The beloved early Baldwin held faith the country could change.

Evidence

By the time Baldwin sat down with the Howard students in 1963, he was at the height of his powers, if not yet the full-on disturber of the peace he would soon become. In a relatively short period of time since the publication of his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, in 1953, his play Amen Corner in 1954, and his first book of essays, Notes of a Native Son, in 1955, he had become one of the most prominent African American writers and critics in the United States. With his view of the moral role of the writer; his faith in the redemptive possibilities of human beings, no matter their color; and his initial faith in the possibility that the country could change, Baldwin was catapulted to literary fame and emerged as one of the most incisive and honest critics of America and its race problem. His admirers stretched across racial and political spectrums. Malcolm X referred to him as “the poet of the revolution.” Edmund Wilson described him as one of the great creative artists of the country. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 80

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up the arc from early-faith Baldwin to the late, ‘bitter’ Baldwin the book recanonizes.