Reinhold Niebuhr: The Cold War and Religion

Reinhold Niebuhr: The Cold War and Religion

 

                                                                    

                                       Reinhold Niebuhr: The Cold War and Religion

            On June 21, 1892 Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was born in Wright City, Missouri. He was the son of Gustav and Lydia Niebuhr, both of which had emigrated from Germany. Gustav was a minister and at an early age Niebhur decided that he would follow in his father’s footsteps. However, Niebuhr’s ideas on religion eventually took him out of the realm of the church. By the end of his career he had implemented religion into both cultural and political spheres. After his death in 1971, the journalChristianity and Crisis published an article on Niebuhr’s career writing, “He put theology in the middle of the cultural and political world as it had not been for generations.”[1]

One of his first ventures into politics was after World War I. Before the war he had been a pacifist, like many other Christians, but in the 1930’s he left the Socialist Party because of its pacifist or noninterventionist attitude in foreign policy. By the 1940’s he had become a staunch left wing, anti-Communist Democrat. In 1947 we founded the Americans for Democratic Action, a political organization that was liberal on national affairs, internationalists in world outlook and anti-communist in conviction. He urged Christians who believed in pacifism alter their ideology and support the efforts being made in World War II.[2]

Niebuhr’s political efforts did not end with World War II. During the postwar period, from 1945 to 1952, Niebuhr helped promote European recovery and engaged in issues of the developing Cold War between Russia and the West. After Hitler surrendered, Niebuhr took great interest in the problems of war-torn Europe. He believed that the United States needed to be patient but firm when dealing with Stalinist Russia. In the summer of 1945 he noted that America’s relationship with Russia was being made difficult by Stalin’s refusal to abide by the Yalta agreement in constituting the Polish government. Niebuhr knew that America would have to be prepared for the action Russia might take in Eastern Europe and within six months Russia began to support Communists regimes that were taking over Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia.

Niebuhr wrote, “Sin is always trying to be strong at the expense of something else. The Russians want to make themselves strong by dominating Eastern Europe, and as much more beside as they can. They would probably swallow both Turkey and Iran if they thought they could get away with it.”[3]

As the Cold War developed, Niebuhr continually affirmed the justice of the Western cause. Niebuhr believed that Americans had been living in “…a culture which drew the meaning of their [our] moral responsibilities from the hope of their actual fulfillment in history,”[4] and as a result Americans were poorly prepared for what was to lie ahead. In his book “Moral Man and Immoral Society”, Niebuhr explains that relations between human collectives are determined as much by power as by ethical or rational considerations. This requires the countering of power by power for the sake of justice. He believed that those who thought “the egoism of an individuals is being progressively checked by the development of rationality or the growth of a religious inspired goodwill” were foolish to think “nothing but the continuation of this process is necessary to establish social harmony between societies and collectives.”[5] Niebuhr wanted Christians, as well as all Americans, to realize that in order for there to be social justice and peace, they cannot remain passive and that actions needed to be taken for social changes to be made. In a 1954 sermon, Niebuhr discusses the United State’s role in international affairs. His sermon is featured on the “Speaking of Faith” website.

 http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/niebuhr/sermons.shtml       

           

In the summer of 1946 Niebuhr traveled to the American zone in Germany with a State Department educational mission. He witnessed first hand  “decent Germans” who did not follow Nazism and who were cut off from the outside world and were eager to be reconnected. While traveling, Niebuhr heard Secretary of State James Byrnes deliver a speech in which he assured the Germans that America’s presence would remain as long as necessary. Henry Wallace, a member of President Truman’s cabinet, openly criticized Byrnes for his comments and in a speech at Madison Square Garden he minimized the threat of the Soviet. His comments lost him his job.

 

 

Niebuhr quickly reacted to the controversy in his article “The Fight got Germany” in Life magazine.

“ I should like to challenge Wallace’s foreign politics, as expressed in his recent attack of Secretary Byrnes’s policy…I had the advantage of recognizing its errors with particular vividness because I was in Berlin when it was made. I saw the uses, which Soviet propaganda made of it and the disappointment and dismay it spread among democratic forces in Europe and Germany. They had just been tremendously heartened by Secretary Byrnes’s address in Stuttgart, which I had the pleasure of hearing.”[6]

 

Niebuhr believed the Cold War required the United States to sustain a middle ground. He thought the situation “…would be improved if the fear of Communism did not drive some people into the arms of reaction, and the fear of reaction did not drive others into the arms of Communism. Both fears must be overcome by the development of a healthy democratic program, embracing both foreign and domestic policy and both economic and political problems.”[7]

From August 22 to September 4, 1948 Niebuhr attended the founding assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam. Several hundred delegates and visitors from 147 denominations gathered. Karl Barth gave the first address. He stated that, “We ought to give up,… every thought that the care of the church, the care of the world is our care.”[8] Barth believed it was not the churches role to take on every issue of the time, especially the Cold War. While many delegates followed Barth’s ideology, Niebuhr did not. As he spoke to the audience he told them that it was “…the church’s task to mediate divine judgment and grace to nations, classes and cultures as well as to individuals. It was wrong to preach the gospel sub specie aeternitatis, as if there were no history with its time and season,”[9] He went on to explain that the final victory over man is God, but that man still has the responsibility for proximate victories. “Christian life without a high sense of responsibility for the health of our communities, our nations, and our cultures degenerates into an intolerable other worldliness. We can neither resource this earthly home of ours nor yet claim that its victories and defeats give the final meaning to our existence.”[10] While Niebuhr believed that God did have ultimate power, he also believed that people had the ability to have an affect on the outcome.  He believed Christians should not just accept the idea that what ever will happen, will happen because of God; instead, they should take responsibility and try to make a change. Audio of Niebuhr’s World Council Address can be found at “Speaking of Faith.”http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/niebuhr/sermons.shtml

Niebuhr used biblical references to back his ideas. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”[11]Niebuhr saw the church as a community of believers persuaded to believe “the whole of life and all historical vicissitudes stand under the sovereignty of a holy, yet merciful God.”[12] Niebuhr wanted people to recognize that they had the ability to think and that it was their responsibility to use their minds to bring social justice. The Christian faith provides the ultimate security, but Niebuhr encouraged Christians to “…be involved constantly in the world of culture, practically and theoretically,” and  “…finally, of course, understand how inadequate the wisdom of the world is from the standpoint of the foolishness of the Gospel,”[13] Using the ideas of St. Augustine, Niebuhr expanded his ideas of self in his lecture “Augustine’s Conception of Selfhood.” Augustine, like Niebuhr, understood that Christianity and the Bible were unique. Augustine knew that the individual was capable of controlling his or her own mind, memory and will.

On April 17, 1958, Niebuhr was interviewed by Mile Wallace on “The Mike Wallace Interview”. In this interview Niebuhr spoke about communism and nuclear war and addresses the idea that because America is a Christian country it will undoubtedly defeat atheist, communist countries. Once again Niebuhr informs the American people that their religion alone will not lead to justice. This video is featured on The University of Texas at Austin Harry Ransom Center’s website.

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/niebuhr_reinhold.html

In January of 1961, President Kennedy, who Niebuhr supported, took office after narrowly winning the election against Richard Nixon. At the time Khrushchev still remained in power and Latin America was beginning to feel the pressures of Communism. Under Castro, Cuba submitted to Communism and Communism threatened to spread wherever poverty bred discontent. Kennedy started such initiatives as the Peace Corps, which sent American volunteers to help in Third World countries and the Alliance for Progress, which offered funds for economic development and social reform in Latin America to try to combat the spread of Communism. Niebuhr supported the Kennedy administration’s new programs writing that the “ ‘Alliance for Progress’ program was the first genuine effort to use our nations economic power to help our hemispheric neighbors to change their social patterns.”[14]

It seemed like things were heading in a positive direction that is until April of 1961, when a planned invasion of Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs was unsuccessful. Furthering the problem in Cuba was the installation of Russian nuclear missile-launching sites in October of 1962. President Kennedy rejected the option of bombing the sites and invading Cuba because that could have easily led to World War III. Instead he announced a blockade of further Soviet shipments, the dismantling of the sites and warned that the United States would respond to any missile attack from Cuba by attacking the Soviet Union. Khrushchev eventually agreed as long as Cuba would not be invaded by the U.S. Niebuhr supported Kennedy’s decision. He believed the outcome was the beginning of a bridge that was supported by common sense. Although Kennedy threatened the Soviet with violence, it was necessary to keep the peace. Niebuhr agreed with Kennedy’s plan because he understood that at times it is mandatory to meet power with power.

Although crisis was averted for the time being, there was still great concern throughout America about the Cold War, which by now was spreading all over the world. By 1965 the situation in Vietnam had escalated and President Johnson had transformed the U.S. role, which was once limited, into an open-ended military commitment. At first much of America supported the war efforts and wanted nothing more than to put to a stop to communism. However, by the late 1960’s Americans witnessed the horrors of war through their televisions and came to understand the reality of the situation, rather than what their government had been telling them. Niebuhr, who didn’t support the war from the beginning, believed “One of the standards of a just war is that is must have a good prospect of success.” and the Vietnam War did not. Also a just war “ must be proportionate to the ends” and “the means were not proportionate to the ends, wither in blood or in money.”[15] In 1966 Vice President, Hubert Humphrey sent Niebuhr a letter thanking him for inviting him to speak at the 25^th anniversary banquet of the journal “Christianity and Crisis.” In his speech he described the reason for the U.S.’s current policy regarding Southeast Asia.

                                        

                                                

This image was provided by "Speaking of Faith" website. speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/.../ d73.jpg

Niebuhr died on June 1, 1971, four years before the war in Vietnam ended. Although he was not there to witness the war in its entirety, Niebuhr would not have been surprised by Americans role and the outcome of the conflict. When Niebuhr became a left-wing Democrat for social action he encouraged other pacifists to do the same. He encouraged not just Christians, but all Americans to not stand ideally by and hope that those who believe in God would come out victorious. He urged Americans to take a stand and push for social change and justice, even if that meant going to war. Yet, Niebuhr also knew that there was such a thing as a just war and that the Vietnam War was not one of them. Niebuhr did not live till the end of the war, but those who continued to oppose the war carried on his ideas. Niebuhr’s ideas are still felt in the political and social spheres in American today and even here on the Boston University campus. In 2007 the Boston University professor, Andrew J. Bacevich, delivered the University Lecture, “Illusions of Managing History: The Enduring Relevance of Reinhold Niebuhr, in which he speaks about Niebuhr’s theories and their relevance in today’s world.

http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/buniverse/videos/view/?id=127

[1] “The Greatness of Reinhold Niebuhr.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review (1968) 3-8.

[2] "Reinhold Niebuhr." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 20 Apr. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/414557/Reinhold-Niebuhr>.

[3] Reinhold Niebuhr. Love and Justice: selections from the shorter writings of Reinhold Niebuhr(Westminster: 1992) 192.

[4] Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral man and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932).

[5]Ibid.

[6] Reinhold Niebuhr, Life , “The Fight for Germany” (1946).

[7] Charles Brown,  Niebuhr and his Age (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992) 128.

[8] Ibid, 143.

[9][9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid. 144.

[11] Bible, Isaiah, 55:8

[12] Ibid, 155.

[13] Ibid, 158.

[14] Reinhold Niebuhr, , “President Kennedy’s Cuban Venture,” Christianity and Crisis, 21 (May 15, 1961) 69-70.

[15] Ronald Stone, “An Interview with Reinhold Niebuhr”, Christianity and Crisis. 29, (March 19, 1969) 50.

Ayn Rand Center author alleges Silent Spring caused "Genocide"

While searching for articles related to Environmentalism, I came across The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights' website; though I do not necessarily agree with much of what has been posted on it, I did find many of the articles interesting to read, as they offered counterarguments to what we have recently discussed in class. One particular article of note is "Rachel Carson's Genocide", written two years ago by Keith Lockitch on the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, who states that her 100th anniversary is no means for celebration. Lockitch claims that malaria has seen an unprecedented resurgence since DDT was all but outlawed as an effective agent of mosquito control, and that Carson's book is full of unsubstantiated claims and pure ignorance with scientific evidence. Lockitch boldly states that, "The answer is that environmental ideology values an untouched environment above human life. The root of the opposition to DDT is not science but the environmentalist moral premise that it is wrong for man to "tamper" with nature."

The Center's website can be found here, as well as the article itself.

James Baldwin, The Civil Rights Movement, and Cultural Identity

James Baldwin, The Civil Rights Movement, and Cultural Identity

By: Adam Molinski

^I

^{James Arthur Baldwin was born in 1924 in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. Baldwin, who died in 1987, eventually became one of the most influential African-American writers and intellectuals of the twentieth century. His early passion for reading and writing seemed to make him destined from the start to become a man of letters. As the oldest of nine children, Baldwin was charged with much of the responsibility for caring for his younger siblings, and to balance these responsibilities with his sweet tooth for literature Baldwin was often said to be seen with a baby in one hand and a book in the other.[1] The first of these books was the Bible. Baldwin’s adoptive father, David Baldwin, was a strictly religious man whom James did not get along with. In part to spite his father, and in part to keep away from “the whores and pimps and racketeers on the Avenue,” James, for a time in his teens, became a preacher at a different Church than the one his father preached at.[2] Though Baldwin would soon turn away from religion, his religious upbringing continued to play a large role in his writing for the rest of his life. Baldwin himself admitted how influential these early religious years were, commenting that, “[t]hose three years in the pulpit- I didn’t realize it then- that is what turned me into a writer.”[3]}

^{Baldwin looking back on Harlem and how it has changed over the years. II}

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As he reached adulthood, Baldwin began to move farther and farther away from home, first to Greenwich Village, then to Paris, but his writings and his thoughts seemed to remain in Harlem. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the distance he had from the racial turmoil taking place in Harlem and the larger United States, Baldwin became one of the most uniquely American writers of his time. Once living abroad in France, Baldwin seemed surprised to find himself becoming more invested in the problems of the country he had tried so hard to escape. When explaining the strange dynamic of becoming more mentally entangled in the United States the farther he moved from it, Baldwin commented that in his mind he was only a “commuter” because:

^{Only white Americans can consider themselves to be expatriates…Once I found myself on the other side of the ocean, I could see where I came from very clearly, and I could see that I carried myself, which is my home, with me. You can never escape that. I am the grand son of a slave, and I am a writer. I must deal with both.[4]}

^{Indeed, Baldwin did deal with both. In fact, dealing with his own history, his own lineage is one of the things that helped turned Baldwin into one of the most important voices of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Baldwin's exploration in his writing of African American history and its relation to the race relations of his time, elevated Baldwin to being one of the most prominent African American intellectuals of the time.}

^{Baldwin with Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando, and Harry Belafonte at Civil Rights March 1963. III}

^{The reputation and success he gained from these writings resulted in him becoming a public figure, doing television interviews, large debates, such as the one with William F. Buckley Jr. at Cambridge University, and even meeting with, then, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in May 1963 to discuss the government's role in the Civil Rights Movement.}

^{Debate at Cambridge University Regarding the American Dream and the American Negro. IV}

Full Debate Video Available Through UC Berkeley Here

^{Though it is a bit depraved to try and reduce the works of such prolific and complex writer as Baldwin to one ideological message or position, if one was to do so with regards to his views on civil rights, it would most surely revolve around his exploration of cultural identity versus assimilation.}

^{The roots of Baldwin’s exploration of African American cultural identity are firmly placed in one of his earliest works, Notes of a Native Son, a collection of essays he wrote during the 1940's and early 1950's. The essays first published in 1955, the same year as the murder of fourteen-year-old Emmitt Till in Mississippi and Rosa Parks' bus seat boycott in Alabama, came at an instrumental time in the beginnings of the civil rights movement. The most prominent of these essays revolve around Baldwin’s discussion of two books, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and, his early supporter and mentor, Richard Wright’s Native Son.}

^{Baldwin’s essay on Uncle Tom’s Cabin entitled, “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” criticizes the novel for being overly sentimental and dishonest. Early in the essay Baldwin contends that Stowe’s novel was intended to do nothing more than prove slavery was wrong, which in Baldwin’s eyes “makes material for a pamphlet but it is hardly enough for a novel.”[5] Baldwin goes further to say that Stowe does the worst damage in “the method she used to solve the problem of writing about a black man,” which Baldwin believes resulted in her having to find “a lie more palatable than the truth.”[6] This lie Baldwin believes is presenting every black man in the book as not black at all but instead “as white as she can make them,” which in Baldwin’s mind results in Tom being “robbed of his humanity and divested of his sex.”[7]}

^{Baldwin assigns this guilt not only to Stowe, but to the very idea of the protest novel. Baldwin feels that because society sees the protest novel as an attempt to “bring greater freedom to the oppressed” these novels are allowed, by society, a great deal of forgiveness with regards to the constraints of reality, which he feels leads to “badly written and wildy improbable” literature.[8] Baldwin stipulates that this unrealistic literature, with its whitening of black characters, seems to have the same assimilationist intentions as “those alabaster missionaries [in] Africa” who aim “to cover the nakedness of the natives.”[9] This aim to “reduce all Americans to the compulsive, bloodless dimensions of a guy named Joe,” Baldwin finds disturbing, both in its attempt to make blacks something they are not, and something they inherently cannot be, white.[10] Baldwin finds this assimilationist ideology akin to that indoctrinated into slaves, that black is inherently evil, inherently sinful and that “only the robes of the saved are white.”[11] This Baldwin feels results in African Americans being born into a paradoxical cage that tells them to aim to be something that they cannot be, which results in “the allegedly inferior [being] actually made so, insofar as the societal realities are concerned.”[12]}

^{Richard Wright. V}

^{After lambasting Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Baldwin looks to Richard Wright’s character Bigger Thomas in Native Son. Though Baldwin respected Wright and acknowledges Native Son as “the most powerful and celebrated statement we have yet had of what it means to be a negro in America,” he felt the book and Bigger Thomas were simply a descendant of Uncle Tom and the protest novel.[13] Baldwin contends that the novel’s success was based almost solely on the revelry in the feeling that the publishing of such a shocking book proved “what strides might be taken in a free democracy…that Americans were now able to look full in the face without flinching the dreadful facts.”[14] Baldwin likens Bigger Thomas to Uncle Tom in the mutual shallow simplicity of the two characters. Baldwin views them as two sides of the same coin, Uncle Tom representing the too-perfect, sexless, whitened black and Bigger Thomas as the “ ‘nigger,’ black, benighted, brutal, consumed with hatred.”[15] Baldwin felt what connected the two and what explained the problem of the protest novel was their sub-humanity. Their simplicity, and in turn the protest novel’s led to a “rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread power…[an] insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended.”[16]}

^{Moreover, Baldwin deduces that because Bigger Thomas’s character is so limited the story loses any feel for “the relationship that Negroes bear to one another,” which Baldwin feels serves only to show that in “Negro life there exists no tradition, no field of manners, no possibility of ritual or intercourse.”[17] Baldwin feels this depiction false, as he believes tradition is “nothing more than the long and painful experience of a people,” something African Americans no doubt have.[18] Baldwin contends that this ignoring of African American tradition stems from the rapid speed at which the African American has progressed and the presiding psychology behind this progression, that for the African American to progress he must assimilate, he must ignore his own cultural past and “not pause to conjecture on the darkness which lies behind him.”[19] Baldwin feels this assimilationist attitude highly detrimental, saying that if this attitude is accepted:}

^{[T]he Negro in America can only acquiesce in the obliteration of his own personality, the distortion and debasement of his own experience, surrendering to those forces which reduce the person to anonymity and which make themselves manifest daily all over the darkening world.[20]}

^{Baldwin in 1958. VI}

^{In 1957 Baldwin wrote his literary answer to the problems he saw in Native Son and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This answer came in the form of the short story “Sonny’s Blues.” Though first published in '57, the story was republished in Baldwin's short story collection Going to Meet the Man in 1965 during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement and the same year as Malcolm X's assassination. The story follows an unnamed narrator and his brother, Sonny, shortly after Sonny is incarcerated then released for using heroin. The two brothers have two very different ideologies about life. The narrator went to the army, then to college and became an algebra teacher trying to fit into society. Sonny, on the other hand went to the navy and when he came back pursued a bohemian lifestyle of jazz and heroin in Greenwich Village. The narrator very much seems to represent the assimilationist ideology, while Sonny seeks his own path. While the story does seem to convey Baldwin’s own views, it acts more to observe than to preach.}

^{As with Baldwin’s other works Sonny’s Blues points out the futility in assimilation. Though the narrator has achieved a sort of middle class status and he seems to live a fairly comfortable life, he still lives in the same housing projects that he grew up in and as a neighborhood algebra teacher seems to have little chance of any further upward mobility. Moreover, the narrator sees himself as one of the lucky few who made it out of poverty. In the beginning while teaching his class, the narrator realizes his brother started doing heroin around the same age as his students. Though disturbed by the idea, he contemplates that perhaps heroin could do more for them than algebra, because like he and his brother’s generation these boys “were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities.”[21] Despite these insights the narrator is still perplexed by his brother’s path, which he sees not only as fruitless, but detrimental, and in a sense suicidal. When speaking to another junkie who knows his brother, the narrator questions him as to why his brother seems to want to die so badly, to which the junkie responds, “[h]e don’t want to die. He wants to live.”[22] From this point on the idea that perhaps Sonny’s path is not simply one of self destruction and hedonistic drug abuse begins to enter the story.}

^{In an argument with the narrator about the practicalities of working as a musician, the narrator comments that people can’t always do what they want to do in life, to which Sonny replies, “I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?”[23] This exemplifies the difference in the two ideologies. The narrator believes in sacrificing one’s own hopes, dreams and desires in the name of practicality, of fitting into the system that already exists. Sonny on the other hand believes truly living is following one’s dreams and desires regardless of how that fits into the existing system of society. Additionally, it is no coincidence that Sonny’s hopes and dreams revolve around avant-garde jazz, something uniquely African American.}

^{Baldwin at Jazz Club. VII}

^{The culmination of the story and the turning point for the narrator’s view of his brother takes place in a jazz bar where Sonny is playing. As the band begins to play, the music begins to affect the narrator. He realizes that the music they are playing is not something new, it is “the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph.” [24] He realizes that this music, this story is necessary, that “[t]here isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.”[25] The music becomes for the narrator something bigger, something absent from the rest of the story: hope. Finally during a solo, he sees Sonny in a new light, commenting, “[f]reedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.”[26] Baldwin does not offer up Sonny as a solution to all the world’s woes, Baldwin’s Sonny is complex and in some ways flawed, he is human. What Baldwin does seem to offer up in the story, however, is the idea that if the African American is to truly achieve anything, to truly change anything it will certainly not come from assimilating or fitting in, but instead from something radical, something genuine, something deeply rooted in the suffering and sweat of the past.}

^{“Sonny’s Blues” and Notes of a Native Son, along with other works such as The Fire Next Time, played an undeniable role in the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. When Baldwin returned to the United States in the 1960’s to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, which he often referred to as “the latest slave rebellion,” he found himself stuck between two factions.[27]}

^{Baldwin on the meaning of the phrase "Civil Rights Movement." VIII}

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^{On the one side was Dr. Martin Luther King and the integrationist ideology, whom Baldwin agreed with on the grounds that only love, not hate, could bring true freedom. On the other side was Malcolm X and the separationist ideology, whom Baldwin agreed with in its denial of letting white society off the hook and its emphasis on African America self-reliance.[28] Baldwin’s ideals were an amalgam of both leaders’ ideals, he felt both the hope of Dr. King and the anger of Malcolm X. He participated in King’s marches, met with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, and moderated debates between Malcolm X and students, yet he remained his own, he remained analytical and critical, and because of this he was never fully accepted on either side.}

^{Baldwin on Violent v. Non-Violent Protest, and Malcolm X v. Martin Luther King Jr. IX}

^{Perhaps because of his early experience with the profession, Baldwin’s writing never preached to its reader, it never contained absolute solutions, only ideas and observations, and because of these qualities Baldwin’s writing remains some of the most insightful and intelligent writing of the civil rights movement. Though Baldwin’s opinions and thoughts evolved and changed over time, the idea of change through embracing cultural identity not assimilation remained at the very core of his work.}

^{Works Cited}

^{Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel." Notes of a Native Son. New York: Bantam Books, 1955. 9-17.}

^{Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone." Notes of a Native Son. New York: Bantam Books, 1955. 18-36.}

^{Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." Going to Meet the Man. New York: The Dial P, 1965. 103-41.}

^{Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time. New York: The Dial P, 1963.}

^{Daniels, Lee A. "James Baldwin, Eloquent Writer In Behalf of Civil Rights, Is Dead." 2 Dec. 1987. The New York Times. 21 Apr. 2009 .}

^{Excerpt of Speech from My Film James Baldwin Anthology. Perf. James Baldwin. 19 Dec. 2007. 21 Apr. 2009 .}

^{"James Baldwin - About the Author | American Masters |." PBS. 21 Apr. 2009 .}

^{Pfeffer, Robert. "The Fire This Time." Literacy Education Online. St. Cloud State University. 21 Apr. 2009 .}

^{Rosset, Lisa. James Baldwin Author (Black American Series). Boston: Holloway House Company, 1990.}

^{Image and Video Endnotes}

^{[I] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/james-baldwin/about-the-author/59/}

^{[II]James Baldwin Interview(1 of 3). Perf. James Baldwin and Kenneth Clark. YouTube. 29 Nov. 2008. 24 Apr. 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt-WgwFEUNQ}

^{[III]24 Apr. 2009. http://bradley1969.blogspot.com/2008/04/charlton-heston-1924-2008.html}

^{[IV]James Baldwin v. William F. Buckley Jr. Debate. Perf. James Baldwin and William F. Buckley. YouTube. 24 Apr. 2009 .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbkObXxSUus}

^{[V] 24 Apr. 2009. http://www.glos.ac.uk/pressreleases/archive/october08/Pages/richardwright.aspx}

^{[VI]Weissman, Mottke. James Baldwin in 1958. 19 June 2007. New York Times. 24 Apr. 2009 .http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/freeing-james-baldwin/}

^{[VII]Mydans, Carl. American Author James Baldwin. Mar. 1962. Google Images. 24 Apr. 2009 . http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=13cb0eea90cae54c&q=james%20baldwin%20carl&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djames%2Bbaldwin%2Bcarl%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1}

^{[VIII]Excerpt of Speech from My Film James Baldwin Anthology. Dir. Claire Burch. Perf. James Baldwin. YouTube. 19 Dec. 2007. 24 Apr. 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7Of0Abi10A.}

^{[IX]James Baldwin Interview(3 of 3). Perf. James Baldwin and Kenneth Clark. YouTube. 29 Nov. 2008. 24 Apr. 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXwVnYGJ_Cw}

Literary End Notes

---

^{[1] Rosset, Lisa. James Baldwin Author (Black American Series). Boston: Holloway House Company, 1990. 24.}

^{[2] Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time. New York: The Dial P, 1963. 30.}

^{[3] "James Baldwin - About the Author | American Masters |." PBS. 21 Apr. 2009 .}

^{[4] Daniels, Lee A. "James Baldwin, Eloquent Writer In Behalf of Civil Rights, Is Dead." 2 Dec. 1987. The New York Times. 21 Apr. 2009 .}

^{[5] Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel." Notes of a Native Son. New York: Bantam Books, 1955. 10.}

^{[6] Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel." 11.}

^{[7] Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel." 12-13.}

^{[8] Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel." 14.}

^{[9] Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel." 15.}

^{[10] Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel." 15.}

^{[11]Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel."16.}

^{[12] Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel." 15.}

^{[13]Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone." Notes of a Native Son. New York: Bantam Books, 1955. 18-36.23.}

^{[14] Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone.". 23.}

^{[15] Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone.” 29.}

^{[16] Baldwin, James. "Everybody's Protest Novel." 17.}

^{[17] Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone." 28.}

^{[18] Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone." 28.}

^{[19] Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone." 28.}

^{[20] Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone." 36.}

^{[21] Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." Going to Meet the Man. New York: The Dial P, 1965.105.}

^{[22] Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." 108.}

^{[23] Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." 122.}

^{[24] Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." 139.}

^{[25] Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." 139.}

^{[26] Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." 140.}

^{[27] Excerpt of Speech from My Film James Baldwin Anthology. Perf. James Baldwin. 19 Dec. 2007. 21 Apr. 2009 .}

^{[28] Pfeffer, Robert. "The Fire This Time." Literacy Education Online. St. Cloud State University. 21 Apr. 2009 .}