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Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN February 2, 2003 Issue 
The Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin 
A Slice of Black History Through Baldwin's Eyes Perhaps it is not my subjectivity alone that is responsible for my strong belief in reading as the ultimate panacea. To me it is simply a given that through reading one gets insights into any subject which in turn could be applied to any relevant situation in one's life. Black history month begins today and it is my conviction that a deeper understanding of the black condition and appreciation for black culture could come through knowledge of black literature. Although diverse in topics and genres - every line, every poem, and every book written by a black writer pulsates with the pain of racial prejudice and injustice. Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, etc. - they all define a period and an era and have a special place in the development of black literature. Only James Baldwin, my favorite black writer, does not fit into a particular literary age. For Baldwin was openly a homosexual at a time when this was a taboo subject for both, black and white America and his impassioned indictments of sexual discrimination isolated him from the nucleus of Black writers during his lifetime. He was born in 1924 and at the age of twenty-four moved to Paris for its more open-minded atmosphere. Most of his works were written there. Irreconcilable and still tormented by the world's sexual as well as racial prejudices, he died in 1987, leaving behind a living body of work, books that are more popular now than they were back then; works which, examined anew, help us understand better posthumously his complex intellect. "Evidence of Things Not Seen" published in 1986 is the last book he wrote. Although its publication was something of a literary event, it fell short of the expectations and was received tepidly. It is a "writer's investigation" into a murder case involving a black defendant more than ten years before the O.J. Simpson notorious trial - the murders of the black children in Atlanta and the trial of Wayne Williams, convicted as their murderer. Today it represents a slice of black history through the eyes of one of America's greatest black writers. At the time of the highly controversial trial of Williams, Walter Lowe of Playboy wrote to Baldwin in France suggesting that he write a piece on the Atlanta child murders. As talented a writer as Baldwin was, one has to wonder why Lowe did not approach first any number of terrific black writers living in America and being, so to speak, intimately a part of American life. "Evidence of Things Not Seen" is the result of this suggestion, of Baldwin's visit to Atlanta, and of his writer's investigation - if in fact that's what one can call his cursory look into the murders and into the trial of Wayne Williams. The potent title comes from St. Paul: "... faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." And so the reader searches through reams of fiery rhetoric for the promise contained in the title - to discover some subtlety, some powerful nuance of the evidence of things not perceived at first glance about the murders and about Williams. We had followed the Atlanta child murders in our daily news. We assumed that we knew the basic facts. What one expected from the book is what the title suggests - some subliminal insight that takes us beyond the facts and beyond the legal aspects of the trial, an insight that could only be the product of a mind as powerful as that of James Baldwin. But the fact is that the Atlanta child murders have very little to do with this book. Yes, Baldwin does not believe that Williams is guilty, and yes, he does think that the Atlanta situation is the result of the blighted state of Black life and of white supremacy. But other than this, he gives very little, if any, logical reasons in support of those beliefs. What he does however, is to use the Atlanta child murders as a vehicle to make a statement on the state of being black not only in America, but also in the white Western world. Baldwin may or may not be suggesting the existence of a white subterfuge to subjugate and victimize blacks. But he is very clear in his indictment of a skewed system that forces black Americans to imitate in values and aspirations whites in order to escape the blight of being black. "White North Americans live in a country that, in the generality, and emphatically, in action, believes that nothing is more important than being White," writes Baldwin. "Black North Americans, trapped on the same territory, and under what can, perhaps, best be described as different conditions of servitude, also concluded that it was important to be white - nothing could have been more obvious." Rereading "Evidence of Things Not Seen" seventeen years later and looking at it from today's perspective gives us an entirely new understanding of the anguish suffered by even the most accomplished and respected black Americans. The pathos that oozes from every one of Baldwin's beautifully rendered phrases and powerful words lacerates the soul and ironically, makes "Evidence of Things Not Seen" evidence of how trivialized racial prejudice has become today. Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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