About this Event
Join us to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the trailblazing African American author, James Baldwin.
Encounters with James Baldwin is a wide-ranging volume of short essays, reflections, interviews, poetry and photography by over 30 contributors from the literary world, demonstrating the significant legacy of the writer and activist who spoke truth to power during the era of the fight for Black civil liberties in the US, and after.
Join Stella Dadzie, Michael McMillan, Gabrielle Beckles-Raymond and Zita Holbourne, to talk of the impact, and in some cases personal meeting, with Baldwin. They reveal the influence of Baldwin’s thought, speech and writing on their personal journeys and their awareness of the need for social justice.
Stella Dadzie wrote the introduction to Encounters with James Baldwin. She is a published writer and feminist historian, best known for co-authoring the Feminist classic, The Heart of the Race: Black Women's lives in Britain which was re-published by Verso in 2018. Her latest book A Kick in the Belly: Women, Slavery & Resistance was published by Verso in October 2020 to much acclaim.
She is a founder member of OWAAD (Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent), a national umbrella group for Black women that emerged in the late 1970s as part of the British Civil Rights movement. Her personal archive in Brixton‘s Black Cultural Archives is one of the most visited by researchers and scholars from across the world.
Her career as a writer, artist and education activist spans over 40 years. She is currently working to support the National Maritime Museum’s commitment to highlighting untold narratives.
Michael McMillan, Arts.D. is a London-based writer, playwright, artist/curator and scholar, best known for The Front Room installation, iterated in the Netherlands, Curacao, Johannesburg, France and recently, Toronto, as part of Tate Britain’s Life Between Islands (2023–24). It is the basis of the BBC4 documentary Tales from the Front Room (2007) and his revised edition The Front Room: Diaspora Migrant Aesthetics in the Home (Lund Humphries, 2023) and is permanently displayed at the Museum of the Home, where his performance piece that he wrote and directed after 2019, Waiting for myself to appear is a triptych film installation. Recent writing includes: Sonic Vibrations: Sound systems, lovers rock and dub for WritersMosaic. His recent installation I Miss My Mum’s Cookin’ was nominated for a Brighton Fringe award (2023). His Arts Doctorate is from Middlesex University (2010), and he is currently Associate Lecturer in Cultural & Historical Studies at London College of Fashion (UAL), and VIAD Research Associate at University of Johannesburg.
His essay is called: ‘Revisiting James Baldwin’
Gabriella Beckles-Raymond, Senior Fellow (HEA), is an independent interdisciplinary philosopher, writer, educator, wife, mother, sister, friend, basketball coach, and Co-CEO of EQBR. Her work has been published internationally in a range of journals, books and commissioned reports. Gabriella’s research and writing is concerned with questions of love, moral psychology, culture, justice and ethics and what it means to ‘Liv Good’ at the intersections of systemic domination. She has over twenty years of experience in education as a leader, administrator, faculty member, and program developer. She is the founder of the Liv Good Collective Knowledge Production group, a member of Metronomes Steel Orchestra, the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers, and the Caribbean Philosophical Association.
Her essay in the book is called: ‘Genius as Moral Courage’
Zita Holbourne is a multi-award winning author and multidisciplinary artist, campaigner and activist. In her creative practice she works as a writer, performance poet, visual artist, vocalist and educator. She is a community activist, equality and human rights campaigner and trade union leader, co-founder of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK and joint National Chair of Artists’ Union England.She is the author of Striving for Equality, Freedom and Justice (Hansib 1997) and co-author of Roots and Rebellion (JK Publishers 2024) and has contributed to over 40 books as a writer, poet and illustrator, including New Daughters of Africa. She is a guest editor mentor and facilitator for Writing Our Legacy.Zita is the winner of theJessica Kingsley Writing Prize 2023. She has worked as a performance poet, exhibiting artist and public speaker globally.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Brixton Library, Brixton Oval, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00