Legacy Leaders - James Baldwin

This week we are pleased to share our next legacy leader from The Revd Canon Dr Mark Pryce; Director of Ministry for Church of England Birmingham, also serving as a Chaplain to the King.

Leading through stories - James Baldwin 1924-1987

Leadership comes in many forms, not least through creativity and the arts. Among many Black artists, musicians and writers, the African - American writer James Baldwin is one of my inspirations. Baldwin’s writing offered a deep challenge to the assumptions and attitudes of his day, and still speaks with immense power and insight into our own time. Baldwin didn’t use the term ‘intersectionality’ (as far as I know), but he navigated with great subtlety and insight the complex network of inter-relationships and dynamics which comprise human identity, especially in relation to race, gendered masculinity and sexuality. Try reading one of Baldwin’s famous stories Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Giovanni’s Room (1956) or Another Country (1962).

Baldwin’s essays and articles for newspapers and magazines are astonishing in their clarity of vision and analysis. He was a man unafraid to explore the realities of lived experience for Black people and communities. One of his themes is the importance for each and every one of us to own for ourselves the journey we have been on in our lives. Our history shapes our identity as individuals and groups.

In one essay, Baldwin writes:

“In the church I come from…we were counselled to do our first works over…which means…to re-examine everything…Go back to where you started, or as far back as you can, examine all of it, travel your road again and tell the truth about it. Sing or shout or testify or keep it to yourself: but know whence you came.” (From The Price of the Ticket, 1985.)

For Baldwin, this journey of tracing back origins to find an authentic identity was as crucial for all communities, for both White and Black people. He wanted every person and community to go beyond the cosmetic identities and fake histories which can prop-up oppression, injustice and self-hatred. Doing your first works over is a process of truthful self-understanding which leads to a deep integrity and transforms attitudes to others as well as to self.

This is a liberative dynamic rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures, the story of movement from slavery to freedom which fosters the generous and compassionate justice-shaped identity of God’s People Israel:

You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore, I command you to do this.

When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore, I am commanding you to do this.

Deuteronomy 24: 17-18, 21-22.

Leadership is about making space for individuals and communities to trace their histories, being alongside them in the pain of retracing that journey as well as the exhilaration. From the perspective of the creation and of human history transformed by Christ crucified, through whom God liberates us from alienation and exclusion (the identity characterised by sin), this process of remembering our origins will always take us back to justice and inclusion. For only in Christ are we included, our dignity restored to us through God’s compassion and saving power: once we were not a people, but now we are a people through God’s grace ( I Peter 2:10).

To own this story of inclusion for ourselves makes us an including community. Each of us is God’s work of art (Ephesians 2:10ff). James Baldwin’s storied creativity offers us a model for leading in which leaders create truthful and courageous communities which are safe and compassionate, in which each and every story is heard, valued and supported as people travel their road in life, growing and flourishing as the people God intends them to be.