Kopkind Colony

Richard Goldstein, award-winning journalist, talks on Baldwin’s legacy and their extraordinary 1984 interview on race, sex, liberation and the politics of getting free. Co-sponsored by 118 Elliot. Sunday, June 29, 4 pm, at 118 Elliot. A free public event. Donations welcomed.

‘Go the Way Your Blood Beats’

“Go the Way Your Blood Beats,” Baldwin famously told Goldstein, an admonition to live one’s life authentically. As a black man, a gay man, a person who grew up in Harlem before WWII and left the country for Europe—spending the rest of his life in transit—Baldwin resisted what he called “all of the American categories” and, in his novels, essays and speeches, uniquely challenged America to look at itself, to liberate itself from the violence that still consumes it and defines its power in the world. Baldwin’s homosexuality, evident in his works’ frankness about sex, desire, fear and the many, intertwined obstacles to love and human freedom, is often un- or under-discussed. Our event honors the man, his dazzling originality and rebellious vision in full.

Richard Goldstein was executive editor of The Village Voice, for which he wrote on popular culture and sexual politics for 32 years. Among the umpteen interviews Baldwin gave in his life, Goldstein’s is perhaps the only one that dealt directly with homosexuality, the queer liberation movement and their relationship to Baldwin’s life and work. An award-winning commentator on lgbtq issues, a founder of rock criticism and early champion of graffiti culture, Goldstein is the author of, among other works, The Poetry of Rock; Homocons: Liberal Society and the Gay Right; and Another Little Piece of My Heart: My Life of Rock and Revolution in the `60s. He lives in New York City and Vermont.

This celebration of James Baldwin will be Kopkind’s second Pride Month event. It is part of the prolonged centenary commemoration of the revolutionary author and public figure, who was born in August 1924. On the preceding day, Saturday, July 28, Kopkind presents its annual lgbtq short film fest, Cineslam, at the Latchis Theatre at 4 pm. A reception and Pride Cake to follow. For tickets to Cineslam: https://www.cineslam.com/