“He named for me the things you feel but couldn’t utter…articulated for the first time to white America what it meant to be American and a black American at the same time.”
—Henry Louis Gates Jr.
“The wonderful thing about writers like Baldwin is the way we read them and come across passages that are so arresting we become breathless and have to raise our eyes from the page to keep from being spirited away.”
—Edward P. Jones
“James Baldwin was born for truth. It called upon him to tell it on the mountains, to preach it in Harlem, to sing it on the Left Bank in Paris. His honesty and courage would lead him to see truth and to write truth in poetry, drama, fiction and essay. He was a giant.”
—Maya Angelou
Introduction
“A Lover’s Question”
Excerpt from “Many Thousands Gone”
Excerpt from “Journey to Atlanta”
“Stagerlee Wonders”
Excerpt from “Stranger in the Village”
“Amen”
