Upcoming Events About James Baldwin
Following the January 26 meeting of the Racial Justice Study and Action Group, Helen Garay Toppins shared information about two upcoming events highlighting the life and work of James Baldwin:
Turkey Saved My Life - Baldwin in Istanbul, 1961–1971
at the BrooklynPublic Library
December 12, 2024 to March 15, 2025
Central Library, Grand Lobby
Celebrating James Baldwin’s centennial, the exhibition Turkey Saved My Life - Baldwin in Istanbul, 1961–1971 captures an exceptionally fertile period for the incomparable Baldwin, defined by his sojourn to a country that would allow him to gain critical distance from, and new perspectives on, America, particularly its poisonous racism and homophobia. Consisting of sweeping photographs by Turkish photographer Sedat Pakay, one of Baldwin’s close friends, the exhibition provides an intimate travelogue portrait of an understudied yet pivotal time in Baldwin’s life.
More information: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/exhibitions/turkey-saved-my-life
The Tongue & The Lash and A Return to Civic Discourse
at The Town Hall
Feb 18, 2025
7:00 PM
The Town Hall celebrates James Baldwin and the 60th anniversary of the Baldwin/Buckley Cambridge debate with the New York premiere of the chamber opera, THE TONGUE & THE LASH by Damien Sneed, composer/conductor and Karen Chilton, librettist. Making her Town Hall and New York directorial debut, the opera will be directed by world-renowned mezzo-soprano, Denyce Graves-Montgomery.
A Return to Civic Discourse revisiting the “American Dream”: 60 Years Later will include insights from moderator, distinguished novelist/poet and MacArthur Fellow, Edwidge Danticat along with Nicholas Buccola, PhD award-winning author of The Fire Is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate Over Race in America; Dr. Brenda M. Greene, author and literary activist, founder and executive director of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York; Matt Brim, PhD, Professor of Queer Studies at the College of Staten Island, author of James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination (2014); and Dr. Frank Leon Roberts, Founding Executive Director of The Baldwin/Hansberry Project, English and Black Studies Professor at Amherst College
More information: https://www.thetownhall.org/event/the-tongue-the-lash-and-a-return-to-civic-discourse