Did I ever tell you about the time I met the writer James Baldwin? I was a junior at Harvard, majoring in English and French with an Africana focus. I lived in one of the dormitories or houses as we called them on campus. These houses were vibrant places; not simply a place to eat and sleep but a place where it was not unusual to connect with invited guests who were asked to share their knowledge with the community. They were run by House Masters, a term I now find curious, but then did not question. Interestingly, in recent times, these residential college directors have been renamed Faculty Deans. Often, it would be a married academic couple that resided on the compound and hosted events for the entire community. Academics, writers, artists, all passed through. Luminaries could be invited to speak to the whole campus or in some cases, as in the case of Baldwin, they would be invited by the House Masters to join us in a more intimate setting.
And so it was that one week in the spring of my junior year, I got a call from the masters of my house, an older white couple, who asked me to join them for dinner with none other than James Baldwin, the famous writer, civil rights activist and one of my heroes. After enthusiastically saying yes, I remember getting off the phone and rejoicing with my roommates at the thought of this opportunity. They made me promise to come back and tell them everything. At the time, none of us speculated as to why I was asked. Perhaps we all assumed that my concentration in Africana Studies (Black writers in French and English) was one possible reason. I had also worked with them and other Black women on campus to restart a Black woman’s service organization called the Association of Black Radcliffe women. That, too, we thought may have had something to do with it.
So when the day arrived that James Baldwin came to campus, I put on my best dress and took the elevator to the masters’ penthouse apartment like one going to see a true luminary. At the same time, I felt a sense of familiarity with the man whose books had made such an imprint on my life. Baldwin’s work was like an awakening. Nobody Knows my Name, Go tell it on the Mountain, his essays on his literary forays in France –helped me to understand my world. They made me proud of who I was. They were so deeply personal yet historical at the same time, and though it would be a long time before I found my calling as a historian and a writer, I read Baldwin’s poignant novels then as works of history.
I remember almost leaping out of the elevator with great anticipation. I rushed to the door and was warmly greeted by the hostess. I looked fervently around to see if I could spot him. Slim, in his early sixties but appearing more youthful, he sat at a giant candle lit table near windows overlooking the budding trees and flowers. It was spring, and it was not yet dark so you could see that everything was beginning to bloom again. I don’t remember the rest of the setting, but I do remember that against this beautiful backdrop, he was sitting alone. There were others milling around, but they were not sitting or standing directly next to him.
In that moment, it struck me that other than Baldwin, I was the only Black person in the room. I am not sure why it struck me as unusual, but perhaps I had gotten used to seeing many Black and brown faces on campus that somehow this stood out. I was part of one of the most multicultural classes in Harvard’s history. I rarely felt like “the only one” in most settings on campus, but that evening, I felt that right away. But I wasn’t going to let that be a problem. What did that matter? I was meeting one of my heroes.
I was about to make my way to the table where he was seated when the hostess took me by the arm….and ushered me to the kitchen.
“Come this way,” she said as she pointed to a tray of hors d’oeuvres that I was to carry.
This is the point where I wish I could report exactly what I said but I can’t. I can only report this feeling of being absolutely crushed in mind and spirit. I said something, quietly, to the effect of:
“Oh, but I thought I was invited to meet Mr. Baldwin, not to serve…”
I mean, there were jobs in the college like this for students like myself who worked their way through school with part time jobs, but this was not my job. There was nothing wrong with those jobs, but I worked in the box office of the campus theater. That was my job –selling tickets.
I tried to remember: when she called me the week before to invite me, had I missed something? Were there other students being asked to serve? No.
The strange thing was that up until this point, my dealings with the House Masters had always been cordial and respectful, not anything of note. Now here I was, here to meet James Baldwin, the only other Black person in the room, and I was being ushered to the kitchen.
Suddenly, the hostess caught herself and somehow turned it around and invited me instead to stay and have dinner with them. But it was too late. I was crestfallen.
And James Baldwin, ever the astute writer and observer of life, especially life in America, looked across the room and knew it.
He was far enough away that he could not have heard our exchange, but he felt it and he saw it for what it was and gave me the most knowing look with his large piercing eyes that I remember to this day.
The next thing I knew he was ushering me to his side, to his table. I was to sit next to him at dinner. I was to be his guest.
———
I almost never tell this story. In fact, in thirty years, I have told it only once in a private setting. I think, in my mind, I decided that since it all ended well ––that perhaps it was not such a bad day after all.
But it was.
Maybe I did not want this story to mar what was overall a phenomenal experience I had at Harvard. Nothing like that had ever happened before which ironically made it all the more difficult to accept. Harvard was not just a school. It was my home for four years, the way any place would have been where you made friends, you ate and slept and worked and played. I had great classmates, the Class of 1986. But it was more than that. I felt a connection to the place. The time worn red cobblestones beneath my feet; the smell of flowers that permeated the air in spring after cold Cambridge winters; the thrill of discovery of yet another little library tucked away in a building on the edge of campus with books that had the look, feel and musty smell of first editions. It was my home, and things like this don’t happen in your home. Do they?
Besides, these were the years of President Derek Bok, a great visionary and believer in multicultural education and representation. It was a pioneering time, but for all of the great vision and all the hard work that brought me there, in that one gesture, my hostess took me back… back there.
Back to that place and that time where that is all I could reasonably expect – that any invite to her home was to serve, not to be served.
Even now, I don’t write in anger because I suppose she was, as we say sometimes, a product of her time, but I wonder as I write and think about the lasting impact of slavery in this country and in the Caribbean, how is it we don’t talk about trauma? Not just the trauma of the past but the repeated incidents of racism that threaten to bring it all back.
That is what I think about now. That is what my next book is about; that and how to heal that trauma.
But in the meantime, I can still see James Baldwin’s eyes—fixed on me and my predicament –which was also his predicament and the one he dedicated his life to writing about – those eyes that pulled me in and out of history.
That is my lasting memory.
Anne C. Bailey, author of The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History. (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
Photo attribution: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/James_Baldwin_in_his_house_in_Saint-Paul_de_Vence.JPG
cc:Baileyblog
If you care to, ADD YOUR EMAIL below to receive weekly posts.
Find Anne C. Bailey's non-fiction book : 
This made my hair stand on end.
James Baldwin alluded to the rage that is commensurate with Blackness in the United States. As a Black man, I’m choosing to express my feelings at this moment in a way that he would have hopefully found appropriate. I’m invoking the use of your name in multiple meanings: Bailey, I scream.
thank you. Never give up.
thank you with all of my heart for choosing to share this more widely. I am so sorry that they “were a product of their time” and concurrently in the seat of intellectual engagement could not rise above their white body superiority
I’m afraid this is the Harvard i remember, and I graduated 3 years before you, Anne. Thank you so much for sharing this story.
Thank you for sharing! You are right. It is “not just the trauma of the past but the repeated incidents of racism that threaten to bring it all back,” that we face regularly.
That is what we are experiencing now…but “we shall overcome.”
Thank you, thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you for telling your story. I thought of Baldwin’s quiet fierceness when I read this, and now I think about how his, and your, intellect and perception must have threatened the myth of white superiority your hostess typified. I want to read your books and revisit Baldwin’s.
Such intuition from Mr. Baldwin and you became his guest. He read into your soul.
yes he did.
…just listening to a podcast on anti racism where the speaker Resmaa Menakem said major trauma to a people can take 14 generations to be rocesss and released since it resides in the consciousness and the physical body. In this case I would argue that Bsldwin’s intervention truly intercepted a portion of that negativity to preclude the fullest/worst effect of their actions. a blessing truly.
My dear Anne – what an experience! Well my friend was invited by James Baldwin to sit by his side. The last shall be the first.
One Love – Jean
thanks Jean. Always, one love.
Thanks for sharing—I wanted to become a writer because of him. The novella, Sonny’s Blues, was included in freshman lit—American Literature at the University of Alabama, 1975.
He made me want to become a writer too. Keep on writing!
Powerful. As a Leverett House alumni (AB 1990) your piece brought back memories, positive and negative. Harvard is a place of many awakenings and insights. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing this very touching story
I’m Hispanic.
I cannot feel your pain, because I am not black. That being said, as a Hispanic, I have been sent to the back of the room and and have been made to feel tiny. Thank you for sharing your story. I will be reading your books and stories. You are a survivor and I greatly admire you for that.
PS I greatly admire Mr. Baldwin. He was a great human being. Of course, I can only gather this from watching his interviews and reading his literature. He was a leader, not a follower.
Elsa Acosta Calderon
Thank you for this. It is all to familiar to me. Your words are beautiful and healing.
Thank you for telling this. Why am I crying? Well, because it hurts me so much to read it, there can’t be any other reason. I don’t know you and can’t know your pain, but it pains me so deeply, for even though I know the best education is our own personal experience, still I expect something more from academics. And so it goes.
This was powerful and worth every bit of sharing. The pain I felt just reading this is quite the pain I feel now, experiencing this moment in history for equality and justice for All Black lives.
This story deeply impacted me. Thank you for sharing it and as a therapist and social worker, I’m looking forward to reading your next book about trauma.
Powerful sad story that makes my heart hurt. Thank you for speaking of it to make racism in all its forms visible to those of us who don’t experience it. May we all act on this knowledge and never rest until racism and prejudice of any kind is etadicated.
Thank you for your response Diane.
Thank you for sharing this. My daughter is in her final year at university and wrote this video essay about trans generational Trauma and the Windrush Generation.
https://youtu.be/lPx9cZAxf_Q
wonderful, congratulations to her.
Thanks for sharing Anne. My first Baldwin book was Another Country in high school.
That’s a good one. For me it was Nobody Knows my name.
Shattering events such as you recount go deep and sadly last much too long Being told in the late sixties that I was invited to a celebration as“window dressing” Connects me with you. Never forgotten
In my opinion, James Baldwin was the anchor leg. Medgar was lead off, Martin 2nd leg, Malcolm 3rd leg and James Baldwin bought it home. 4 Great men who never compromised. Baldwin was working on an Autobiography of all three Men before his passing. James Baldwin wanted to ask the children of Medgar, Martin and Malcolm if they felt that it was worth it? A monumental task for any writer, James Baldwin.
Thank you for sharing your story. It was if I was there with you when you experienced what you did. Your are so correct about trauma connected to slavery. I’m looking forward to reading your book.
I am so sorry this happened to you.
I watched and listened to, really listened to the film, I Am Not Your Negro recently and it changed me as a human being. Baldwin’s words captured the Black American experience in such a way that even the most culturally and historically ignorant person could get begin to see through a fog of indifference. How wonderful that you got to meet him!
It’s a great film Michelle. Glad you mentioned. I recommmend anyone on this thread to watch this film. Well worth it. He is hopeful for America but says we have things to face.
This incident did NOT stop you.
Strenght of character is many times tested in the most oblique and subtle ways. You and Mr. Baldwin passed with flying colors. Yes you did.
Sadly, the others failed.
Ordering your book now.
Stay strong.
Thank you John. Many times I think about God’s miracle that I am a writer.. in spite of this incident.
Thanks for the support. It helps me to continue to do this work.
Appreciated.
I don’t recall this incident Anne, but all of my roommates do, hearts are hurting for you just remembering it. I join everyone here in thanking you for sharing it so viscerally. We were at Harvard at a strange time in my opinion (though my sense is that it remains strange for Black students). As you say, I think a lot of us felt hoodwinked. In early periods students of color knew they were inside a hall of cracked mirrors, a completely jacked up institution. In keeping with the glossy 80s, I feel we were asked to believe nothing was amiss and therefore struggled with our inner knowing and cognitive dissonance, until some overt transgression like this one thrust it in our faces. I can’t wait for your new book.
I think you are unto something and I felt that at the time as well. It is one thing when you KNEW you were there on the periphery because that is the way the whole society was– but another when you come in with the hope of the 80’s in Harvard President Derek Bok era (and there was legitimate hope–he fought for it and so did we by excelling to more than meet the standard) Then in a moment, you are taken back to another era…one you didn’t sign up for. That said,as I say in the essay, there were still so many things about the experience that were phenomenal and I am glad for that.
Thank you so much for this powerful post. It is heartbreaking and searing. I am sharing it with my teen daughter who will be taking US History next academic year and I am purchasing your book: the Weeping Time for her and me to read. Your story bubbled up in my memory how my dad was routinely summoned to the Cincinnati airport to carry his bosses golf clubs to his car, a bitter memory from my dad’s work in the corporate world in the 1970’s. I am grateful to learn of your book. There is a grace and poignancy in your writing that keeps one thinking about your writing long after reading it. Thank you so very much for sharing The Day I Met James Baldwin at Harvard. I will be sharing it with my family.
Thanks Corinne. Glad you are sharing with your family and your story is an important one.
I stumbled on your website and the article after a Google search of Baldwin, whose works I am currently researching.
As I read on, I thought there was something Jamaican about you–well, your name was a hint–
Then I saw a comment at the end from a regular columnist in one Jamaica’s major newspapers that says she’s a friend.
But later I confirmed it when I clicked the bio section of your webpage.
I am a fellow Jamaican.
Thanks for sharing this; as you wrote of Baldwin: “…ever the astute writer and observer of life, especially life in America, looked across the room and knew it.” And “he felt it and he saw it for what it was and gave me the most knowing look with his large piercing eyes.”
He “knew it,” “felt it” and “saw it for what it was”!
That no-need-to-spell-it-out “it”!