Paying The Dues for Social Justice

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced"
--James Baldwin


"I could no longer sit around in Paris discussing America.  I had to come and pay my dues."
--James Baldwin


For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? (Luke 14:28)


I had the privilege to watch the documentary "I am not your negro" that chronicled the perspective and the works of James Baldwin.  James Baldwin was an African American novelist, intellectual, and social critic who wrote and spoke for the African American experience in an nearly unparalleled manner for over 30 years from the 1950's to the 1980's.  His writing and speaking style combines the richness of many streams of literature and applied them to the tragedy of the African American experience resulting in work that is as elegant as it is provocative in nature.


In the documentary, it begins with James Baldwin's own narrative regarding the need to come back to America in the late 1960's after the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Baldwin had left the United States to live in Paris, where he felt he was free to express himself and live in an environment that was not cursed with the deep seated racism that he experienced throughout his life.  It was there in Paris, where he would write and flourish while feeling that it was no longer appropriate to describe the problems of race, sexuality, and inequity in America, without being part of the solution.

He describes his return to America as "paying my dues".  His return literally meant visibly aligning himself with the civil rights movement and sharing in the sufferings of those who dared to speak up, march, protest, and give life and limb to demand human dignity and the rights inherent to that dignity.

A couple of convictions regarding social justice were confirmed in his story:


1. Effective participation in protest has a personal and public cost.
It is always tempting to advocate from afar.  Baldwin could have been content to lob critiques or launch sophisticated rebuttals to the cultural cruelties of America  while in Europe.  One could argue that it was his distance from the organized civil right movements that often allowed him to get access to the public media of his age.  In other words, he was less intimidating because of his disconnection with the movement of the ages.  While he certainly knew Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers, he was not officially connected to any of their movements.  To become effective, Mr Baldwin had to come and participate, understanding and sharing the real sacrifices and burdens.

2. Community Organizers seek to develop organizations, not just a movement.
One of the fathers of community organizing, Saul Alinsky argued "Effective organization is thwarted by the desire for instant and dramatic change."  The occupy movement was just that.  A movement; a collection of people mobilized to seek change.  Movements come and go and are often prisoners to an issue.  Organizations are centered around a vision and mission and that allows the development structures that builds on success.

3. Injustice against one sector of a society is related to injustice in many other sectors.  James Baldwin was an openly gay man.  While he certainly experienced discrimination and hatred due to his sexuality, it also kept him from being readily accepted in civil rights circles.  He knew Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., but he rarely was spoken of by them.  Likewise, there were very few women in leadership in civil rights movements of the 1960's.  It wasn't because African American women didn't feel the double stings of racism and sexism, but because they were not given opportunity.  Sometimes in our best efforts to advocate against a type of injustice, we must be careful not to perpetuate multiple injustices toward others.

His life and writings are treasures that are as relevant today as they were at the time of their writing.  Pulitzer prize winning author Eric Hoffer wrote "the vigor of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-sacrifice."  I pray that those involved in protesting injustice will have the courage to carry the burden, the wisdom to organize, and compassion to be inclusive.

God bless