No Name in the Street

Baldwin's 1972 memoir-essay — the King assassination, the Black Panthers, and the close of the civil-rights era

Tradition: African-American essayism / mid-century US political writing

Baldwin's 1972 'No Name in the Street' — late-Baldwin reflection on the close of the civil-rights era

Published by Dial Press in 1972, 'No Name in the Street' is Baldwin's mid-career memoir-essay reflecting on the political-spiritual landscape of late-1960s and early-1970s America. The book was composed during Baldwin's residence at St-Paul-de-Vence in France (he had moved there in 1971; he would die there in 1987) and bears the marks of distance: the events Baldwin reflects on are American (the 1965 Watts riots, the 1968 King and Robert Kennedy assassinations, the rise of the Black Panthers, the 1969-71 trials of Bobby Seale, the Soledad Brothers, Angela Davis), but Baldwin is writing from outside. The book is structured in two main parts plus an epilogue: (I) 'Take Me to the Water' — Baldwin's account of his return to America after his late-1960s European residence, his encounter with the Civil Rights Movement in its late phase, and his memories of Medgar Evers (killed June 1963), Malcolm X (killed February 1965), and Martin Luther King Jr. (killed April 1968). (II) 'To Be Baptized' — Baldwin's reflection on the broader political-spiritual crisis of late-1960s America: the failure of liberal-political hopes, the rise of the Black Power movement, the persistence of structural racism, the question of what comes next. The book is elegiac where 'The Fire Next Time' (1963) had been prophetic — Baldwin is mourning rather than warning, reflecting on what has happened rather than announcing what must happen. It is one of the major Baldwin late essays and a principal document of the post-civil-rights-movement African-American political-spiritual reflection.