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James Baldwin’s Understanding of God pp 117–130Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Declining to “Imitate the Son of the Morning”

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Part of the book series: Black Religion / Womanist Thought / Social Justice ((BRWT))

Abstract

In 1963, the year Baldwin published The Fire Next Time, Martin Luther King Jr. and his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), took on white authority in Birmingham, Alabama. Television cameras recorded Birmingham police dogs attacking black demonstrators, the fire department hosing them, and the police beating them with nightsticks. Television stations aired the brutality across the nation and throughout the world. Infuriated by what he saw, Baldwin cabled Attorney General Robert Kennedy on May 12, 1963:

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Notes

  1. Fern Eckman, The Furious Passage of James Baldwin ( London: Michael Joseph, 1968 ), 182.

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  2. David Leeming, James Baldwin: A Biography ( New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994 ), 222.

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  3. W. J. Weatherby, James Baldwin: Artist on Fire ( New York: Donald I. Fine, 1989 ), 222.

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  4. James Campbell, Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin ( Berkeley: University of California, 1991 ), 284–285.

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  5. Herb Boyd, Baldwin’s Harlem: A Biography of James Baldwin ( New York: Atria Books, 2008 ), 70.

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  6. James A. Baldwin, Collected Essays (New York: Library of America, 1998) (hereafter cited in text as CE).

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  7. James A. Baldwin, Blues for Mister Charlie (New York: Vintage International/Random House, 1995) (hereafter cited in text as BMC).

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  8. James A. Baldwin, Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (New York: Vintage International, 1998) (hereafter cited in text as T).

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  9. James A. Baldwin, Jimmy’s Blues (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990) (hereafter cited in text as JB).

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  10. See Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan ( New York: Vintage Books, 1996 ).

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  11. James A. Baldwin, The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, ed. Randall Kenan (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010) (hereafter cited in text as TCR).

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Authors
  1. Josiah Ulysses Young III
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© 2014 Josiah Ulysses Young III

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Young, J.U. (2014). Declining to “Imitate the Son of the Morning”. In: James Baldwin’s Understanding of God. Black Religion / Womanist Thought / Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137454348_9

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