ON THIS THIRD DAY OF FEBRUARY, 2026, JAMES BALDWIN, HIS STAMP AND OUR TIME

 

ON THIS THIRD DAY OF FEBRUARY, 2026,

JAMES BALDWIN, HIS STAMP AND OUR TIME

Opening the drawer on the coffee table

where commemorative stamps are kept—ones

I can use, that I hold out for me—not

the ones in sleeves archived for grandchildren,

looking for the James Baldwin 37-cent

commemorative I attach to post card

poems as gifts for friends, this Baldwin

stamp came out on 23 July 2004,

before Forever stamps debuted

in April 2007 (eliminating the need

to purchase stamps in small denominations

to mail a letter), the first Forever

being Liberty Bell, I’m re-reading Baldwin

during Black History month. Listen to him

on Martin Luther King, Jr. “...to state

it baldly, ‘I liked him. It is rare that one

likes a world-famous man—by the time

they become famous they rarely like themselves.’”

This drawer of loose stamps is a treasure

chest of Black history: Ernest Gaines,

August Wilson, Edmonia Lewis, Harriet Tubman,

Tousssaint, Gwen Ifill, Ella—Waters and Fitzgerald--

Arturo Schomburg—Oh, man! Baldwin

wrote this in 1961, “King cannot

be considered chauvinist, what he says

to Negroes he will say to whites, and what he says

to whites he will say to Negroes.” Baldwin

is five years older than King. Until King,

in Montgomery, Baldwin writes, the minister

could not change the lives of hearers: “All

they came to find, and all that he could give

was sustenance for another day’s journey.”

Baldwin again, bluntly, “...the white manuscript

on whom the American Negro modeled himself,

is vanishing. This white man was, himself,

a mythical creation of men who have never been

what they imagined themselves to be.” We’re

not done here, are we? The Baldwin stamp

matches a portrait of him, circa-1960

against a backdrop view of Harlem

where he grew up. So much story

in a square-inch stamp. One more Baldwin

gem: “Europeans refer to Americans

as children in the same way American Negroes

refer to Americans as children...so little experience...

no key to the experience of others.” To

become oneself. These stamps help me

in my studies. To stamps in these times, saving

for grandchildren Grandpa’s stand: February, 2026.

This 37-cent postage stamp, added to an envelope

requiring 71 cents postage, pure and extra,

political, with hand-cancellation, through the mail.

Jim Bodeen

3 February 2026