A Visitor to White Vermont
by Chris Lavin Free Press Staff Writer
The world James Baldwin was born into was not his own making. He is a man from Harlem, who preached the Bible at a New York City storefront until he was 17. Later he abandoned organized religion and became one of our most renowned American auhtors.
Baldwin is in town today and will speak about "A World I Never Made" at 8 tonight in Memorial Auditorium, sponsored by several departments at University of Vermont. He is spending the day exploring, trying to decide what message he can give the pople who live here.
As one of the country's most vocal black civil rights activists--a movement Baldwin says people pretend is over--he is bound to give Vermonters a lesson in history.
"What James Baldwin says is that if you don't know his history, then you really don't know yours," says David Jamieson, a UVM sophomore who lobbied the Student Association speakers bureau to bring Baldwin to Vermont. "I think people don't know about that (history) out of ignorance, and lack of exposure."
Baldwin, 60, is a small and graying man who knocks on wood when his new book or tonight's speech is mentioned. He has written compelling social commentaries, among them "The Fire Next Time," (1963) and "Notes of a Native Son" (1955).
He has published six novels, among them: "Giovanni's Room," (1956) and "If Beale Street Could Talk" (1974). Often his literature is autobiographical. Perhaps his best known novel, "Go Tell It On The Mountain" (1953) is the story of a young boy in Harlem whose preaching father continually encourages him to accept Christ as his savior.
Baldwin's literature is lyrical social commentary, with the endings frequently allowing the characters to ride off into a fading sunset. 
He calls himself a "witness" to the struggle that is reinforced by the structure of society.
He appeared surprised when told that so few blacks live in Vermont. He visited Vermont once before, "so long ago it doesn't matter," he said, when he hitch-hiked through the state. 
"What you describe is a very protected community, in a way," Baldwin said Tuesday night. "All I can say is it's a depressing situation to be in. The state may think it's white, but it wasn't always white."
A Good thing about bringing Baldwin to Vermont, Jamieson said, is that most of the state's libraries have his work on the shelves, and now they can be discovered along with the author.
"He's very accessible and there's a vast amount of literature available," says Jamieson. "Hopefully, they will read something and then get interested and read something else, and the impact (of his talk) will be greater."
Others hope Baldwin will talk about university investments in South Africa, and about what he feels to be the lack of literary works by minority authors in the English curriculum. 
Baldwin has recently finished a book about the murders of black children in Atlanta, where he participated in the city's struggle for integration in 1957. "Evidence of Things Not Seen," about the 1979 murders, will be published later this year, he said, knocking on wood.
Such works may help to ease the transition from a society that thinks of itself as white to one with no labels, Baldwin said.
"It's going to happen," he said. "The only question is when and how. What I would like to do is minimize the damage and the shock."
And even if Vermont had more blacks, the state might still consider itself "white," Baldwin said.
"When you're protected you don't learn much of what you need to get through the business in this wrold. Besides," he said, "it's dull."