Commentary: How James Baldwin spoke to immigrants like me
by Leah Mirakhor, Los Angeles Times
Aug 04, 2020
3 minutes
James Baldwin was born Aug. 2, 1924, in Harlem, to parents who were children of former slaves. For migrants fleeing an economically depressed and racist South, Harlem was not much better, and his parents struggled to provide anything close to the American dream for their children. "By the time you are 7," he recalled near the end of his life, "you know why you are in a ghetto."
Baldwin knew by then that the Pledge of Allegiance's promise
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