Malcolm X
- Activist
- Religious leader
- Author
Depicts
One of the three murdered men the memoir is built around — Baldwin knew all three.
No Name in the Street
The book Baldwin wrote after the funerals: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and a friend he could not get out of jail.
- 1972
- 197
About James Baldwin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeJames Baldwin's fourth book of non-fiction, published by Dial Press in 1972. It is a single long memoir rather than a collection, written across the years in which three men he knew were killed and the movement he had reported on came apart. It moves between Harlem, Paris, the American South, Hollywood and a prison in Hamburg, and it is the angriest book he wrote. The title comes from the Book of Job.
The story, in more detail
The book is in two parts, "Take Me to the Water" and "To Be Baptized", both named after the language of the Harlem church Baldwin grew up in and left.
It took most of a decade. Baldwin began it in the mid-1960s and finished it in 1971, and the delay is part of the subject: Medgar Evers was murdered in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King in 1968, and Baldwin knew all three. He records where he was when he heard about each of them.
A long strand of it concerns Tony Maynard, a friend of Baldwin's who was arrested for a murder in New York, held in Hamburg, and extradited. Baldwin travelled to see him and campaigned on his behalf for years. The case is the book's closest look at how the machinery worked on someone he knew personally rather than on a public figure.
The last sections deal with the Black Panther Party — Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver — and with what Baldwin thought was left after King. There is also an account of the Hollywood period when he was trying to write a Malcolm X film, and a return to the Algerian War and to Albert Camus.
Guides to this book
Why we recommend it
It is the sequel to The Fire Next Time in everything but name
The earlier book was written before the assassinations. This one was written after them, by the same man, and the difference between the two is the clearest record of what the decade did to him.
The Tony Maynard chapters
Baldwin writing about a friend in prison rather than about a movement. It is the most concrete reporting in the book and the least abstract thing in it.
He stopped being careful
Baldwin's earlier essays argue with a reader he hopes to persuade. This one largely does not, and readers tend to find it either his most honest book or his least controlled.
What this book explores
Real people in this book
Martin Luther King Jr.
- Activist
- Religious leader
Depicts
One of the three murdered men the memoir is built around; King's funeral is among the scenes Baldwin writes first-hand.
Medgar Evers
- Activist
Depicts
One of the three murdered men the memoir is built around. Baldwin had travelled with Evers in Mississippi before the assassination.
Tony Maynard
- Actor
Depicts
A long strand of the memoir follows Maynard's arrest, detention in Hamburg, and extradition — the book's closest look at the courts working on someone Baldwin knew personally.
Timeline
1963
Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi, in June. Baldwin had reported in the South with him.
1965
Malcolm X is assassinated in February. Baldwin goes to Hollywood to work on a film about his life.
1968
Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis in April. Baldwin attends the funeral.
1971
He finishes the manuscript, having worked on it for most of the preceding decade.
1972
Dial Press publishes No Name in the Street; Michael Joseph publishes it in Britain the same year.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Dial Press
- 1972
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Michael Joseph
- 1972
- Paperback
- Vintage International
- 2007
- 9780307275929
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
The Fire Next Time
The book from nine years earlier that this one answers, and mostly withdraws.
Read our take
Nobody Knows My Name
The reporting from the years before the assassinations, when he still travelled as an observer.
Read our take
Notes of a Native Son
The first collection, and the one whose title he kept returning to.
Read our takeNo Name in the Street: frequently asked questions
What is No Name in the Street about?
It is James Baldwin's memoir of the 1960s, published in 1972. It covers the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, all three of whom Baldwin knew; the 1963 March on Washington; the Watts riot; the Black Panther Party; and the imprisonment of his friend Tony Maynard, whom Baldwin campaigned for over several years.
Where does the title come from?
From the Book of Job, chapter 18, verse 17: "His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street." Baldwin uses the passage as the book's epigraph.
Is No Name in the Street a collection of essays?
No. Unlike Notes of a Native Son and Nobody Knows My Name, it is one continuous book-length piece, divided into two parts called "Take Me to the Water" and "To Be Baptized". Both titles come from the language of the Harlem church Baldwin grew up in.
Who was Tony Maynard?
A friend of Baldwin's who was arrested on a murder charge in New York, detained in Hamburg and extradited. Baldwin visited him in custody and worked on his behalf for years, and the case takes up a substantial part of the book. It is the closest Baldwin comes here to writing about the courts through someone he knew rather than through an argument.
Should I read The Fire Next Time first?
Yes. The two books are nine years apart and this one reads as a reply to the earlier one — same author, same subjects, written after the assassinations rather than before them. The contrast is most of what makes this book land.
How long is No Name in the Street?
About 197 pages, which puts it between The Fire Next Time and the longer essay collections. It is a single sustained piece rather than a book to dip into.