James Baldwin Awards

James Baldwin Awards

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Chez Baldwin

James Baldwin Literary Achievements

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2017 Webby Award - People's Choice Award
Explore Baldwin’s literary career from 1940 - 1987 through this interactive timeline and learn more about his life and legacy in our digital exhibition, Chez Baldwin .
Baldwin meets the painter Beauford Delaney, who becomes a mentor and who paints several portraits of Baldwin.
Baldwin graduates from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, where he was a member of the literary club and co-editor of the school literary magazine, Magpie .
Baldwin meets writer Richard Wright, who refers his first draft of Go Tell It On The Mountain to Harper and Brothers publishing house.
Baldwin receives a $500.00 Saxton Fellowship from Harper and Brothers.
The first draft of Go Tell It On The Mountain is rejected by both Harper and Doubleday publishing houses.
Baldwin begins writing book reviews for The Nation and The New Leader , giving Baldwin a national platform.
“History as Nightmare,” Baldwin’s review of Chester Himes’ novel Lonely Crusade , is published in The New Leader .
Baldwin expands his writing portfolio, publishing the essay “The Harlem Ghetto,” (link is external) a critique of worsening socio-economic conditions in Harlem, and the short story “Previous Condition,” (link is external) both in Commentary .
“Everybody’s Protest Novel” (link is external) appears simultaneously in Zero and Partisan Review . “Preservation of Innocence,” sometimes viewed as a companion to “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” is published the same year in Zero .
He is jailed in Paris (link is external) for eight days for theft, having been falsely accused of stealing a hotel bed sheet.
“Many Thousands Gone,” (link is external) an essay published in Partisan Review , contains Baldwin’s continued, scathing critique of Richard Wright, which leads to a falling out between Baldwin and his former mentor.
Baldwin completes Go Tell It On The Mountain in Switzerland, in Löeche-les-Bains, where he had stayed on three occasions with his Swiss friend and lover, the painter Lucien Happersberger.
Based on Baldwin’s stay in Switzerland, “Stranger in the Village” (link is external) is published in Harper’s Magazine .
Go Tell It On The Mountain , Baldwin’s first novel, is published.
Baldwin wins the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.
He publishes his first play, The Amen Corner.
He attends the MacDowell Colony (link is external) artists’ community in Peterboro, New Hampshire.
Baldwin attends Yaddo, a residential program for artists in Sarasota Springs, New York.
The Howard Players perform The Amen Corner at Howard University.
He publishes his first collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son, (link is external) which includes the autobiographical narrative “Equal in Paris,” (link is external) about being jailed in Paris in 1949, originally published in Commentary .
Baldwin publishes Giovanni’s Room with Dial Press, beginning a long relationship with the publishing house.
He accepts the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award and a Partisan Review fellowship.
Baldwin covers the First Conference of Negro and African Writers and Artists at the Sorbonne, sponsored by Presence Africaine .
Baldwin publishes the short story, “Sonny’s Blues” (link is external) in Partisan Review .
He travels to North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and other places throughout the South on assignment for Partisan Review . On this trip, he interviews student protestors and meets with Martin Luther King, Jr.
Baldwin is awarded a two-year Ford Foundation grant to complete Another Country .
Baldwin interviews film director Ingmar Bergman in Sweden, and he serves as an apprentice on Elia Kazan’s productions of “Sweet Bird of Youth” and “JB.”
Baldwin covers sit-ins in Tallahassee, Florida, interviewing students at Florida A&M and then publishes “History Is A Weapon: They Can’t Turn Back” (link is external) in Mademoiselle about his experiences there.
Richard Wright dies suddenly of a heart attack.
Baldwin publishes his second collection of essays, Nobody Knows My Name , Dial Press, and appears on radio and television to promote the book and speak about civil rights. This collection includes “Alas, Poor Richard,” (link is external) another critique of Richard Wright’s work, and “The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy Norman Mailer,” (link is external) about his conflict with the novelist Norman Mailer.
At the invitation of Turkish actor Engin Cezzar, Baldwin makes his first visit to Turkey, where he completes Another Country and decides to make Turkey his writing haven.
Another Country is published by Dial Press and becomes a national best seller.
“Letter from a Region in My Mind,” (link is external) in which he correlates religion, safety, and fear, is published in The New Yorker , and is later re-printed in The Fire Next Time (link is external) as “Down at the Cross” along with the shorter piece, “Letter to My Nephew.”
The Fire Next Time , which includes an essay about meeting Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, is published to national acclaim.
He wins the Polk Memorial Award for outstanding magazine journalism.
Baldwin travels to Nairobi, Kenya with Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier to celebrate Kenya’s independence.
Baldwin is elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Baldwin publishes the play Blues for Mister Charlie , Dial Press, and the theater production of the play appears at the historic American National Theater and Academy (ANTA) in New York.
Baldwin publishes Nothing Personal (link is external) with photographer and high school friend Richard Avedon, Atheneum Books.
Baldwin debates American author and noted conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. at Cambridge (link is external) and receives standing ovation for his response to “Has the American Dream Been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro?”
“The Negro Writer’s Vision of America” appears in Literary Conference Notes.
Baldwin publishes the volume of short stories, Going to Meet the Man , Dial Press.
The play The Amen Corner is performed in New York, Israel, and Europe.
Baldwin publishes the novel, Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone , Dial Press.
Baldwin speaks at the World Council of Churches in Sweden against apartheid in South Africa, and testifies at a Congressional hearing to “Establish a National Commission on Negro History and Culture.”
Soul on Ice author Eldridge Cleaver uses homophobic language to attack Baldwin for his works and life choices.
Baldwin publishes the The New York Times article “The Price May Be Too High” (link is external) about black artists in a white dominated entertainment industry.
He directs the performance of John Herbert’s play, “Fortune and Men’s Eyes,” about masculinity, sexual violence, and power in Istanbul, Turkey, at the theater of Engin Cezzar and Gülriz Sururi.
Baldwin becomes the subject of many photographs and a short film, “James Baldwin: From Another Place,” (link is external) both by Sedat Pakay in Istanbul.
Baldwin holds conversations on race with the anthropologist Margaret Mead.
Baldwin and anthropologist Margaret Mead publish the transcript of conversations they held in New York in 1970 in a co-authored book, A Rap On Race .
Poet Nikki Giovanni interviews Baldwin in London on Ellis Haizlip’s famous show, “Soul!”
Baldwin moves to the village of St. Paul de Vence in the South of France, where he first rents and then buys the house on Rue de la Colle from Mlle. Jean Faure.
Baldwin publishes his essay volume, No Name In The Street , Dial Press.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., secures an interview with James Baldwin and Josephine Baker together in James Baldwin’s house in St. Paul de Vence, France, which later inspires one of the characters in Baldwin’s last play, The Welcome Table (link is external) .
The transcript from his 1971 television interview with the poet Nikki Giovanni is published as the book, A Dialogue .
Baldwin publishes the novel, If Beale Street Could Talk , Dial Press.
He becomes the third recipient (after writer Tennessee Williams and dancer Martha Graham) of the prestigious Centennial Medal awarded to “The Artist As Prophet” by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
Baldwin publishes a children’s book, Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood (link is external) , with illustrations by Yoran Cazac, Dial Press.
He publishes the book-length essay on cinema and popular culture, The Devil Finds Work .
Baldwin teaches a spring course in contemporary literature at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, later to return in 1979 and 1981.
Baldwin is awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Medal.
Just Above My Head , his sixth and final novel, is published by Dial Press.
Baldwin speaks at UC Berkeley (link is external) , where he teaches in the spring, as well as in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara, and he begins writing and lecturing on “Black English.” (link is external)
He travels throughout the South for a series of articles with The New Yorker .
Baldwin meets Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe at the 5th annual conference (link is external) of the African Literature Association on the University of Florida campus.
Film makers Dick Fontaine and Pat Hart
Milk The Cunt
Tickle Nipples
Cum Sucking Whore

James Baldwin Awards

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