Preview by Steve Cooke
James Baldwin, author and activist, was renowned as the most eloquent voice of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and as a pioneering writer of queer fiction. In this series of screenings at HOME Manchester, presented in partnership with the University of Manchester’s ‘James Baldwin and Britain’ project, we have an opportunity to examine his ongoing influence on British culture.
Baldwin visited the UK on numerous occasions and was a sharp commentator on British race relations. He won a televised debate at the Cambridge Union in 1965, gave high-profile speeches in support of Black prisoners in London in 1971 and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Hull in 1976. He was also the subject of a major documentary, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, first screened on ITV, in 1981.
At the centennial of his birth, in 2024, the films in this season reflect key moments from Baldwin’s time in Britain and reappraise his ongoing significance in British culture.
These screenings are part of the ‘James Baldwin and Britain’ project (2024-2027), led by Douglas Field, Kennetta Hammond Perry, Isabel Taube and Rob Waters, with thanks to The Arts and Humanities Research Council, for their generous support.
This project explores the American writer James Baldwin’s complicated relationship to Britain, and to British culture. Born in Harlem, in 1924, Baldwin became a globally esteemed author and activist during the 1960s, renowned as one of the most eloquent voices of the civil rights movement and a fêted transnational writer. At the centennial of his birth in 2024, this project proposes a reappraisal of how Baldwin has influenced British-based artists, intellectuals, and activists, as well as challenging the consensus that the writer’s relevance and impact diminished during the 1970s and 1980s. Baldwin visited the UK on numerous occasions. A sharp commentator on British ‘race relations,’ he won a televised debate at the Cambridge Union in 1965; gave high-profile speeches in support of Black prisoners in Westminster, in 1971; was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Hull in 1976 and was the subject of a major ITV documentary, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, in 1981. In his final years, when Baldwin's reputation was at a low ebb elsewhere, his first play, The Amen Corner, became the first Black British production to reach the West End.
Despite his growing prominence globally, studies of Baldwin's international profile overlook his notable presence in British culture, and his long-standing influence on generations of Black British artists and activists. Similarly, they elide Baldwin's insights into Britain's colonial past. There has also been minimal work on Baldwin’s significance as a writer of queer fiction in Britain, and of the legacies of his novel, Giovanni’s Room, first accepted for publication by the British publisher, Michael Joseph, in the mid-1950s, when homosexuality was banned on both sides of the Atlantic. The project reflects on Baldwin's status as a global writer and activist, a literary and public figure whose work cuts across genres and disciplines. It is led by an experienced international team of scholars from Literary Studies, Politics, and History.
Wed 11 - Thu 19 Sep 2024
2 Tony Wilson Place, Manchester M15 4FN
Box Office 0161 200 1500
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