Go Tell It on the Mountain

"I actually run a social justice social media platform called Son of Baldwin because I watched a documentary back in around 2007 where James Baldwin’s brother was talking about his final days before he passed away. James Baldwin said to his brother, ‘I just hope someone finds me in the wreckage and realizes the work that I was trying to do and maybe continue it.’ It felt like he was speaking directly to me, because here we are, both Black and queer, both writers, both growing up in New York City. He was such a brilliant writer and at that time, I thought, ‘No one’s talking about his work or the impact of what he’s writing. No one’s talking about the subject matter that he was writing about. Maybe I can start some sort of platform where we can have these conversations?’ Son of Baldwin grew out of that. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Go Tell it on the Mountain struck me deeply because it’s wrestling with Christianity, and what Christianity does to the Black queer person. Christianity attempts to tell the Black queer person that they are sinful, that their desires are unnatural, and that they must suppress them—and not just suppress them but change them into something else in order to be seen as worthy by God. And in The Prophets that is one of the central conflicts. You have Amos, who is newly converted to Christianity, attempting to get Samuel and Isaiah to change for the benefit of the plantation. That is something that happens in real life, to this day, where you have Black queer people who are devoutly Christian and cannot reconcile what their pastors and other clergy are telling them with their own existence and intrinsic feelings. And Baldwin captures that tension so beautifully and so heart-wrenchingly in Go Tell it on the Mountain. Between the ages of 14 and 17 Baldwin was actually a pastor in a church. He was a preacher. At such a young age, he was seen as a prophet, if you will. But he realized, age 17, that it was just not going to be possible. He was coming to terms with who he was as a homosexual—as they called it in those days—and he realized that the church would not be a place where he’d be allowed to tell his truth. So, he broke away from it. Yes, this book is autobiographical for Baldwin. It takes place in a day and it feels like it takes place over a longer span, because he does these interesting interludes where he goes back in time to talk about his family lineage. It’s a beautifully written book. I think it’s his finest work, even though it’s his first work, and other works are more celebrated. But for me, it’s his best. I love it. There has been a renaissance when it comes to Baldwin’s work in the last maybe four to five years. People have really returned to his books. I’m actually in contact with his nephew, Trevor Baldwin. He said to me that I was one of the first to return to him and that the family wanted to thank me for bringing attention back to him. I can’t take the credit for his marvellous return, but I’m just so glad that so many people are rediscovering his works. They call him a prophet, but I really don’t think he was prophetic. He was just exceptional at understanding history and understanding people and knowing that we constantly repeat our mistakes, because we are constantly denying our history and refusing to reckon with it. Baldwin knew that better than almost anyone else. He was fantastic."