AFAM 241

Ebony Singers: Tradition Based Performance

"Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable."

"The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy" [ Esquire Magazine ]

James Baldwin

(May 1961)

All over, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive.

“The Harlem Ghetto" [ Commentary ]

James Baldwin

(February 1948)

Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed that he is set free — he has set himself free — for higher dreams, for greater privileges.

"Faulkner and Desegregation" [ Partisan Review ]

James Baldwin

(Fall 1956)