James Baldwin — the grandson of a slave — was born in Harlem on August 2, 1924. He was the oldest of nine children growing up in poverty. Throughout his life, Baldwin was recognized not only for his achievements in literature but also for his work in the Civil Rights struggle and for his efforts to facilitate understanding and respect between all people. Although an expatriate writer, Baldwin remained active in events that shaped American culture. He divided his time between Europe and the United States, and his role in the movement cannot be overlooked, meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and a host of other politically active notables in an effort to bring about constructive social change. His beliefs on race and race relations would color many of his novels and inspire a large percentage of his essays.
James Baldwin published his first major work, the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, in 1953 and garnered acclaim for his insights on race, spirituality and humanity. Now available for the first time in forty years, this new edition of Little Man, Little Man–which retains the charming original illustrations by French artist Yoran Cazac–celebrates and explores the challenges and joys of black childhood. This is Baldwin’s only children’s book.
RECOMMENDED READS:
| James Baldwin: Collected Essays |
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 A comprehensive compilation of Baldwin’s previously published, nonfiction writings encompasses essays on America’s racial divide, the social and political turbulence of his time, and his insights into the poetry of Langston Hughes and the music of Earl Hines. |
| James Baldwin: The Last Interview And Other Conversations |
Never before available, the last interview with James Baldwin. Also collected here are significant interviews from other moments in Baldwin’s life, including an in-depth interview conducted by Studs Terkel shortly after the publication of “Nobody Knows My Name.” These interviews showcase, above all, Baldwin’s fearlessness and integrity as a writer, thinker, and individual, as well as the profound struggles he faced along the way. |
| The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition |
 Rummaging through the ruins of American race relations, Baldwin addresses all the hard-to-face issues that have brought us a moment in history where it is terrifying to to be a black child in white America, and where, too often, public officials fail to ask real questions about “justice for all.” Baldwin takes a time-specific event and makes it timeless: The Evidence of Things Not Seen offers an incisive look at race in America through a lens at once disturbing and profoundly revealing. |
| Another Country |
 Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions–sexual, racial, political, artistic–that is stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. |
| Giovanni’s Room |
 Set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin’s now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart. |
| The Fire Next Time |
 A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two “letters, ” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. |
Stop by the store or check us out online and pick up one these awesome titles today. Happy Birthday Bro. James…your insight, eloquence, and courage has left a legacy guiding each successive generation.
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