The material in this book originally appeared in the following publications:
“Mass Culture and the Creative Artist: Some Personal Notes.” Culture for the Millions? Mass Media in Modern Society, edited by Norman Jacobs. Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1959.
“A Word from Writer Directly to Reader.” Fiction of the Fifties: A Decade of American Writing, edited by Herbert Gold. New York: Doubleday, 1959.
“From Nationalism, Colonialism, and the United States: One Minute to Twelve—A Forum.” Liberation Committee for Africa, first-anniversary celebration, June 2, 1961. New York: Photo-Offset Press, 1961.
“Theater: The Negro In and Out.” Urbanite, April 1961. Reprinted in Negro Digest, April 1966.
“Is A Raisin in the Sun a Lemon in the Dark?” Tone, April 1961.
“As Much Truth As One Can Bear.” The New York Times Book Review, January 14, 1962.
“Geraldine Page: Bird of Light.” Show, February 1962.
“From What’s the Reason Why: A Symposium by Best-Selling Authors: James Baldwin, Another Country.” The New York Times Book Review, December 2, 1962.
“The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.” Freedomways, 1963. Reprinted in Seeds of Liberation, edited by Paul Goodman. New York: George Braziller, 1964.
“We Can Change the Country.” Liberation, October 1963.
“Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare.” The Observer, April 19, 1964.
“The Uses of the Blues.” Playboy, January 1964.
“What Price Freedom?” Freedomways, second quarter, 1964.
“The White Problem.” 100 Years of Emancipation, edited by Robert A. Goodwin. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964.
“Black Power.” Originally appeared as “Black Power: James Baldwin in Defense of Stokely Carmichael.” The Guardian, February 14, 1968.
“The Price May Be Too High.” The New York Times, February 2, 1969.
“The Nigger We Invent.” Integrated Education, March–April 1969.
“Speech from the Soledad Rally.” Speeches from the Soledad Brothers Rally, Central Hall, Westminster, 20/4/71. London: Friends of Soledad, 1974.
“A Challenge to Bicentennial Candidates.” Op-ed, Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1976. Reprinted as “Looking for the Bicentennial Man” in the San Francisco Chronicle, February 15, 1976.
“The News from All the Northern Cities Is, to Understate It, Grim; the State of the Union Is Catastrophic.” Op-ed, The New York Times, April 5, 1978.
“Lorraine Hansberry at the Summit.” Freedomways, fourth quarter, 1979.
“On Language, Race, and the Black Writer.” Op-ed, Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1979.
“Of the Sorrow Songs: The Cross of Redemption.” Edinburgh Review, August 1979.
“Black English: A Dishonest Argument.” Black English and The Education of Black Children and Youth, a symposium at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1980.
“This Far and No Further.” Time Capsule, summer/fall 1983.
“On Being ‘White’ … and Other Lies.” Essence, April 1984.
“Blacks and Jews.” Black Scholar, November–December 1988.
“To Crush a Serpent.” Playboy, January 1987.
“The Fight: Patterson vs. Liston.” Nugget, February 1963. Reprinted in Antaeus, spring 1989.
“Sidney Poitier.” Look, July 23, 1968.
“Letters from a Journey.” Harper’s, May 1963.
“The International War Crimes Tribunal.” Freedomways, third quarter, 1967.
“Anti-Semitism and Black Power.” Freedomways, first quarter, 1967.
“An Open Letter to My Sister Angela Y. Davis.” The New York Review of Books, January 7, 1971.
“A Letter to Prisoners.” Inside/Out, vol. 3, no. 1 (summer 1982).
“The Fire This Time: Letter to the Bishop.” The New Statesman, August 23, 1985.
“A Quarter-Century of Un-Americana.” Originally appeared as the envoi to A Quarter Century of Un-Americana, 1938–1963: A Tragico-Comical Memorabilia of HUAC, edited by Charlotte Pomerantz. New York: Manzani & Munsell, 1963.
“Memoirs of a Bastard Angel: A Fifty-Year Literary and Erotic Odyssey by Harold Norse.” Originally appeared as the preface to Ole, no. 5 (1965). Reprinted in Memoirs of a Bastard Angel. New York: William Morrow, 1989.
“The Negro in New York: An Informal Social History, 1626–1940, edited by Roi Ottley and William J. Weatherby.” Originally appeared as the introduction to The Negro in New York. New York: Oceana Publications, 1967.
“Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether.” Originally appeared as the foreward to Daddy Was a Number Runner. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970.
“A Lonely Rage by Bobby Seale.” Originally appeared as “Stagolee,” the foreword to A Lonely Rage. New York: Times Books, 1978.
“Best Short Stories by Maxim Gorky.” Originally appeared as “Maxim Gorki As Artist.” The Nation, April 12, 1947.
“Mother by Maxim Gorky.” Originally appeared as “Battle Hymn.” New Leader, November 29, 1947.
“The Amboy Dukes by Irving Shulman.” Originally appeared as “When the War Hit Brownsville.” New Leader, May 17, 1947.
“The Sure Hand of God by Erskine Caldwell.” Originally appeared as “The Dead Hand of Caldwell.” New Leader, December 6, 1947.
“The Sling and the Arrow by Stuart Engstrand.” Originally appeared as “Without Grisly Gaiety.” New Leader, September 20, 1947.
“Novels and Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson, edited by V. S. Pritchett; and Robert Louis Stevenson by David Daiches.” Originally appeared as “Bright World Darkened.” New Leader, January 24, 1948.
“Flood Crest by Hodding Carter.” Originally appeared as “Change Within a Channel.” New Leader, April 24, 1948.
“The Moth by James M. Cain.” Originally appeared as “Modern Rover Boys.” New Leader, August 14, 1948.
“The Portable Russian Reader, edited by Bernard Guilbert Guerney.” Originally appeared as “Literary Grab-Bag.” New Leader, February 28, 1948.
“The Person and the Common Good by Jacques Maritain.” Originally appeared as “Present and Future.” New Leader, March 13, 1948.
“The Negro Newspaper by Vishnu V. Oak; Jim Crow America by Earl Conrad; The High Cost of Prejudice by Bucklin Moon; The Protestant Church and the Negro by Frank S. Loescher; Color and Conscience by Buell G. Gallagher; From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin; and The Negro in America by Arnold Rose.” Originally appeared as “Too Late, Too Late.” Commentary, January 1949.
“The Cool World by Warren Miller.” Originally appeared as “War Lord of the Crocodiles.” New York Times Book World, January 21, 1959.
“Essays by Seymour Krim.” Originally appeared as “Views of a Near-Sighted Cannoneer.” The Village Voice, July 13, 1961.
“The Arrangement by Elia Kazan.” Originally appeared as “God’s Country.” New York Review, March 23, 1967.
“A Man’s Life: An Autobiography by Roger Wilkins.” Originally appeared as “Roger Wilkins: A Black Man’s Odyssey in White America.” The Washington Post Book World, June 6, 1982.
“The Death of a Prophet.” Commentary, March 1950.