Among Baldwin’s best-known quotes: “Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.”
This year marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of James Baldwin (1924–1987), author of Giovanni’s Room, The Fire Next Time and Go Tell It on the Mountain, among many others. On explosive issues of social equality for Black and gay America, his voice was at once disarming and challenging, casual and commanding. His presence as a major figure in American literature has only grown since his death and he continues to be an inspiration in the ongoing fight for equality. In 2020, while millions took to the streets to protest racial injustice in the United States, former President Barack Obama wrote that The Fire Next Time “remains a seminal meditation on race by one of our greatest writers and relevant for understanding the pain and anger behind the protests.”
In a 1960 speech at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, which appeared in his book of essays, Nobody Knows My Name, Baldwin spoke about the responsibility of each individual to challenge a status quo that didn’t allow them to treat each other fairly.
“Whether we like it or not, we are bound together forever. We are part of each other. What is happening to every Negro in this country is happening to you. … [Majorities have] nothing to do with numbers or power, but with influence, with moral influence, and I want to suggest this: that the majority for which everyone is seeking which must reassess and release us from our past and deal with the present and create standards worthy of what a man may be—this majority is you.
No one else can do it. The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.”