by Daniel Johnson
May 11, 2025
The exhibit, ‘Know Whence You Came: James Baldwin, Public Intellectual,” includes uncorrected proofs, rare novel editions, play scripts, and magazine and newspaper interviews.
A lifetime’s worth of James Baldwin’s work—including uncorrected proofs, rare novel editions, play scripts, and magazine and newspaper interviews—was meticulously gathered by New York publisher and collector George Bixby. Following Bixby’s death in 2023, the extensive private collection was put up for sale. And now, it is on view.
According to Cornell University, Katharine Reagan, the Ernest L. Stern Director of Rare Books and Manuscripts, was alerted to the sale by a rare-book dealer and quickly joined forces with Brenda Marston, curator of the Human Sexuality Collection, and Kofi Acree, curator of the Africana Collections and director of the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library, to seize the rare opportunity to acquire the expansive archive.
As Reagan told the university, Bixby’s collection is unparalleled in its dedication to the scope and breadth of Baldwin’s work. “This is the labor of a dedicated and passionate collector who loved Baldwin and worked for decades to assemble a complete record as possible of his published output. Even if we could, this level of completeness would have taken decades to replicate today.”
A rare collection of James Baldwin’s literary works can now be explored by the public in a new exhibit at the Carl A. Kroch Library on the campus of Cornell University.
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— Native Son (@NativeSonNow) April 23, 2025
The George Bixby James Baldwin collection is now available for students, visiting researchers, and instructors by request. It includes rare and early editions of works by Baldwin, the Black, gay literary icon, whose work addressed race, politics, and sexuality, utilizing his civil rights activism and written work from the 1940s until the 1980s.
Acree, the director of the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library, organized some of the materials into an exhibit, which he titled “Know Whence You Came: James Baldwin, Public Intellectual,” which will run through July 25 at the university’s Michael T. Sillerman ‘68 Rotunda of Carl A. Kroch Library.
“I chose the items to reflect facets of James Baldwin – essayist, novelist, playwright, poet, activist, all those different things. The Amsterdam News was one of the oldest Black newspapers in America,” Acree said, remarking on his decision to pull items from the New York Amsterdam News’ photographic archive, “and I wanted to choose items that would draw the eye, too.”
He briefly offered a rebuttal to those who believe Baldwin presciently discussed events and today’s issues. “I disagree with people when they say Baldwin was ahead of his time. Baldwin spoke of his time – we just took a long time catching up with him.”
Dominique Joe, a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Literatures in English, visited Acree’s collection when it was first unveiled in February and was drawn to the ephemera, or physical objects on display within the exhibit, which, for her, made Baldwin a more human figure.
“The ephemerality adds to our understanding of who Baldwin was as a person, as more than just the writing that he produced,” Joe told the university. “We get a better sense of who this writer and thinker was within the context of the time in which he was writing and living.”
She continued, “We can look back at his ‘Open Letter to the Born Again’ from 1979, for example, and say Baldwin is talking about exactly what is going on right now. We can always turn to Baldwin.”
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