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James Baldwin and MLK’s anti-war writings are ‘a lifeline’ for this Philly Black liberation group

This year James Baldwin would have turned 100. The Saturday Free School is hosting reading groups around the city. On April 4, they will discuss Baldwin and MLK's opposition to the Vietnam War.

Kathie Jiang posts a flyer about the event before she participates in reading group gathered at Making Worlds Bookstore in West Philadelphia, Sunday, Mar. 10, 2024 to read and discuss the life and writings of James Baldwin. It is part of the city’s “Year of Baldwin” with activities celebrating the year the writer would have turned 100 years old. Organizers at the Saturday Free School have called his work “prophetic” and “revolutionary.”
Kathie Jiang posts a flyer about the event before she participates in reading group gathered at Making Worlds Bookstore in West Philadelphia, Sunday, Mar. 10, 2024 to read and discuss the life and writings of James Baldwin. It is part of the city’s “Year of Baldwin” with activities celebrating the year the writer would have turned 100 years old. Organizers at the Saturday Free School have called his work “prophetic” and “revolutionary.”Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer

For Serafina Harris, the writings of James Baldwin, the novelist, essayist and playwright, are just as important and necessary today as the writings and speeches of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or the scholar W.E.B. DuBois.

“It’s about having a certain moral standard,” said Harris, 24, an artist, and a member of the Philadelphia-based Saturday Free School for Philosophy and Black Liberation.

“Reading Baldwin gives you a kind of lifeline or raft; like, when you’re at sea and you’re going to either sink or swim. He deals with the real responsibility of being an American in this particular historical moment.”

In February, the Saturday Free School launched the “Year of James Baldwin: God’s Revolutionary Voice,” to observe the 100th anniversary of Baldwin’s birth, on Aug. 2, 1924. Activities will include reading groups, panel discussions, symposia and every-other-week podcasts.

On Thursday, the Year of Baldwin will mark the anniversary of King’s speech against the Vietnam War, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, that he gave at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967.

The “America’s Revolutionary Future and Martin Luther’s King’s Vision for Peace” program will include a screening of King’s speech, followed by a panel discussion at the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia.

It is the same church where, in 1950, King, then a student at Crozer Theological Seminary in Delaware County, heard Howard University president Mordecai Johnson lecture about Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolence principles.

» READ MORE: When Martin Luther King Came Out Against Vietnam

War and peace

Former Temple University professor Anthony Monteiro, who founded the Saturday Free School 12 years ago, said the Thursday program will compare King’s anti-war speech with the writings of James Baldwin, whom he called a prophetic voice.

Baldwin, who was a gay Black man, born in Harlem, is known for his essays, semi-autobiographical novels, and plays that addressed issues of race, civil rights, politics, and sexuality.

“What Baldwin was establishing is that he had to make a choice to stand with the oppressed or accept this privileged position [of being a famous author],” Monteiro said.

A representative of Jewish Voice for Peace is scheduled to participate. “If Baldwin were alive today, he would be against what is going on in Gaza,” Monteiro said.

April 4, is also the 56th anniversary of King’s assassination in Memphis in 1968. He had given the speech a year to the day before he was murdered.

“We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time, reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality and strength without sight.”
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, from the speech, “Beyond Vietnam,” given April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York.

Reading around the city

Since the launch of the Year of Baldwin, small reading groups have started at bookstores and library branches to read and discuss Baldwin’s work.

Emily Dong, 27, a labor union employee, is one of the leaders at the group that meets at the Central Branch Library, 1901 Vine St. on the first and third Thursdays of the month.

Dong, who is Chinese American, learned about the Saturday Free School from a classmate when she was a student at Cornell. Her friend would visit Philadelphia to take part in the school.

Currently, the group at the Central Branch is reading two essays of Baldwin’s, “Take Me to the Water,” and “To Be Baptized.”

She said among the readers is a Black woman, a retired school teacher, and a young white man, a recent college graduate, who just moved to Philadelphia.

One woman attended because she had heard Dong give an interview on the radio and was intrigued that a young Chinese American woman spoke so passionately about Baldwin.

“People think the Black freedom struggle was just for Black people, but we have to all learn from this history,” Dong said.

» READ MORE: What do you know about W.E.B. DuBois and his connection to Philadelphia? Here's a primer for a 'Year of DuBois'

Dong said readers are finding Baldwin’s works relevant today.

“For me, simply, McCarthy was a coward and a bully, with no claim to honor, nor any claim to honorable attention. For me, emphatically, there were not two sides to this dubious coin, and as to his baleful and dangerous effect, there could be no question at all. Yet , they spent hours debating whether or not McCarthy was an enemy of domestic liberties. I couldn’t but wonder what conceivable further proof they were awaiting: I thought of German Jews sitting around debating whether or not Hitler was a threat to their lives until the debate was summarily resolved for them by a knocking at the door.”
James Baldwin, from “Take Me to the Water,” an essay in the book, No Name in the Street, 1972.

In West Philadelphia, Kathie Jiang leads a group that meets every other Sunday at the Making Worlds Cooperative Bookstore, 210 S. 45th St. That group is reading the Baldwin essay “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.”

“At the very first session, people were very emotional and expressed gratitude to be able to come together and have this dialogue,” said Jiang, who is 25, Chinese American, and also a Cornell graduate.

“People don’t have the space to talk about what’s really important, and to talk about the crises that are going on in society.”

“Martin Luther King’s Vision for Peace,” is on Thursday, April 4, from 5 to 8 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., 19103.

On Saturday, April 6, from noon to 6 p.m., a roundtable discussion, “A Generation Prepared to Pay Its Dues to the Future,” followed by cultural performances, will be held at Zion Baptist Church, 3600 N. Broad St., 19140. For more information, visit: Year of James Baldwin.