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The Last Interview
La dernière interview de James Baldwin
Cet entretien se déroule à Saint-Paul-de-Vence, un mois avant le décès de James Baldwin.Quincy Troupe connaissait l’état avancé du cancer de son ami. Ils échangent sur Miles Davis pour qui James Baldwin éprouvait un sentiment de fraternité, sur le travail de LeRoi Jones, Toni Morrison et Ralph Ellison, et sur la façon dont la France et l’Europe le regardent. Ici, il n’est plus un Nègre. Quincy Troupe donne à lire, peut-être mieux que quiconque, l’intégrité, l’éthique que James Baldwin a, en partie, forgées dans l’écriture, instrument s’il en est, de transformation de la colère en pensée.
« Il espérait que les écrivains continueraient à être les témoins de notre temps et à dénoncer la tyrannie individuelle et institutionnelle (...). Il a raison, bien sûr - au sujet du racisme, de la violence, de l’indifférence cynique de nos sociétés modernes et, plus que tout, des valeurs contemporaines qui dominent l’Amérique actuelle. »
« Il espérait que les écrivains continueraient à être les témoins de notre temps et à dénoncer la tyrannie individuelle et institutionnelle (...). Il a raison, bien sûr - au sujet du racisme, de la violence, de l’indifférence cynique de nos sociétés modernes et, plus que tout, des valeurs contemporaines qui dominent l’Amérique actuelle. »
44 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 2, 2014
163 people are currently reading
4416 people want to read
About the author
Quincy Troupe
47 books40 followersQuincy Thomas Troupe, Jr. is an American poet, editor, journalist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, California. He is best known as the biographer of Miles Davis, the jazz musician.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 169 reviews
June 12, 2018
As a Nigerian who has only been in the US for about 7.5 years, and sadly didn't take any class on African American history, I've had to do a lot of learning and unlearning on my own (& through others) about blackness and its history in the U.S. Growing up, most of what I consumed on mainstream American media about blackness was typically shallow, stereotypical and negative.
In the past few years as I've grown into and embraced my black identity, one name that has come up time and time again is James Baldwin (amongst others). This book is small but it packs a punch. It's a collection of four interviews James Baldwin did, including his last interview, that covers a broad range of topics.
This book gave me a glimpse of the kind of man James Baldwin was: brilliant, intense, incredibly perceptive, passionate & blunt. I loved every bit of it. There were some parts that went over my head because I'm unaware of certain references and political events, but overall it was an incredible read.
I read a library copy, but now I'm off to buy my own.
In the past few years as I've grown into and embraced my black identity, one name that has come up time and time again is James Baldwin (amongst others). This book is small but it packs a punch. It's a collection of four interviews James Baldwin did, including his last interview, that covers a broad range of topics.
This book gave me a glimpse of the kind of man James Baldwin was: brilliant, intense, incredibly perceptive, passionate & blunt. I loved every bit of it. There were some parts that went over my head because I'm unaware of certain references and political events, but overall it was an incredible read.
I read a library copy, but now I'm off to buy my own.
May 29, 2020
"The human fact is this: that one cannot escape anything one has done. One has got to pay for it. You either pay for it willingly or unwillingly."
James Baldwin was one of the greatest intellectuals of the twentieth century. His sharp and clear words that probed and laid out injustices still ring true to this day. In these four interviews, the last one done as he was ailing and dying, Baldwin discusses a range of topics among them racism, his relationships with his predecessors Richard Wright and Langston Hughes, his life and struggles, sexuality, then-contemporary African American writers like Toni Morrison, and his friendship with Miles Davis. One comes from these conversations with better understanding, affirmation and clarity. To the end, Baldwin still remained as brilliant as ever.
With certain writers one really feels that there is no way one can do justice to their words other than urging others to read for themselves and experience for themselves firsthand the wisdom and insight given, and Baldwin is certainly one of those writers. Baldwin is a writer whose words are often deemed prophetic, not only because the racist society he consistently called out still persists today, but because he clearly, eloquently, unflinchingly, and lovingly was able to look at and speak truth.
James Baldwin was one of the greatest intellectuals of the twentieth century. His sharp and clear words that probed and laid out injustices still ring true to this day. In these four interviews, the last one done as he was ailing and dying, Baldwin discusses a range of topics among them racism, his relationships with his predecessors Richard Wright and Langston Hughes, his life and struggles, sexuality, then-contemporary African American writers like Toni Morrison, and his friendship with Miles Davis. One comes from these conversations with better understanding, affirmation and clarity. To the end, Baldwin still remained as brilliant as ever.
With certain writers one really feels that there is no way one can do justice to their words other than urging others to read for themselves and experience for themselves firsthand the wisdom and insight given, and Baldwin is certainly one of those writers. Baldwin is a writer whose words are often deemed prophetic, not only because the racist society he consistently called out still persists today, but because he clearly, eloquently, unflinchingly, and lovingly was able to look at and speak truth.
December 27, 2014
I think it's safe to say that pretty much all James Baldwin is essential reading.
October 13, 2022
In an interview in New York in 1984 James Baldwin claimed not to know what a "clone" was — American gay culture was foreign to him.
Much of Baldwin's power as a writer flowed from his status as an outsider and his ability to be a clear-eyed observer. He saw America too clearly to want to live there; and outside of America people saw him more clearly too. Distance sharpens the vision.
A complicated, illuminating volume on identity, writing, being always an outsider, and the beauty of pure ignorance.
Much of Baldwin's power as a writer flowed from his status as an outsider and his ability to be a clear-eyed observer. He saw America too clearly to want to live there; and outside of America people saw him more clearly too. Distance sharpens the vision.
A complicated, illuminating volume on identity, writing, being always an outsider, and the beauty of pure ignorance.
June 29, 2024
James Baldwin: The Last Interview and Other Conversations collects four interviews with Baldwin, one from 1961 with Studs Terkel and three from the 1980s, with Lester Julius, Richard Goldstein, and Quincy Troupe, respectively. These interviews cover various topics such as Baldwin's writing life, his struggles with publishing in the U.S. compared to Europe, the role of celebrity and fame, his role as a maverick and witness, and his relationships with other writers and artists, such as Richard Wright, Norman Mailer, Miles Davis, Ishmael Reed, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka and more.
The first interview can be listened to online on Studs Terkel Archive (https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs...), although there is a section near the end that is in the book but not featured in the audio recording. I appreciated that the remaining three interviews had introductions, written at the time of the interview's publication, this helped give some context. However, I believe this book could have used an overall introduction about why the first three interviews were chosen for this collection.
Baldwin's words come alive as you read each page, so much so that I could hear him say them as I was reading each interview. His words have so much power, his simplest statements have monumental meaning. Baldwin is ever the optimist and it comes through these interviews as well, especially when he talks about how we can make the world better. His words were prophetic and prescient!! Go read it!!!
The first interview can be listened to online on Studs Terkel Archive (https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs...), although there is a section near the end that is in the book but not featured in the audio recording. I appreciated that the remaining three interviews had introductions, written at the time of the interview's publication, this helped give some context. However, I believe this book could have used an overall introduction about why the first three interviews were chosen for this collection.
Baldwin's words come alive as you read each page, so much so that I could hear him say them as I was reading each interview. His words have so much power, his simplest statements have monumental meaning. Baldwin is ever the optimist and it comes through these interviews as well, especially when he talks about how we can make the world better. His words were prophetic and prescient!! Go read it!!!
February 10, 2017
'They don't know how they got into it or, worse, won't recognize how. I don't know. They don't know how they got into the chaos of their cities, for example. But they did it. Now how and why did they do it? They did it because they wanted their children to be safe, to be raised safely. So they set up their communities so that they wouldn't have to go to school with black children, whom they fear, and that dictates the structure of their cities, the chaos of their cities and the danger in which they live.
[...] That's what happened, I don't care who says what. I watched it happen, I know because I watched it happen. And all this, because they want to be white. And why do they want to be white? Because it's the only way to justify the slaughter if the Indians and enslaving the blacks - they're trapped. And nothing, nothing will spring the trap, nothong. Now they're really trapped because the world is present. And the world is not white and America is not the symbol of civilization. Neither is England. Neither is France. Something else is happening which will engulf them by and by. [...] It's the only hope the world has, that the notion of the supremacy of Western hegemony and civilization be contained.' ('The Last Interview,' by Quincy Troupe / St. Paul de Vence, France. November 1987)
Could've quoted all the interviews, really. Just one answer, one tiny part of all the observations he had in these conversations that were too brief.
[...] That's what happened, I don't care who says what. I watched it happen, I know because I watched it happen. And all this, because they want to be white. And why do they want to be white? Because it's the only way to justify the slaughter if the Indians and enslaving the blacks - they're trapped. And nothing, nothing will spring the trap, nothong. Now they're really trapped because the world is present. And the world is not white and America is not the symbol of civilization. Neither is England. Neither is France. Something else is happening which will engulf them by and by. [...] It's the only hope the world has, that the notion of the supremacy of Western hegemony and civilization be contained.' ('The Last Interview,' by Quincy Troupe / St. Paul de Vence, France. November 1987)
Could've quoted all the interviews, really. Just one answer, one tiny part of all the observations he had in these conversations that were too brief.
February 15, 2015
Baldwin, although from a different time rings contemporary. The first interview with Studs Terkel opens with Bessie Smith and it's helpful to listen to the audio of this interview along with reading it because the blues unravels pretense. Bessie's song, Backwater Blues captures a certain history, now forgotten but still felt--of flood waters taking over cities. To start the collection of essays with Bessie Smith singing, "When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night/When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night/Then trouble's takin' place/In the lowlands at night..." provokes a feeling of overwhelm. When I read Baldwin or listen to Baldwin's recorded voice, I hear the flood. I hear the exhaustion from trying to stay above water. Truth is a flood and Baldwin's truth relentlessly pulls the reader in.
April 13, 2017
I fell hard for Baldwin's mind and prose a couple of years ago, and his brilliance is on-display here. I dock a star simply because, as a set conversations rather than essays, this collection lacks the elegance and economy of his written work. But he's a very welcome conversation partner, and that style makes this slim volume (114 pages) easy to read even when you're tired before bed.
One particularly intriguing aspect of this work: It's actually a collection of four interviews, rather than only the one noted in the title; and the first comes from 1961, several years after "Go Tell it On the Mountain" and before his major arrival in "The Fire Next Time." The collection then jumps 23 years to the mid-'80s, by which time, as he notes with compelling weariness, he's "a legend." The differences and continuities between the 1961 chat (with Studs Terkel) and those in the years (and weeks) before his death in 1987 are striking.
One particularly intriguing aspect of this work: It's actually a collection of four interviews, rather than only the one noted in the title; and the first comes from 1961, several years after "Go Tell it On the Mountain" and before his major arrival in "The Fire Next Time." The collection then jumps 23 years to the mid-'80s, by which time, as he notes with compelling weariness, he's "a legend." The differences and continuities between the 1961 chat (with Studs Terkel) and those in the years (and weeks) before his death in 1987 are striking.
December 24, 2019
SIX WORD REVIEW: Love his insights on his contemporaries.
November 30, 2021
4.5 stars. The excerpts of interviews in this installment in the series begin with an interview that Baldwin did with Studs Terkel in 1961 and concludes with the final interview that Baldwin gave, in France, in 1987 just before his death. Baldwin is a genius - he is so thoughful and thought provoking. I always find myself stopping and reflecting as he turns an idea just a little bit (or sometimes a lot) and makes me consider it in a different way. That skill, combined with the considerable skill of the interviewers featured here, makes this a wonderful tribute to an amazing artist and man.
January 4, 2024
everything baldwin says is a pure work of art
June 17, 2018
I found the first three interviews the most optimistic and quotable and the last interview the least hopeful in outlook and tone on the sociopolitical state of affairs in America.
The following quotations come from Studs Terkel's interview with James Baldwin:
"No matter who says what, in fact, Negroes and whites in this country are related to each other. Half of the black families in the South are related, you know, to the judges and the lawyers and the white families of the South. They are cousins, and kissing cousins at that--at least kissing cousins. Now, this is a terrible depth of involvement.
It is easy for an African to hate the invader and drive him out of Africa, but it is very difficult for an American Negro to do this. He obviously can't do this to white people; there's no place to drive them. This is a country that belongs equally to us both. One has got to live together here or else there won't by any country." (9)
Interviewer Studs Terkel quotes Carl Sandburg: "Slums always seek their revenge."
"There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now." (13)
"Time is always now. Everybody who has ever thought about his own life knows this. You don't make resolutions about something you are going to do next year. No! You decide to write a book: the book may be finished twenty years from now, but you've got to start it now." (14)
"One of the reasons, for example, I think that our youth is so badly educated--and it is inconceivably badly educated--is because education demands a certain daring, a certain independence of mind. You have to teach some people to think; and in order to teach people to think, you have to teach them to think about everything. There mustn't be something they cannot think about. If there is one thing they cannot think about, very shortly they can't think about anything." (22)
"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up."
"Art has to be a kind of confession. I don't mean a true confession in the sense of that dreary magazine. The effort, it seems to me, is: if you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover, too, the terms with which they are connected to other people.
This has happened to every one of us, I'm sure. You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discovered it happened one hundred years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.
Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it's true for everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace." (31)
Terkel: "Again, in your book, you mention that Americans, although we have tremendous potentialities, are lacking in that which non-Americans may have: a sense of tragedy." (32)
Terkel: "One last question. James Baldwin: who are you, now?"
"Who, indeed. Well, I may be able to tell you who I am, but I am also discovering who I am not. I want to be an honest man. And I want to be a good writer. I don't know if one ever gets to be what one wants to be. You just have to play it by ear and... pray for rain." (34)
Richard Goldstein's interview with James Baldwin:
"Oh, that I am working toward the New Jerusalem. That's true, I'm not joking. I won't live to see it but I do believe in it. I think we're going to be better than we are." (73)
"Best advice I ever got was an old friend of mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all. That's the only advice you can give anybody. And it's not advice, it's an observation." (74)
The following quotations come from Studs Terkel's interview with James Baldwin:
"No matter who says what, in fact, Negroes and whites in this country are related to each other. Half of the black families in the South are related, you know, to the judges and the lawyers and the white families of the South. They are cousins, and kissing cousins at that--at least kissing cousins. Now, this is a terrible depth of involvement.
It is easy for an African to hate the invader and drive him out of Africa, but it is very difficult for an American Negro to do this. He obviously can't do this to white people; there's no place to drive them. This is a country that belongs equally to us both. One has got to live together here or else there won't by any country." (9)
Interviewer Studs Terkel quotes Carl Sandburg: "Slums always seek their revenge."
"There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now." (13)
"Time is always now. Everybody who has ever thought about his own life knows this. You don't make resolutions about something you are going to do next year. No! You decide to write a book: the book may be finished twenty years from now, but you've got to start it now." (14)
"One of the reasons, for example, I think that our youth is so badly educated--and it is inconceivably badly educated--is because education demands a certain daring, a certain independence of mind. You have to teach some people to think; and in order to teach people to think, you have to teach them to think about everything. There mustn't be something they cannot think about. If there is one thing they cannot think about, very shortly they can't think about anything." (22)
"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up."
"Art has to be a kind of confession. I don't mean a true confession in the sense of that dreary magazine. The effort, it seems to me, is: if you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover, too, the terms with which they are connected to other people.
This has happened to every one of us, I'm sure. You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discovered it happened one hundred years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.
Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it's true for everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace." (31)
Terkel: "Again, in your book, you mention that Americans, although we have tremendous potentialities, are lacking in that which non-Americans may have: a sense of tragedy." (32)
Terkel: "One last question. James Baldwin: who are you, now?"
"Who, indeed. Well, I may be able to tell you who I am, but I am also discovering who I am not. I want to be an honest man. And I want to be a good writer. I don't know if one ever gets to be what one wants to be. You just have to play it by ear and... pray for rain." (34)
Richard Goldstein's interview with James Baldwin:
"Oh, that I am working toward the New Jerusalem. That's true, I'm not joking. I won't live to see it but I do believe in it. I think we're going to be better than we are." (73)
"Best advice I ever got was an old friend of mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all. That's the only advice you can give anybody. And it's not advice, it's an observation." (74)
March 3, 2018
I don't think I've encountered a writer (/speaker) more capable of precisely and beautifully articulating society's ills than Baldwin. (Sadly), his opinions and observations are timeless and are as (if not more) relevant today as they were when he worked in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. So the content of Last Interview is A+++, but so is its form. You can read or listen to or watch every one of the interviews in this collection elsewhere but there is something wonderful about having them all in one place, presented in carefully-considered sequence, with helpful introductory context, and in a volume slim enough to slip into a purse or large pocket so you can carry and enjoy Balwin's wisdom anywhere and everywhere. A must-own.
July 11, 2025
After reading Sony's Blues, I felt a deep curiosity for understanding? Baldwin and for how true he was - thus, this set of interviews was long due. Best summarized by this:
TERKEL: The matter of freedom leads to another chapter in your book, in which you discuss a meeting with Ingmar Bergman, whom you described as a free, a relatively free, artist. Would you mind telling us about that?
BALDWIN: Well, part of Bergman’s freedom, of course, is purely economical. It is based on the social and economic structure of Sweden. He hasn’t got to worry about money for his films, which is a very healthy thing for him. But on another level, he impressed me as being free because—and this is a great paradox about freedom— he’d accepted his limitations: limitations within himself, limitations within his society. I don’t mean that he necessarily accepted all these limitations, or that he was passive in the face of them. But he recognized that he was Ingmar Bergman, could do some things and could not do some others, and was not going to live forever; he recognized something that people in this country have a great deal of trouble recognizing: that life is very difficult, very difficult for anybody, anybody born. People cannot be free until they recognize this.
June 3, 2025
he’s just unbelievable. there is no word for someone who writes in the auditory form, because “speaker” does not cut it. he is something else entirely, maybe a witch doctor as Troupe labels him here. with the exception of Goldstein, the interviewers are also immensely skilled, making his commentary even more introspective; i also now realize how asking good questions seems to be a lost art.
also, the timeline of these interviews reveals how timeless his analysis is, though his last one in its last few pages in particular is especially haunting. i’m not sure what our resolution is, but he seemed to hand it to the next generation with astonishing certainty, despite his deteriorating condition at the time. for now, i can see, almost solely, the issues he predicted. hopefully i’ll get to see his positive visions shine through too, though at this point im un-uniquely teetering on the edge of doom.
humanity is the universe’s way of learning and experiencing itself, and Baldwin is humanity’s way of witnessing and analyzing itself. however, im also convinced that he is an apology.
beloved man, please come back. please
also, the timeline of these interviews reveals how timeless his analysis is, though his last one in its last few pages in particular is especially haunting. i’m not sure what our resolution is, but he seemed to hand it to the next generation with astonishing certainty, despite his deteriorating condition at the time. for now, i can see, almost solely, the issues he predicted. hopefully i’ll get to see his positive visions shine through too, though at this point im un-uniquely teetering on the edge of doom.
humanity is the universe’s way of learning and experiencing itself, and Baldwin is humanity’s way of witnessing and analyzing itself. however, im also convinced that he is an apology.
beloved man, please come back. please
July 22, 2020
The Last Interview and Other Conversations is a quartet of interviews covering a broad range of topics from different periods of James Baldwin's life. With each interview we get a better understanding of his keen mind & see his perceptions shift over the years. His integrity & intellect is evident whether speaking to his years living in France, art, being gay, or social & cultural issues. He could be blunt or curt as when calling out American Racism but patient when explaining himself. He speaks to his friendships with Miles Davis, Richard Wright, & Toni Morrison. As an outsider he was a clear eyed observer & it shows in the details he provides about a variety of people in his life. Readers who are curious about James Baldwin’s ideas & critiques of racist society or culture will be fascinated by these interviews. His message to reject tribalism is especially relevant given the recent US rebellion & rise in support for the BLM movement.
August 3, 2024
Baldwin centenary read <3 These interviews are beautifully curated, and thematically linked in many vital ways including his description of himself as a ‘witness’ - and how his relationship with that word developed. Also (obviously) WHAT a conversationalist this man was, I will never not be blown away by his mind oh my goodness!
March 23, 2022
These were fantastic interviews. I have to read everything James Baldwin has written now. The dude's on another level. Genius.
April 30, 2023
A personal hero of mine.
December 27, 2024
Number 6 on the “Most Brilliant Minds to Ever Exist” list: GodDAMN what a gift he was.
Read
March 7, 2025Of a different and perpetually current time.
October 7, 2024
the quality of the interviewers here did not hold a candle to the the quality of the interviewee and i think i should have expected that
December 29, 2020
Worth reading just to see what Baldwin says about Toni Morrison.
January 30, 2020
Particularly loved the Last Interview by Quincy Troupe. Jimmy Baldwin was so self-aware and so perceptive. His praise of Toni Morrison and description of her work was the icing on the cake! Reading about his relationship with France and the States and grappling with being an expat was also fascinating. Loved too this line, “does that answer your question?”
Lester: no, but it’s an eloquent evasion
Lester: no, but it’s an eloquent evasion
July 17, 2017
Reading James Baldwin's political commentary is always enlightening and exciting.
I wasn't disappointed in this little volume, containing three interviews. One from early in his career, and two from the later part. His insights are as powerful and applicable today as they were when he spoke them.
I wasn't disappointed in this little volume, containing three interviews. One from early in his career, and two from the later part. His insights are as powerful and applicable today as they were when he spoke them.
January 10, 2015
What can you say about Uncle Jimmy?
January 2, 2018
I could listen to the man talk all day, basically.
February 14, 2022
Strong 4.5; I will probably never find words to describe what reading the thoughts of Baldwin does to me
December 22, 2024
James Baldwin, what a mind you have !! and what a life you have lived !!
there is a quote from Quincy Troupe at the start of the Last Interview eulogizing Baldwin, and i find that it encapsulates my thoughts on him well: “…this profoundly human spirit who altered the course of so many lives with his enormous talent, his deep commitment to justice, and his abiding love for humanity.”
i first encountered James Baldwin when i was 22. it was may, and i was sitting in a park, having just bought a large collection of his non-fiction work. i worked my way through a few of his essays for the first time. i lingered on his descriptions of loving another man, and of being loved in return. i sat there reading passages he wrote about prejudice and cynicism, about injustice and otherness in the fabric of America and systemic issues that never really went away, about his life in Harlem and in America and in France. he just stuck with me, as i sat alone in the sunny grass.
i began venturing into Baldwin’s fiction when i was 23. while i still have much of it to work through, i’m savouring the experience. i am simultaneously inhaling every page, and dawdling to complete his back catalogue. James Baldwin was a man of many words, but he did not mince them. he strung every sentence together with perspective, pragmatism, and passion.
sitting with his words, i have felt such unbridled joy and hope for the future, perhaps as he did. what Troupe described in the aforementioned quote as Baldwin’s “abiding love for humanity.” as i get older, and a thing of jadedness grows in me during this decade of my life, it’s oddly important to me—particularly in these interviews—how much i value said optimism and hope.
when someone asks, “who is the one person in history you would have a conversation with?” – i already know my answer.
some highlights:
• “Terkel: One last question. James Baldwin: who are you, now?
Baldwin: [Long pause] Who, indeed. Well, I may be able to tell you who I am, but I am also discovering who I am not. I want to be an honest man. And I want to be a good writer. I don’t know if one ever gets to be what one wants to be. You just have to play it by ear, and … pray for rain.”
• “Perhaps I did not succumb to ideology, as you put it, because I have never seen myself as a spokesman. I am a witness. In the church in which I was raised you were supposed to bear witness to the truth. Now, later on, you wonder what in the world the truth is, but you do know what a lie is.”
• “I know that we can be better than we are. That's the sum total of my wisdom in all these years. We can also be infinitely worse, but I know that the world we live in now is not necessarily the best world we can make. I can't be entirely wrong. There're two things we have to do-love each other and raise our children. We have to do that! The alternative, for me, would be suicide…”
• “To be a white American is to have a very peculiar inheritance…”
• “He was not really my father, because I was born out of wedlock, but that's the difference, my father. He did give me something. Don't you see, he taught me how to fight. He taught me how to fight. But it would be better to say he taught me what to fight for. I was only fighting for safety, or for money at first. Then I fought to make you look at me. Because I was not born to be what someone said I was. I was not born to be defined by someone else, but by myself, and myself only.”
• “That's what happened, I don't care who says what. I watched it happen, I know because I watched it happen. And all this, because they want to be white. And why do they want to be white? Because it's the only way to justify the slaughter of the Indians and enslaving the blacks-they’re trapped. And nothing, nothing will spring the trap, nothing. Now thev're really trapped because the world is present. And the world is not white and America is not the symbol of civilization. Neither is England. Neither is France. Something else is happening which will engulf them by and by. You, Quincy, will be here, but I'll be gone. It's the only hope the world has, that the notion of the supremacy of Western hegemony and civilization be contained.”
and my personal favourites:
• “Being a maverick saved my life. What club could I have joined? I had to make peace with a great many things, not the least of which was my intelligence. You don't realize that vou're intelligent until it gets you into trouble.”
• “Best advice I ever got was an old friend of mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, vou won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all. That's the only advice vou can give anybody. And it's not advice, it's an observation.”
• “There's nothing in me that is not in everybody else, and nothing in everybody else that is not in me…”
there is a quote from Quincy Troupe at the start of the Last Interview eulogizing Baldwin, and i find that it encapsulates my thoughts on him well: “…this profoundly human spirit who altered the course of so many lives with his enormous talent, his deep commitment to justice, and his abiding love for humanity.”
i first encountered James Baldwin when i was 22. it was may, and i was sitting in a park, having just bought a large collection of his non-fiction work. i worked my way through a few of his essays for the first time. i lingered on his descriptions of loving another man, and of being loved in return. i sat there reading passages he wrote about prejudice and cynicism, about injustice and otherness in the fabric of America and systemic issues that never really went away, about his life in Harlem and in America and in France. he just stuck with me, as i sat alone in the sunny grass.
i began venturing into Baldwin’s fiction when i was 23. while i still have much of it to work through, i’m savouring the experience. i am simultaneously inhaling every page, and dawdling to complete his back catalogue. James Baldwin was a man of many words, but he did not mince them. he strung every sentence together with perspective, pragmatism, and passion.
sitting with his words, i have felt such unbridled joy and hope for the future, perhaps as he did. what Troupe described in the aforementioned quote as Baldwin’s “abiding love for humanity.” as i get older, and a thing of jadedness grows in me during this decade of my life, it’s oddly important to me—particularly in these interviews—how much i value said optimism and hope.
when someone asks, “who is the one person in history you would have a conversation with?” – i already know my answer.
some highlights:
• “Terkel: One last question. James Baldwin: who are you, now?
Baldwin: [Long pause] Who, indeed. Well, I may be able to tell you who I am, but I am also discovering who I am not. I want to be an honest man. And I want to be a good writer. I don’t know if one ever gets to be what one wants to be. You just have to play it by ear, and … pray for rain.”
• “Perhaps I did not succumb to ideology, as you put it, because I have never seen myself as a spokesman. I am a witness. In the church in which I was raised you were supposed to bear witness to the truth. Now, later on, you wonder what in the world the truth is, but you do know what a lie is.”
• “I know that we can be better than we are. That's the sum total of my wisdom in all these years. We can also be infinitely worse, but I know that the world we live in now is not necessarily the best world we can make. I can't be entirely wrong. There're two things we have to do-love each other and raise our children. We have to do that! The alternative, for me, would be suicide…”
• “To be a white American is to have a very peculiar inheritance…”
• “He was not really my father, because I was born out of wedlock, but that's the difference, my father. He did give me something. Don't you see, he taught me how to fight. He taught me how to fight. But it would be better to say he taught me what to fight for. I was only fighting for safety, or for money at first. Then I fought to make you look at me. Because I was not born to be what someone said I was. I was not born to be defined by someone else, but by myself, and myself only.”
• “That's what happened, I don't care who says what. I watched it happen, I know because I watched it happen. And all this, because they want to be white. And why do they want to be white? Because it's the only way to justify the slaughter of the Indians and enslaving the blacks-they’re trapped. And nothing, nothing will spring the trap, nothing. Now thev're really trapped because the world is present. And the world is not white and America is not the symbol of civilization. Neither is England. Neither is France. Something else is happening which will engulf them by and by. You, Quincy, will be here, but I'll be gone. It's the only hope the world has, that the notion of the supremacy of Western hegemony and civilization be contained.”
and my personal favourites:
• “Being a maverick saved my life. What club could I have joined? I had to make peace with a great many things, not the least of which was my intelligence. You don't realize that vou're intelligent until it gets you into trouble.”
• “Best advice I ever got was an old friend of mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, vou won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all. That's the only advice vou can give anybody. And it's not advice, it's an observation.”
• “There's nothing in me that is not in everybody else, and nothing in everybody else that is not in me…”
May 10, 2021
Reading about James Baldwin's insights into American culture over the decades of the 1960's and 1980's makes you realize how much and how far America still has to come. It leads to the inevitable question of will America every get beyond its identity to truly fulfill its promise of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" or is that always going to be a dream deferred? If the interviews just encompassed the question of race relations with one of the greatest thinkers in the 20th century this alone would make these interviews interesting enough, but underneath those questions are deeper ones. These questions are related to the role that art plays in the interpretation of life, and how artists must push all of us to think about what is beyond the physical plane of our existence. Do we have time to contemplate how we can interpret the world and our place in it, and is this the what is truly the essence of the American idea?
Reading this book I came to appreciate what it means to not only be a deep thinker and artist, but to be one who at the time didn't fit into any one box, and still almost 40 years after his death, Mr. Baldwin is more relevant today than he was then because he still doesn't fit into any one box.
Reading this book I came to appreciate what it means to not only be a deep thinker and artist, but to be one who at the time didn't fit into any one box, and still almost 40 years after his death, Mr. Baldwin is more relevant today than he was then because he still doesn't fit into any one box.
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