Hughes, James M. “Black City Lights: Baldwin’s City of the Just.”

Journal of Black Studies, 18.2(1987): 230-241. Print.

This article looks at the importance of cities in Baldwin’s writing, and the ways in which Baldwin drew from Walt Whitman and Henry James to express his affection for city life and culture. Baldwin adopted Whitman’s awareness of “urban wandering” and James’ “self-conscious cosmopolitanism” in his writing, combining their “contrasting lights” with his “special sense of his blackness.”  Hughes mentions that Baldwin held onto the notion of the city as a refuge, using the bridge and subway as images to “map his concern with opening out.”  Subways express the idea that individuals are on the “same track regardless of direction” and bridges connect separate parts of urban environments into one whole.  Hughes concludes that Baldwin further demonstrated his similarity to Whitman and James in his willingness to confront reality.