Darryl Pinckney

Once upon a time, I was morbidly sensitive about the impertinence born of sociology. Taxi drivers would not stop for me after dark; white girls jogged to keep ahead of my shadow thrown at their heels by the amber street lamps. Part of me didn't blame them, but most of me was hurt. ”

Eventually, I gave up my sublet in Berlin and stayed in England for a long time - for about 20 years. ”

Unfortunately for me, I was one of these people who took a long time to learn that the material at his feet was fine. ”

The draining away of James Baldwin's magic was a drama much discussed in the years leading up to his death in 1987 at the age of sixty-three. ”

Baldwin gave expression to the longings of blacks in exalted prose. He was embraced, in the tradition of Negro Firsterism, even by those who never sat down with a book, as our preeminent literary spokesman, whether he liked it or not. Neither athlete nor entertainer, but nevertheless a star. ”

The novel and the film of 'The Color Purple' are both works of the imagination that make claim to historical truth. ”

Harlem's streets lead backward, into history, straight to a work such as 'This Was Harlem.' ”