James Baldwin Signed De Witt Clinton High School Class of 1941 Yearbook.

[BALDWIN, James].

$16,000.00

Item Number: 130241

Bronx, New York: Published by the Senior Class of De Witt Clinton High School, June 1941.

Rare De Witt Clinton High School Class of 1941 Yearbook signed by James Baldwin as a graduating senior. Quarto, original cloth, pictorial endpapers, illustrated with photographs. Signed by James Baldwin to the right of his senior photograph of page 36, “James Baldwin.” His accolades read: JAMES A. BALDWIN “Baldy” Magpie Editorial Boards; Student Court. Novelist-Playwright. ‘Fame is the spur and – ouch!’ Additionally signed by dozens of other graduating seniors. With copies of the Commencement Exercises, List of Awards and Prizes and June 1941 ‘Class-Nite’ program laid in. In very good condition. Exceptionally rare, one of the earliest Baldwin autographs obtainable.

James Arthur Baldwin was born in Harlem Hospital on August 2, 1924. His mother, Emma Berdis Jones had left Baldwin's biological father because of his drug abuse and married a Baptist preacher, David Baldwin with whom she had eight children between 1927 and 1943. By the time Baldwin reached adolescence, he discovered his passion for writing. His educators deemed him gifted. His middle-school years were spent at Frederick Douglass Junior High, where he was influenced by poet Countee Cullen, a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance and was encouraged by his math teacher to serve as editor of the school newspaper, The Douglass Pilot. He then went on to DeWitt Clinton High School in Bedford Park, in the Bronx. There, along with Richard Avedon, Baldwin worked on the school magazine as literary editor.