A bookstore named for James Baldwin is counting down to his 100th birthday
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Yesterday marked the centennial of the birth of writer James Baldwin. He was born in Harlem on August 2, 1924, and died in 1987. NPR's Neda Ulaby takes us to New Orleans, where a bookstore named after Baldwin recently opened.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Baldwin & Co. sits seven blocks from the Mississippi River. It's hopping. Espresso is brewing. A book group clusters on the couch as tourists peruse a stack of books by Baldwin and a striking mural of the author's face.
DJ JOHNSON: We're standing right now in front of the Baldwin mural.
ULABY: DJ Johnson founded this bookstore three years ago. He believes it's a pretty good guess that it sells more books by James Baldwin than any other bookstore anywhere.
JOHNSON: Every week, we have new orders for James Baldwin - every single week, large shipments of James Baldwin books.
ULABY: Books such as "The Fire Next Time," "Notes Of A Native Son," "Go Tell It On The Mountain." The most popular, says Johnson...
JOHNSON: "Giovanni's Room" is probably number one.
ULABY: That novel from 1956 is about a queer white American man in Paris.
JOHNSON: A book that he couldn't get published in America.
ULABY: It was a trip to a famous bookstore in Paris that inspired Johnson to open this one - Shakespeare and Company, the legendary Left Bank Bohemian landmark, where book nerds wait hours in line to get in.
JOHNSON: Because you have a lot of time - you're standing in line for a while, so I was like, if I was to ever open up a store, I would call it Baldwin and Company. And I would want people to stand in line - this is Shakespeare and Company - I say, I would want them to stand in line just like they're standing in here that pays homage to a Black literary great.
ULABY: Black literary greats were central to Johnson's childhood here in New Orleans. Everyone in his family was an avid reader. Each sibling had a favorite author.
JOHNSON: I have a brother - he gravitated toward Langston Hughes. I have another brother - he gravitated toward W.E.B. DuBois.
ULABY: Johnson gravitated towards James Baldwin. He never expected to run a Baldwin-themed bookstore. He's a tech guy who made money in real estate. But when Johnson was in college, his absolute favorite professor was a James Baldwin expert.
JOHNSON: He would sit in my dorm room - 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night - and we would discuss Baldwin.
DANIEL BLACK: He probably weighed 120 pounds back then - a skinny little fella.
ULABY: Dr. Daniel Black fondly remembers those late-night literary conversations at Clark Atlanta University, a historically Black school. He says Baldwin resonates deeply with readers 100 years after his birth.
BLACK: Baldwin, as a Black-rejected, self-perceived unattractive, queer Black man, lived on the margins in every way conceivable. And I think that marginalized existence made Baldwin have to dance a more perfect dance.
ULABY: So what was it like for Dr. Black to first visit this bookstore that his teaching helped inspire?
BLACK: I think I literally wept.
ULABY: In his bookstore, DJ Johnson helps a visitor pick a novel.
JOHNSON: Particularly just great fiction, or are you looking for one on New Orleans, I should say?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: New Orleans.
ULABY: Baldwin & Co. regularly draws visitors from as far away as China, Johnson says, but it's designed for locals. Every month, Baldwin & Co. hosts classes on financial planning, author talks and story times for children.
JOHNSON: Every kid that attends get a free book because we're dedicated to building home libraries. Did you know he wrote a children's book? "Little Man Little Man."
ULABY: James Baldwin's children's book is sold here along with his celebrated novels, essays, short stories, plays and poems. When DJ Johnson first opened Baldwin & Co., he had no idea there was an appetite for Baldwin's work as passionate as his own.
JOHNSON: The first week, we're at lines three blocks long every day - the entire day - entire day to get in, and I was like, oh, this is like Shakespeare and Company. That's what this is like.
ULABY: A place of pilgrimage for readers who find the eternal in James Baldwin - truth, beauty and guidance for how to bear being in this world.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
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