“All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive.”

—  James Baldwin

"The Harlem Ghetto" in Commentary (February 1948); republished in Notes of a Native Son (1955)

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James Baldwin163
(1924-1987) writer from the United States 1924–1987

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