After graduation, Baldwin found it necessary to find full time employment so that he could support himself. He moved in with a friend but was forced to return home when he was fired from his job. When he returned home, he found his mother pregnant and his father in the hospital due to his deteriorating mental capacity. The last Baldwin baby, Paula, was born on July 29, 1943. It was on the same day that his father passed away. James and Beuford scraped together enough money for a funeral service, held on James’s birthday.
Baldwin continued to live at home in an attempt to support his family but was unable to keep a job. Resentment at his responsibilities to his family precluding the chance of his success as a writer became unbearable. He moved out and found work in Greenwich Village. A restaurant owner named Connie Williams, who was sympathetic to Baldwin’s plight, took the young man under her wing and employed him as a waiter. She often let him stay at her apartment and gave him food for his family.
During this period, Baldwin met many artists and writers who frequented William’s restaurant. He also began his search for his sexual identity by having a number of one-night affairs with men but also continuing to have relationships with women. He met and fell in love with a man named Eugene Worth. Afraid of loosing a friendship by revealing his true feelings, Baldwin never expressed his love. Unfortunately, Worth committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after making an oblique comment about the possibility that he was in love with Baldwin. James never recovered from the loss of his friend.
It was also during this time that Baldwin began to write seriously. A young woman who had been impressed by Baldwin’s reading of his manuscript In My Father’s House (a precursor to Go Tell It on the Mountain) introduced him to the American novelist Richard Wright. Wright was also impressed with the work of the younger man and helped to secure for him a Eugene F. Saxon Foundation Fellowship. The fellowship, which included $500, was awarded to Baldwin in November of 1945. Unfortunately, In My Father’s House was not deemed worthy of being published, and Baldwin was depressed and fearful that he had not lived up to the Wright’s expectations.
In 1947, Baldwin was finally published professionally; however, it wasn’t a novel but a book review that launched his writing career. This book review was followed by a number of essays. His first work of fiction was published in October of 1948. A proposed project with a photographer friend about Harlem churches won Baldwin a Rosenwald fellowship. Though the project was never completed, it did give Baldwin the money needed to make his long dreamed of trip to Paris. Ironically, it was in Paris that Baldwin came to understand himself, his homeland, and his culture.
Although an expatriate writer, Baldwin remained active in events that shaped American culture. He divided his time between Europe and the United States, and his role in the Civil Rights movement cannot be overlooked. He met with Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and a host of other politically active notables in an effort to bring about constructive social change. His beliefs on race and race relations would color many of his novels and inspire a large percentage of his essays.
