baldwin, Born 90 Years Ago, Is Fading in Classrooms