Review of “No Name in the Street” By James Baldwin
No Name in the Street was published in 1972. This book is Baldwin’s fourth work of nonfiction, and he touches on many issues historically, personally, and prophetically. He dances in this book between Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, the Black Panther Party, Hollywood, childhood friends, and siblings. His proximity to greatness and embodiment of it spills out of this book. Baldwin guides you through small frames of his life while speaking truth to power through his encounters. Baldwin restates facts over and over again about Black-White relations in America while also remaining very personal.
This book consists of two essays, the first one Take me to the River and the second one To be Baptized.
In the first essay, Take me to the River Baldwin discusses his childhood upbringing, painting a picture of his mother’s pregnancies, father’s preacher wardrobe, and multiple siblings. This essay is very transient and jumps from New York, Paris, and the American South location wise. Baldwin’s encounters while living in Paris shined a light on his vulnerabilities as he would allude to the lack of money by claiming he “Starved in Paris.” Baldwin lived in Paris among the Les Misérables, the Algerian population. He briefly describes the Algerian and Parisian tumultuous relations, and somewhat compares it to the Black-White relationship in America, but his depiction is superficial.
Furthermore, Baldwin describes his first journey to the racist American South as one wandering into hell because of the dimensions of their sorrow. He depicts the South as “wicked,” but he wasn’t struck by “their wickedness, for their wickedness was but the spirit and history of America.” But somehow Baldwin had more faith in the South than the North concerning the rebirth of America. He claims that the North locked the spirit of the South inside of them, and this prevented any real progress. My favorite quote from Take me to the River speaks to our times critically about the disconnect between the public and private life of some White Americans’ who choose racism and fear. Baldwin says, “This failure of the private life has always had the most devastating effect in American public conduct, and on Black-White relations. If Americans were not so terrified of their private selves, they would never have needed to invent and could never have become so dependent on what they still call “the Negro problem.” This problem, which they invented to safeguard their purity, has made of them criminals and monsters, and it is destroying them: and this not from anything Blacks may or may not be doing but because of the role a guilty and constricted white imagination has assigned to the Blacks.” Then he continues by saying, “In the private chambers of the soul, the guilty party is identified, and the accusing finger, there, is not legend, but consequence, not fantasy, but the truth. People pay for what they do, and, still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply: by the lives they lead.” The White racist imagination has done more damage to Black people than the legend of Black on Black crime has ever done.
The second essay, To Be Baptized begins with the quote, “All Western nations have been caught in a lie, the lie of their pretended humanism; this means that their history has no moral justification.” Baldwin wanted all of the smoke. Baldwin, in this second essay, tries to revive the media’s character second assassination of Malcolm X, by telling a story of gentleness when describing Malcolm. I appreciated that.
The last thirty-seven pages of No Name in the Street are the most important and speaks to our times in such a stinging way. Baldwin is relentless. He tears into the veins of the American Race problem. Huey Newton, The Black Panther Party, Police brutality, the ghetto functioning as a goldmine for insurance companies, credit, voters registration, and police reform are just a few topics he comments on in this essay. Baldwin comments on the educational requirements for police officers by mentioning less than one percent of three hundred departments required any college training. Then Baldwin gets critical by saying, “The white cop in the ghetto is as ignorant as he is frightened, and his entire concept of police work is to cow the natives. He is not compelled to answer to these natives for anything he does; whatever he does, he knows that he will be protected by his brothers, who will allow nothing to stain the honor of the force.” Sounds familiar?
The last ten pages of No Name in the Street made me gasp. Please read this book.
No Name in the Street by James Baldwin was a journey. It took me an immense amount of time to finish this book because it was dense. I had to consume it slowly or suffer the consequences by missing the flavor or getting too full in one sitting. This book is an unfinished memoir, and Baldwin states this fact in the epilogue of the piece.
He says “this book was delayed by trials, assassinations, funerals, and despair.” This book felt disjointed. But there is a lesson in being disjointed. From my perspective, this book is a commentary on personal trauma within turbulent times. There is something peculiar about processing trauma, trying to create art and be faithful to the times. This book speaks to Baldwin’s talent as a writer, even though this isn’t his best piece of work, it is still better than a lot of other commentaries on the social and political era of the 60s and 70s.
Final words and Score:
No Name in the Street was unfinished and wasn’t Baldwin’s best work, but as Baldwin says “it can’t be finished by him” but I believe it is up to us to finish the job. I felt like Baldwin was commenting on the state of 2020 minus COVID-19. Oddly, I see a glimpse of hope for our generation. The pressure and educational tool that is social media and the moral energy stirring inside of our generation is beyond admiration. The revolution is virtual and physical amid COVID-19. If you are participating in this generation’s revolution or merely watching, this is an excellent book to start and finish.
This book gets a 4.2/5.
Baldwin, James. No name in the street. Vintage, 2007.
