MacDowell Colony to name library after James Baldwin

Oct 25, 2018

James Baldwin thegrio.com — American author James Baldwin (1924 - 1987) during an interview at the Whitehall Hotel in Bloomsbury Square, London. (Photo by Jenkins/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (AP) — One of the country’s top artist colonies is naming its library after James Baldwin.

The MacDowell Colony announced Wednesday that the James Baldwin Library will be dedicated Nov. 4, in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Poet Kevin Young and educator-writer Florence Ladd are scheduled to speak at the ceremony.

Baldwin, who died in 1987, was known for such classic works as “The Fire Next Time” and “Go Tell it on the Mountain.” He was a MacDowell resident in 1954, 1957 and 1960.
MacDowell will help present a December screening in New York of director Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of the Baldwin novel “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

The artist colony is also launching a “Baldwin Initiative,” to raise money for MacDowell and for artists facing “financial barriers.”