Q&A: Baldwin & Co. bookstore owner on James Baldwin’s impact, carrying on his legacy

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James Baldwin would have been 100 on Friday. The New York-born author and civil rights activist has family ties to the Gulf South through his stepfather, David Baldwin, who was originally from New Orleans.

For the past three years, a Black-owned and operated bookstore in the Crescent City has carried his name: Baldwin and Co.

The shop, owned by local business owner DJ Johnson, is a store, a coffee shop and a gathering space in the Marigny neighborhood.

The Gulf States Newsroom’s Joseph King sat down with Johnson to talk about Baldwin’s lasting legacy and the importance of keeping Black businesses thriving in New Orleans.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

How has James Baldwin impacted the U.S., or what has been his impact to you?

He opened up windows and he put mirrors in front of our faces. He was able for us to see our true version of ourselves for what America truly is. He was also able to open a window so other individuals can look and peer into what America truly is.

What has been the community’s response to this Black-owned and operated space?  

Initially, there were individuals, or a lot of individuals, that said, “Why are you opening up a Black-owned bookstore that’s going to focus on Black books, in a Black community, in a city that has one of the lowest literacy rates in the entire country?” And I said, “Well, that is why.”

I think that needed a solution. That needed someone to come in with a vision and say that there’s a better way. It’s just doing the work right now. Just continue to do our book giveaways, our book festival, literacy tutoring services, our financial literacy tutoring services and just provide a space where individuals can come and engage in interpersonal communication to help solve some of the world’s biggest issues.

I read that James Baldwin’s writing, along with the women in your life, has inspired you. How did they contribute to the actual creation of Baldwin and Co.?  

My mom was probably my greatest inspiration. My mom was an avid reader in her spirit. Fortunately, and God-willing, my mom is still alive with us today, but she needed 24-hour care. So I moved back to New Orleans to take care of my mom full-time. When she got better, I got a little bit bored. That’s when I had the idea of opening up Baldwin and Co.

But just the embodiment of her strength and resilience and her fortitude and just love for learning those characteristics, particularly in my mother, is what I think carried me the most into this new endeavor.

Did she ever make you read? Were you forced to read James Baldwin or did you discover him on your own?  

No, actually, if I’m being honest, it was my dad who actually forced us to read. And it wasn’t so much James Baldwin, but my dad made us read Black authors. Every Monday we couldn’t watch TV, so we had to read. And we can only read books by Black people because he said, “You’re going to read about white folks all day in school. In this house, you’re going to read about Black people. You’re going to read about your people.” So… whereas one of my brothers gravitated toward Malcolm X and another one gravitated toward W.E.B. DuBois, I gravitated toward James Baldwin.

Considering the climate today, with books being banned and everything, your parents are kind of ahead of the curve.  

Yeah, definitely. I think that message was more prevalent during that time because they grew up in Jim Crow days. And that’s what James Baldwin is referencing when he was like, the paradox of education is that once you begin to become conscious, you start to examine the society in which you’re being educated.

Yeah, I believe he said, to be an educated Black person in America is to be perpetually angry.  

[Tape of Baldwin] “To be a Negro, and to be a Negro in this country, and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage. Almost, almost all of the time.” 

Yeah, definitely. You’re going to live in a perpetual state of anger, which, I’m OK with. I get that a lot of people think that anger is a bad thing, and it’s not a bad thing. Anger is simply defined as a displeasure to a wrongdoing.

Going back to James Baldwin, you are planning a 100-year birthday celebration. I saw the big countdown and everything. What is on y’all’s agenda?  

It’s going to be a great celebration. Just a celebration of food, music, some spoken word, some dance. It’s going to be a commemoration of James Baldwin and his phenomenal contributions to our society.

And, what do you see next for Baldwin and Co.? Do you see the business celebrating 100 years? 

Right now, we just focus on one day at a time and just focus on the community service, our commitment to rebuilding, our commitment to building a strong Black community. I hope that we can be a beacon of hope in that we can help individuals just overcome some of the obstacles, and we can accomplish the goals and our abilities that I know that we as a people can be.

This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.