Birthdays
Profiles of LGBT people, from the past and today – and celebrating their birthdays! All Birthdays →
James Baldwin
James Baldwin was born to African American parents on August 2, 1924, in New York City. To escape racism and homophobia in the United States, Baldwin moved to France in 1948. In France, Baldwin published Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953); a few years later the controversial novel Giovanni's Room (1956) featured several white gay characters. His 1962 book Another Country featured multiple types of intimate relationships, including same-sex and interracial relationships between men. In the 1960s Baldwin returned to the United States and became a prominent figure in the African American civil rights movement. Baldwin attended the March on Washington in 1963, the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965, and the literary conference “The Negro Writers Vision of American” in 1965. His 1964 book Blues for Mr. Charlie pays tribute to Emmett Till, who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, and his 1972 book-length essay No Name in the Street addressed the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. He continued his activism in support of African Americans throughout the 1970s and 1980s and openly discussed his sexuality in his later years. He died on December 1, 1987. For more on his life and legacy, see LGBT African Americans by Kali Henderson and Dionn McDonald.