Carrying James Baldwin: Frontline Prophet Exhibit at AUP Celebrates His Birthday, Journey, and Legacy

In 1948, seeking refuge from racial and sexual discrimination in the United States, the renowned Harlem-born writer and social visionary James Baldwin moved to Paris. There, and during his ensuing years as an expatriate in Europe, Turkey, and southern France, Baldwin found the freedom to explore his identity and hone his voice. Many of his incisive works written, completed or influenced by his time in Paris – among them Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, and Another Country – continue to shape worldwide discussions about race, social justice and civil rights.

In September, AUP will commemorate Baldwin’s life and legacy by hosting the traveling exhibit Frontline Prophet: James Baldwin, featuring the work of Detroit-based artist and activist Sabrina Nelson. Co-curated by Ashara Ekundayo and Omo Misha McGlown, and presented in association with the James Baldwin Centennial Festival and collective platform Artist as First Responder, Frontline Prophet contributes to the global celebration of Baldwin’s 100th birthday. A multisensory portrait, the exhibit and its journey to Paris reflect the artistic and personal pilgrimages of Baldwin and other Black artists, past and present.

Frontline Prophet began at a 2016 AUP conference on Baldwin, “A Language to Dwell In.” Invited by poet Jessica Care Moore – now the Poet Laureate of the city of Detroit – Nelson sketched Baldwin live during Moore’s presentation. During remarks by scholar Rich Blint, Nelson felt a profound stirring. “That was the place where James Baldwin picked me. I felt spiritually touched in that room,” she says.

Back in her studio, Nelson kept drawing. “His face was coming out of my drawings and his words were ringing in my head and heart,” she says. “My drawings were a way to baptize myself in the essence of Baldwin, as his words and expressions connected deeply with how I felt the world was treating its dwellers who are Black and Brown.” Her immersion grew into 91 pencil sketches and a seven-year meditation on “his writing, debates, footprint, civil rights activism, friendships, and loveships.”  Nelson would then iterate his work in additional mediums, gradually introducing color. “I think people get seduced by color. But I wanted to draw the essence of who he was with my gesture line.”

Nelson’s sketchbooks laid the foundation for Frontline Prophet, which includes drawings, ink renderings, large-scale paintings, mixed media, video, calligraphy, embroidery, poetry, and augmented reality – befitting such a multifaceted artist as Baldwin.

“We want to invite people to have different touchpoints to learn about Baldwin. [Nelson] has offered the kind of wild imagination that allows people to lean forward into his humanity,” says Ekundayo, a culture worker and independent curator based in Detroit, Michigan and Oakland, California who conceived the exhibit when she found Nelson’s Baldwin sketches in a drawer on a studio visit and came up with the title of it.

They soon added McGlown, a curator and arts administrator based in Detroit and New York, as a collaborator. “We leaped at this opportunity to share [Nelson’s] talent and creativity with the world,” McGlown says. “She harnesses color to convey Baldwin's complexity and range of emotions – from joy to rage to solitude.”

The exhibit has toured five different cities connected to Baldwin prior to landing in Paris. It opened in August 2023 at the Interchurch Center in his birthplace, Harlem, before moving to New Orleans, where he spoke during a 1963 lecture tour, at the African American Art Museum. Frontline Prophet evolved as it traveled, and in the Silicon Valley city of Oakland – where Baldwin gave a speech to a predominantly Black high school – the augmented reality studio BlackTerminusAR added an interactive technology component. The exhibit then went to Chicago’s BLANC Gallery, with regional writers and poets collaborating throughout the journey.

On August 2, 2024 – which would have been Baldwin’s 100th birthday – Frontline Prophet opened at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. A hub of the Civil Rights movement, Detroit holds special meaning for Nelson, Ekundayo and McGlown, who were all born there and remain active in its vibrant, creative community. Nelson says, “we’re very happy about the footprint that James Baldwin had here, and to have ‘home’ – this Maverick City we call Motor City, or Motown – to be not quite the last stop, but the last stop for now.”

The team’s commitment to touring Frontline across the nation has been personal, professional and physical. They’ve accommodated each other’s schedules, time zones and artistic activities, and even personally carried Nelson’s works in their luggage and installed them in galleries. “This is part of this exhibition–this carrying. We are carrying this story of our ancestor with us across the world,” Ekundayo explains.

For Nelson, the exhibit brings her exploration full circle. “We are making a mark in honor of James Baldwin – the spirit, the soul, and the one who tapped me at AUP.” She points to the universality of his work. “Harlem holds him from birth, but spiritually, he's with all of us if we call his name and acknowledge his work.” She looks forward to sharing the exhibit with the AUP community, an occasion for which she has specifically created a 10-foot canvas depicting Baldwin, Josephine Baker and Nina Simone sitting on a couch together. “He loved young people and planting seeds. My hope is that there's someone at AUP who came from the United States to find refuge, but also to find out who they are.”