Navigating Identity and Expectations

To mark the end of Black History Month, we're revisiting two conversations about James Baldwin that first aired last summer for his 100th birthday. First, NPR's Andrew Limbong speaks with McKinley Melton – associate professor of Africana Studies at Rhodes College – about Baldwin's first novel, Go Tell It On the Mountain. Melton says he sees the work as an autobiographical revisitation of the author's own childhood, filled with all that Baldwin wished he knew at 14. Then, professor and novelist Jesmyn Ward joins Limbong to discuss The Fire Next Time. The nonfiction work contains two of Baldwin's political essays, the first of which is written as a letter to Baldwin's 14-year-old nephew.

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