Feb. 1 (UPI) — Thursday’s Google Doodle honored writer and civil-rights activist James Baldwin on the 26th anniversary of the posthumous publication of his book, James Baldwin: Collected Essays, and the first day of Black History Month.
Jon Key’s artwork depicts Baldwin wearing a purple shirt and sitting at a desk writing against a purple and black background.
“With the work I create, I am trying to manifest environments and community structures imbued with truth, pride and love — tenets that I think are exemplified by Baldwin’s texts and life,” Key said in a statement on the Google website.
Baldwin, a native New Yorker, is best known for his novels, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room and If Beale Street Could Talk, and essay collections such as “Notes of a Native Son,” “Nobody Knows My Name” and “The Fire Next Time.”
His unfinished manuscript, Remember This House, was the basis of the Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary, I Am Not Your Negro.
Baldwin was presented with France’s prestigious cultural award, the Commandeur de la Légion d’honneur, in 1986.
“His depictions of Black masculinity in America were as poetic as they were groundbreaking, and they resonated far beyond Black communities,” Google noted.
“He released his second novel, Giovanni’s Room, in 1956. The novel was one of the first to bring in-depth characterizations of homosexuality to mainstream culture, well before the gay liberation movement had gained steam.”
Baldwin died in 1987 at the age of 63.
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