On the Friday before February break, the English Department had the pleasure of hosting James Baldwin Day in person at the Lycée. Now in its fifth year, this annual celebration offers our students in ninth to twelfth grade an opportunity to step away from their regular classes to explore the writing and times of James Baldwin, the author of such important works as Notes from a Native Son (1953), Go Tell it on the Mountain (1955) and The Fire Next Time (1963).
Baldwin moved to Paris in 1948, joining a flurry of writers and artists who relocated there for artistic and creative freedom. He returned to the U.S. in the early 1960s, where he brought the power of his pen to the Civil Rights movement.
This year’s theme was “Thoughts for our Future,” an invitation to reflect on the present day, centered on Baldwin’s essay “A Letter to My Nephew,” published in 1963, the same year Baldwin participated in the March on Washington.
The letter is at once deeply personal, but, as a published piece, it is an open letter with a powerful message to all of us. Written for his 15-year old nephew and namesake, Baldwin’s letter recounts a history he felt the young James urgently needed to know. It relates the world his nephew was born into, one defined by redlining and other forms of systemic racism. In the letter, Baldwin exhorts his nephew to be strong, not afraid, not to be driven away but instead begin to change the world.
The day brought students from ninth to twelfth grade back into the auditorium for a live musical performance by Jonathan Scales, a jazz musician of steel drums, and his band. Scales set the tone for the day with an original composition for the Lycée that captured Baldwin’s activism.
“Jonathan took a deep dive into Baldwin’s work, and the lyrics of the piece were a collage of his favorite snippets of text that he encountered in his research,” wrote Jonathan Reid, Secondary English teacher and a musician in his own right. “The students were mesmerized. It was not easy material to digest, but the performers’ passion and musicality made it all accessible.”
Students were then invited to take part in two workshops. In the first one, all students read Baldwin’s “Letter to My Nephew”, as a starting point for a discussion on African-American history from Emancipation through the Civil Rights Movement and the present day. It was designed by members of the Young Progressive Leaders, a student-run club overseen by teachers Portia Morrell and Pauline Dorio.
Students then chose from a menu of workshops, all created and led by teachers, staff and students and by our special guest, Rokhaya Diallo, a French journalist, documentary filmmaker and writer. The topics were impressive–students discussed art, from hip hop to photography and comic books. They explored current issues of book banning, the role of the journalist as activist, and of pressures related to gender and sexual orientation.
The day ended with a viewing of Rokhaya Diallo’s documentary, “Où sont les noirs,” on the need for more diversity and fewer stereotypes in French cinema and television, followed by a QA with her and our students.
In her closing words of thanks, Evelyne Estey said, “Activists pose important questions and make us think. Each of you is also you, with a family, lived experiences, and with beliefs…Your ability to make sense of what you hear, your engagement, your thinking about issues of diversity, discrimination, equity, laïcité. C’est constructeur. Thank you for being the critical thinkers you are.”
As we continue to take up James Baldwin’s challenge, we will remember “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Many thanks to the whole community for making this day happen and bringing us all together!
Photo collage credit: Caitlin Buckley for the Lycée
About the Author :
Joëlle Reilly, English Department Coordinator and OIB coordinator, has been teaching English literature and creative writing at the Lycée since 2000. She is one of several bilingual/bicultural members of the English Department and is a Lycée alumna. Her two sons are graduates of the Lycée.