Unique James Baldwin Birthday Celebration

Celebrate the birthday of literary giant James Baldwin at the James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center‘s Farmer’s Market with NWU member Betty Pierre. Enjoy crafts, music and stories, and purchase fresh produce and breads Saturday, August 7 at 100 W. Mosholu Pkwy S., Bronx, NY. Open mic sign ups start at noon.

James Baldwin, whose actual birthday was August 2, reminds us that “one is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.”

Baldwin also asserted that: “It is the responsibility of free men to trust and to celebrate what is constant birth, struggle, and death are constant, and so is love, though we may not always think so and to apprehend the nature of change, to be able and willing to change.”

The author of such classics as Go Tell It On the Mountain and If Beale Street Could, Baldwin talk was able to reach people because he demanded their trust, spoke to and for others, and enabled people across differences to understand the inner workings and shortcomings of American society.  What we share with all other life on earth is our basic human condition, journeys through life, essential brotherhood and sisterhood with each other, our human family and responsibilities to the life sustaining systems on our planet that emanate from the elements of earth, water, air, and energy.

Raymond Pultinas is the founder and director of JBOLC.

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