Baldwin on responsibility

 Before dropping out of high school, I read James Baldwin’s essay “Notes of a Native Son.”

Baldwin was in his 40s then. About the time I discovered him, Baldwin had some conversations with the poet Nikki Giovanni that were recorded for broadcast. They were published as A Dialogue in 1973. Baldwin said:

 

“The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.”

 

Baldwin had a role in producing me. I read “Notes of a Native Son” and wanted to learn everything there was to know about him and the essay. The essay helped me to see how lives can be limited by religious beliefs and by racism. He helped me see that if I allowed myself to become a creature of the culture I grew up in, I’d deserve to live a life that was senselessly limited and limiting.

Last year, I marked the days of some of the people who shaped me. This year, those dates have passed, mostly, without comment. Here’s an exception. Today would have been Baldwin’s 99^th birthday.