James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a writer and civil rights activist who is best known for his semi-autobiographical novels and plays that center on race, politics, and sexuality. His childhood neighborhood would later inspire his first essay, The Harlem Ghetto (1948). In 1948, feeling stifled creatively because of the racial discrimination in America, Baldwin traveled to Europe to create what were later acclaimed as masterpieces to the American literature canon. While living in Paris, Baldwin was able to separate himself from American segregated society and better write about his experience in the culture that was prevalent in America. Baldwin took part in the Civil Rights Movement, becoming close friends with Medgar Evers, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Nina Simone, and Lorraine Hansberry. He was also one of the first Black writers to include queer themes in fiction, notably in Giovanni’s Room (1956), writing with a frankness that was highly controversial at the time. The successive assassinations of Evers, Malcolm X and King in the late 1960s plunged Baldwin into a nervous breakdown. In 1971, he moved permanently to France, settling in a small village in Provence, Saint-Paul de Vence, which was to become his final resting place. In 2016 Baldwin was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary by director Raoul Peck, I Am Not Your Negro. The film mixed archival footage of the civil rights movement with contemporary footage of the BLM movement and included historical interviews with Baldwin.