New Work: "The View from the Riverbank: James Baldwin and The Evidence of Things Not Seen"

Abstract

This article illustrates the multi-generational influence of Baldwin’s The Evidence of Things Not Seen on my path as a Black scholar and draws connections between representation, identity, kinship, and the interdependence of Black writers in the fight for social justice. Through tracing Baldwin’s working relationship with my father, former editor of Playboy magazine Walter Lowe Jr., I hope to illuminate the relational underpinnings of Baldwin’s work on the Atlanta child murders, thereby foregrounding the complexities of Black life. This article recognizes Baldwin’s work in Evidence as more than just a new-wave logistical, strategic, textual model of resistance but also as a mode of artistic production arising from a tradition that is deeply felt, collaborative, improvisational, and ancestrally rooted.

Keywords: kinship, James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen, Playboy, Atlanta child murders

click to read My essay:

“The View from the Riverbank”

From Left to right: Lerone Bennett (far left), James Baldwin (center), Walter Lowe Jr. (far right). Photograph by Michele Agins.

James Baldwin Review is as excited to pair the work of a father and his daughter as we are to offer readers a reprint of this rare archival find, Lowe’s article from Emerge magazine, first published in October of 1989, which originally ran with this abstract:

“A magazine editor recalls working with his literary hero and getting to know the surprisingly vulnerable, charming, and often exasperating man behind the legend.” -from the

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