Isabel Wilkerson Instagram – Today is the centennial of the birth of one of the greatest writers and thinkers the world has ever produced, James Baldwin. He was born on this day 100 years ago, August 2, 1924, in New York City and spent his life calling upon his country to live up to its ideals.
He was a prophet and an oracle, and, because of his genius and because some things haven’t changed as much as we might like to think since he passed away in 1987, his words ring as true today as when he wrote them.
“This is the charged, the dangerous moment,” he wrote in 1980, “when everything must be re-examined, must be made new, when nothing at all can be taken for granted.”
Here’s more of Baldwin from throughout his life, much of it in relation to the Civil Rights Movement, of which he was a part:
“We are the generation that must throw everything into the endeavor to remake America into what we say we want it to be. Without this endeavor, we will perish.”
“Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason.… Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we’ve used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are.”
“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.”
“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope.”
“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
I felt so empowered and inspired by him as I researched the stark truths of our country’s history and hierarchy, that I chose these words from Baldwin as the epigraph to Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents:
“Because even if I should speak, no one would believe me. And no one would believe me precisely because they would know that what I said was true.” | Posted on 02/Aug/2024 19:44:55
