James Baldwin's Novel "If Beale Street Could Talk" (1974) Barry Jenkins is Adapting it into a Film ('18)

James Baldwin (b Amer. 1924-1987) is one of the most prominent & brilliant novelists, playwrights and social critic of the 20th C.  His 1974 novel "If  Beale Street Could Talk" addresses racism, poverty, mass incarceration of men of color & blacks subjugation to social injustice.  "If Beale Street Could Talk" confronts the vicious cycle of cruelty, oppression & poverty that are unsurmountable for  people of color in our country.   Baldwin gives us Tish and Fonny, a young & in love couple to expresses his social views, "It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power is the most ferocious enemy that justice can have."  Tish & Fonny grew up together on the same impoverished streets.  Their childhood attachment grows into a love that is wondrous & overwhelming. "Fonny loved me too much, we needed each other too much.  We were part of each other, flesh of each other's flesh."  Their love story and the familial love they maintain humanizes their despair against the brutalities of an unjust & racist society.  Fonny is arrested on trumped up rape charges by a white officer angered at being knocked down a notch in public when a white woman stood up to defend Fonny against a white man.  The lawyer they hire at great expense tells Tish, "It isn't much of a case. If Fonny were white it would be no case at all."  The white officer sought revenge and rounded Fonny up for a line-up where he was falsely identified as the perpetrator & sent to prison to await trial.  Tish & Fonny had heard horrors stories of arrests & incarceration from their friend Daniel also unfairly victimized in the court system and coerced into taking a guilty plea to a felony.  Daniel tells his friends, "They were just playing with me man because they could.  And I'm lucky it was only two years, you dig?  Because they can do with you whatever you want."  Baldwin's indelible prose & memorable characters make "If Beale Street Could Talk" into a compelling plea for social reform.  "Neither love nor terror makes one blind; indifference makes one blind."  Baldwin writes poignantly on love, grief & despair.  This stirring novel also poises dignity & compassion.  "Despair can make one monstrous, but it can also make one noble."  Tish & Fonny were supported by family & by  friends from a local restaurant who saw they never went hungry.  Tish knew she & Fonny had caring support. "Others love him, too, so much that they have set me free to be there.  He is not alone, we are not alone."   I recommend reading this and everything written by James Baldwin.  I'm sure Barry Jenkins("Moonlight") will do a remarkable job turning Baldwin's novel into another award winning film.