Baldwin & Co. opened only three years ago, but the bookstore was packed on a recent summer afternoon. Over the past year, the Black-owned shop has featured a splashy countdown to what would have been the 100th birthday of its namesake.
James Baldwin, the bookstore's website says, is "a literary giant whose work on race, identity, and social justice continues to resonate today." Baldwin was born on Aug. 2, 1924, in New York City.
Baldwin & Co. was born in a gleaming white building of around the same vintage in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. The bookstore is the brainchild of DJ Johnson, who grew up in the city among a family of avid readers.
"We never had much of anything else, but we always had books in the home," he recalled. "And my dad was a huge proponent of us reading Black literature." Johnson remembers his childhood as defined by the tensions of a racially segregated neighborhood.
Suspicions between Black and white residents ran high. His family lived on a street with only Black families. "There was a literal wooden fence," he said.
"And on the other side of that rickety wooden fence was what we called 'the white people lane.'" If a friend or family was foolhardy enough to venture there, police were called, Johnson said. False accusations, violence and injustice often followed.
"As I'm witnessing that, I'm reading James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time ," he said. "It spoke to me." As an undergraduate at Clark Atlanta University, a historically Black institution,.