It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

The essay was originally publiJames Baldwind in two oversized issues of The New Yorker and landed Baldwin on the cover of Time magazine in 1963 while Baldwin was touring the South speaking about the restive Civil Rights movement. Baldwin also provided her with literary. He became for me an example of courage and integrity humility and passion.

Some Baldwin essays are book-length for instance The Fire Next Time (1963) No Name in the Street (1972) and The Devil Finds Work (1976). Baldwin's best-known novel is his first Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953).