James Baldwin is a towering African-American literary figure who has become if anything better know since his death in 1987, especially with the release of the Oscar nominated documentary âIÂ Am Not Your Negro.â His personal confluence of identities, black gay man raised in the church, ex-pat, artist, journalist and activist continues to fascinate and defy easy definition.
Yet the estate of James Baldwin has held onto his personal collection of letters with a vice grip, and nobodyâs altogether sure why.
Not only has it never allowed any of Baldwinâs personal correspondence to be published, itâs only let a handful of scholars view the documents at all, and biographers are altogether forbidden to directly quote passages from the letters in their work.
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Now, rare archival papers from the late black queer author and social critic have landed at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library. And thereâs some great stuff, including his correspondence with Lucien Happersberger, a Swiss painter Baldwin called âthe one true love story of my life.â
But try not to get too excited: The New York Times reports that
many of his personal letters will remain off limits for another generation â a byproduct of complicated negotiations between the library and the estate, and a reminder that family members are not always comfortable with the spotlightâs falling on a loved one, even decades after death.
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The archives consists of manuscripts, notes, drafts, and letters from the likes of Nina Simone, William Styron, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Lorraine Hansberry. But the bulk of restricted material are letters he wrote to his four closest friends. Those are under a 20-year seal, leading one to wonder why the estate doesnât think weâre quite ready to read the contents therein.
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The NYT also reports that thereâs
a seven-year waiting period on any public display of all but a handful of items â seem puzzlingly out of step with current trends at archives, which tend to make as much freely available and visible online as copyright will allow.
Nevertheless, William Kelly, the New York Public Libraryâs director of research libraries, calls the restrictions âfairly modestâ:
âThereâs always a balance in guaranteeing access for scholars,â he says, âwhile at the same time being sensitive to the family.â
He says the collection will be available âin due time.â
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âArchives move by decades and generations. Weâre here to keep it forever.â
Kevin Young, Director of the Schomburg Center, said in a statement:
âBaldwinâs amazing collection adds to our ever-growing holdings of writers, political figures, artists, and cultural icons across the African diaspora. With the current resurgence of interest in Baldwinâs works and words, and renovation of our own spaces from the main gallery to the Schomburg Shop, the timing couldnât be better for Baldwin to join us at the Schomburg Center. As a writer myself, I am eager for students, scholars and other writersâI count myself among all threeâto have the opportunity to see his profound writing process up close.â
Aromaeus
I call you out for a typo in the first sentence and you delete my comment? lol you do realize screenshots are a thing right?
Jack Meoff
There is more that one typo or grammatical error in this article as seems to be the case with Queerty writers. I just learn to accept it.
natekerchel
I am never comfortable when ‘family’ make decisions about matters that they themselves have deemed ‘sensitive’. All authors, and particularly those who gain international fame, know that whatever they write in their personal correspondence will be of interest to academics and others. If the author is concerned about the contents of his writings he can direct that things be destroyed after death. He can ask friends, lovers, family members to destroy any correspondence they may have. If they do not do so it is because they have no desire for their words to be censored. In this case the fact that ‘love letters’ have been carefully preserved for many years indicates the author’s and the recipient’s desire to make them known to a wider public. If the ‘family’ are embarrassed by the nature of the language too bad. Baldwin was a hugely influential writer and activist – he would not be ashamed of anything he wrote to his lovers or friends.
Ksb1978
I could not have said it better. That is so true.
s-betta
I understand your discomfort, given the nature of the material. However, , these kinds of restrictions are common practice for collections author’s papers (often, authors’ estates will prevent access to specific materials for 50 years following the deaths of everyone in the author’s immediate family and – in the case of correspondence – the families of the recipients). In this case I don’t think that it’s a case of being embarrassed by the language of the letters or their contents, but rather – again, as is often the case with author’s papers – out of a desire to protect Baldwin’s public persona (that he constructed himself) from psycho-analytic scrutiny (at least within their lifetimes). I should mention that -the restrictions on the Baldwin letters are pretty modest, as alluded to in the article. Also, I should mention that these restrictions may have been set in place according to instructions from Baldwin himself (which also happens). ALL OF THIS SAID — i, like you, wish that these documents could be made available sooner đ
MarionPaige
My immediate question is “who or what could be behind this fabricated controversy” noting that The Media in general seems to get particularly upset when Blacks have the smarts to actually legally protect their intellectual property (a la MLK’s speeches).
KDub
Uhh…maybe because they’re personal? Would you like the general public to have access to all your love letters? Just because they’re public figures doesn’t mean they owe the public all the intimate details of their lives.