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James Baldwin ( August 2 , 1924 – December 1 , 1987 ) was an African-American Novelist , Short Story Writer , and Essayist , known for his novel '' Go Tell It On The Mountain ''. Most of Baldwin's work deals with Racial and Sexual issues in the mid-20th century United States . His novels are notable for the personal way in which they explore questions of identity as well as for the way in which they mine complex social and psychological pressures related to being black and Homosexual , well before the social, cultural or political equality of these groups could be assumed. HISTORY Baldwin was born in New York 's Harlem neighborhood in 1924, the first of his mother's nine children. He never met his biological father and may never have even known the man's identity. Instead, he considered his stepfather, David Baldwin, his only father figure. David, a factory worker and a store-front Preacher , was allegedly very cruel at home, which the young Baldwin hated. While his father opposed his literary aspirations, Baldwin found support from a white teacher as well from the mayor of New York City , Fiorello H. LaGuardia . His most important source of support, however, came from his idol Richard Wright , whom he called "the greatest black writer in the world for me". Wright and Baldwin became friends for a short time and Wright helped him to secure the ''Eugene F. Saxon Memorial Award''. Indeed, Baldwin titled a collection of essays '' Notes Of A Native Son '', in clear reference to Wright's enraged and despairing novel '' Native Son ''. However, Baldwin's 1949 essay ''"Everybody's Protest Novel"'' ended the two authors' friendship because Baldwin asserted that Wright's novel ''Native Son'', like Harriet Beecher Stowe 's '' Uncle Tom's Cabin '', lacked credible characters and psychological complexity. Baldwin, like many American authors of the time, left to live in Europe for an extended period of time beginning in 1948. His first destination was Paris where Ernest Hemingway , Gertrude Stein , F. Scott Fitzgerald , Richard Wright, and many others had lived during their writing careers. When Baldwin returned to America, he became actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement . He marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. to Washington, D.C. During the early 1980s, Baldwin was on the faculty of the Five Colleges in Western Massachusetts . While there, he mentored Mount Holyoke College future playwright Suzan-Lori Parks , who won the Pulitzer Prize For Drama in 2002. Baldwin died of Cancer in 1987 at the age of 63. QUOTES
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