A Radical Voice: James Baldwin's Iconic Novel 'Go Tell It On The Mountain'

James Baldwin (1924-1987) was one of the most influential voices of the 20th century.

Brought up within a fervently religious community in New York, he went on to become an acclaimed writer and a leading figure in the civil rights movement.

Baldwin’s semi-autobiographic first novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain, was published when he was just twenty-nine, and offers a unique perspective on many of the issues (e.g. poverty, sexism, and racism) explored in his later work.

Through skipping between an impoverished family living in Harlem in the 1930s, and the backstories of several of the characters, it shines a light on the web of oppressive forces shaping black communities at that time.

One of the most poignant aspects of Go Tell It On The Mountain is how it highlights the hardships faced by black Americans who migrated from Southern to Northern states in the early-1900s.

Having experienced racism all their lives, many bought into the promise of protection and abundance supposedly offered by the North; only to move to towns and cities that were just as racist as the ones they had left behind.

“There was not, after all, a great difference between the world of the North and that of the South which she had fled; there was only this difference: the North promised more.”

(Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin)

In some ways, Go Tell It On The Mountain is a profoundly sociological novel - a visceral ethnographic portrait of black lives in the 1930s.

With its roots in Baldwin’s own childhood, it is also extraordinarily intimate and personal.

Ever-present is the patriarchal preacher, Gabriel, who - with his volatile temperament and fiery sermons - rules his family with a rod of iron, and instils a fear of God in his congregation.

But he is a flawed character.

We become aware of his sexism and hypocrisy: of how he has taken refuge in fanatical discourses, and heads a sort of Christian cult, to avoid confronting his own demons - to avoid making amends for his violently chaotic past.

“He would escape into the starry night and walk until he came to a tavern, or to a house that he had marked already in the long daytime of his lust. And then he drank until hammers rang in his distant skull; he cursed his friends and his enemies, and fought until blood ran down; in the morning he found himself in the mud, in clay, in strange beds, and once or twice in jail; his mouth sour, his clothes in rags, from all of him arising the stink of his corruption.”

(Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin)

We also learn about the circumstances that drove Gabriel’s sister (Florence) and his wife (Elizabeth) away from the South - about Florence’s abusive husband; and the security that Gabriel seemed to offer Elizabeth before harsher truths sank in.

And then there are Gabriel’s two traumatised sons, John and Roy, who wrestle with their shared predicament in very different ways.

Whereas John plays the role of dutiful and self-sacrificial heir, Roy is disobedient, aggressive, and rebels.

But, in reality, they’re both struggling with the same things: poverty; racism; a violently controlling father; and a burning desire to escape from the oppressive conceptions of masculinity on offer to them.

Go Tell It On The Mountain is not as explicitly anti-racist as some of Baldwin’s later work (e.g. his novel If Beale Street Could Talk; his collection of essays Notes of a Native Son; his poem Staggerlee Wonders; and his play Blues for Mister Charlie).

Unlike his acclaimed novel Giovanni’s Room, it also expresses his sexuality (in later life, Baldwin was openly gay) in a particularly nuanced and coded way.

But, considering he wrote Go Tell It On The Mountain over seventy years ago, it was, and in so many ways still is, a truly radical novel.

And it offers a brilliant introduction to Baldwin’s uniquely powerful voice/style.

James Lee © 2024

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