In the early twentieth century, Harlem was the place to be for black culture. Many had recently moved northward from the South to try out city life. As much as they wanted to reinvent themselves, past culture, built on the Christian Scriptures, remained ever near. In a small Harlem church, a teenage son came to terms with his identity in a relatively short amount of time. This book starts with the beginning of his epiphany, but soon flashes back through decades of family history and turmoil. In the end, James Baldwin returns us to the opening scene as the protagonist truly comes of age and recognizes who he is.
As the title alludes to, this tale spins around the topic of religion. The central character’s acting father Gabriel grew up in the South, son of a newly freed slave. His sister Florence managed to move to New York City while Gabriel stuck around to care for his mom. He was always a ladies’ man, but soon found spiritual rebirth in Christianity. He decides to become a preacher in his community. He still had to work for sustenance, but he sought to pastor people out of their sins and into faith and fervor.
Like many pastors, he seemed to project his past sins onto his audience at church. And like many pastors, he never really escaped his old life, as much as he wanted to. The truth about ourselves is impossible to escape, and to Baldwin, no amount of religious devotion can change essential human nature. Gabriel’s life story unwinds, and decades later, he finds himself in New York City looking for a new life. He marries a lady and adopts her son, the central character as his son. Yet the past still doesn’t remain the past. It never does.
This decades-old story veers into the domain of classics. Baldwin masters the art of long flashbacks and attends to readers’ curiosity by revealing just enough to keep the story going but not enough to solve the entire lot. This book gets pegged into the genre of African-American fiction. It’s that, for sure, but the story defies any one category. Yes, conveying necessary historical information, it peers into African-American life in the century after Emancipation but before the 1960s Civil Rights movement. Yet it also provides a deep religious understanding of how many Americans – and American pastors – operate, of any skin color. While skeptical of religious leadership and authority, Baldwin is not that hostile towards a human leaning into God. I’m glad to have seen Baldwin’s truth in this timeless tale.
Go Tell It on the Mountain
By James Baldwin
Narrated by Adam Lazarre-White
Copyright (c) 2013
Blackstone Audio
ASIN B00AVGFWMO
Length: 8:45
Genre: Fiction, Religion, African-American
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