Come Out the Wilderness - James Baldwin - 243 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Come Out the Wilderness is a story in the collection Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin.

Told from a female protagonist’s point of view, the story shows the insecurity a woman faces because of racist prejudices around her in the era and world she lives in. Ruth, a young black woman working as a typist, has a white boyfriend. She has increasingly felt unsure about him and his commitment to her. She even suspects that his white boss is opinionated and disapproving of their relationship.


The story addresses similar themes of power dynamics between white and black people in the United States, it also addresses the social pressure and shame felt by a black woman dating white men. Ruth feels both disrespected by Paul, taken for granted, devalued, and taken advantage of, while at the same time, she fears being judged and devalued by black men for dating a white man who has no respect for her.



Adapted from Baldwin heritage blog

This Morning, This Evening, So Soon - James Baldwin - 242 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

This Morning, This Evening, So Soon is a story in the collection Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin.


Set primarily in Paris, the story is narrated in the first person by an unnamed famous jazz musician and movie star. He is an African American musician who married a Swedish woman in Paris, where their biracial son grows up speaking French as his first language. For the narrator’s son, who has lived in France his entire life, America is “only a glamorous word” (146), but for the narrator, who grew up in Alabama, the United States is the oppressive, marginalizing country from which he had to escape in order to find the freedom to be himself.


The story probes the question of black American identity within an international context.

The story also pays great attention to music, in particular jazz, gospel, and American folk. The title of the story, "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon," is also a title of an American folk song and figures into several folks songs as a refrain



Image - Courtesy of Library of Congress, Pettus, Peter, "Participants, Some Carrying American Flags, Marching in the Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965

Adapted from Baldwin heritage blog

Previous Condition - James Baldwin - 241 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Previous Condition


"Previous Condition" is the first story in the collection Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin.

It is a story of the psychological effect of racism on the black people. Baldwin portrays the life of a young black man who is bitter because the colour of his skin dictates the behaviour of people around him. Peter the protagonist, lives in a period in which everyone is aware of who they are and their surroundings based on the color of their skin.

The story continues to reinforce this notion that for people of color, the discrimination they face is entirely different from people of minority groups who are able to present as white people of non-minority groups.


Image - Palmer Hayden, The Subway, 1941 - courtesy - RizzoliUSA site






Adapted from Baldwin heritage blog

The Outing - James Baldwin - 240 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

The Outing is again from the James Baldwin collection of short stories, Going to Meet the Man.


The Outing continues in the same world and with the same cast of characters as the first story, "The Rockpile," but in this story the brothers Roy and Johnnie are teenagers. In this story, too, the title also refers to the setting of the narrative, here an outing organized by the congregation for which their father, Gabriel, is a deacon. The outing is a yearly event put on by the church as a way for congregants to enjoy nature together and praise God in a wide-open space.


The Harlem church group escapes the city for a summer day-trip of prayer and, more importantly, romance. Every summer, the Harlem Mount of Olives Pentecostal Assembly gives an outing, around the Fourth of July. There is boating, testifying, and illicit steps towards young love. Delving deeply into the jaded thoughts of the youth about religion and church community, Baldwin is exploring the young minds and their expressions.


Compared with the previous story, "The Rockpile," containing the same core characters, "The Outing" contains far more biblical allusions, religious references, and overt religious themes, which makes sense seeing that the setting of the story is a church function, rather than a short, domestic sequence of events. Johnnie and Roy's relationship has developed into a complex, perhaps unexpected dynamic, more loving than resentful, wherein their father, Gabriel, is regarded with mutual disdain.


Adapted from Baldwin heritage blog



Image - The Black Christ by Countee Cullen with illustrations by Charles Cullen. 

Countee Cullen was one of the leading poets and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. This book of poetry, published at the height of his career, examines the relationships between faith and injustice. Cullen draws parallels between the suffering of the crucified Christ and the suffering of African Americans in the climate of racial violence that characterized the 1920s.


Courtesy- Missouri Library Edu

The Rockpile - James Baldwin - 239 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

The Rockpile


The Rockpile Is from Baldwin's 1965 collection of short stories, Going to Meet the Man. This collection consisted mostly of stories he previously published between 1948 and 1960. The stories touch on themes of sexuality, class, and race.


In The Rockpile, which takes place in Depression-era Harlem, John, the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Grimes, is unable to stop his brother, Roy, from getting into a fight on a rockpile with some other African-American boys. Roy gets hurt, and John gets blamed by his stepfather, although Elizabeth faces her husband and sticks up for John. When the story was first published in the 1960s, America was in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, in which Baldwin was an active participant. 

The story addresses the issue of violence between African-American men, the violence inherent in African-American families, and the power of religion in Depression-era Harlem.



Adapted from Baldwin heritage blog

Image - courtesy - Illustrationwest site - Artist - Martin French

Sonny’s Blues - James Baldwin - 238 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

James Baldwin was a well-known public figure and American writer, whose works played a significant role in the African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. Baldwin's explosive essays and fiction explored the issues of race, poverty, and justice.


The grandson of a slave, James Baldwin was born, into poverty in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. One of nine children, Baldwin discovered his passion for reading and writing at a young age inspired from constant trips to the library.

Later on it was in Europe that Baldwin wrote and published his first and most critically acclaimed piece of fiction: Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a novel about religion and the African American experience.

Baldwin also wrote Giovanni's Room (1956),which was autobiographical in nature, addressing his own struggles with homosexuality. His essay collections on race and oppression in America—Notes of a Native Son (1955), Nobody Knows My Name (1961) and The Fire Next Time (1963)—inspired a generation of citizens, writers, and critics.


Sonny’s Blues


Initially published in 1957, it was included in the 1965 collection entitled Going to Meet the Man.

Spread over a decade, the works cover a wide range of topics, including racism, sexuality, and the creative writing process.

Sonny's Blues is a story of suffering, family, community and redemption. Set in Harlem, a community Baldwin knew intimately, the tale follows two brothers. The elder has strived to mix with the white-dominated culture and, as a result, remains disconnected from his heritage and his family. He cannot be wholly with the former because of racial prejudices. And the latter, his own family and people are disillusioned with his ideals.

The younger, a heroin addict and jazz musician, struggles to transform his suffering and the suffering of his community into music.

At the story’s climax the elder brother listens to his brother’s music and recognizes not only his own pain, but, for the first time, his brother’s pain, as well as the pain of the African American people.



Adapted from Baldwin heritage blog