Editing James Baldwin (section)

===Education and preaching===
Baldwin wrote comparatively little about events at school.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=14}} At five years of age, he was enrolled at Public School 24 (P.S. 24) on 128th Street in Harlem.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=14}} The principal of the school was [[Elise Johnson McDougald|Gertrude E. Ayer]], the first Black principal in the city. She and some of Baldwin's teachers recognized his brilliance early on{{sfn|Tubbs 2021|p=357}} and encouraged his research and writing pursuits.<ref name="Campbell14Leeming2324">{{harvnb|Campbell|2021|p=14}}; {{harvnb|Leeming|1994|pp=23–24}}</ref> Ayer stated that Baldwin derived his writing talent from his mother, whose notes to school were greatly admired by the teachers, and that her son also learned to write like an angel, albeit an avenging one.{{sfn|Tubbs 2021|pp=519–520}} By fifth grade, not yet a teenager, Baldwin had read some of [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]]'s works, [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]'s ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'', and [[Charles Dickens]]' ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'' (which gave him a lifelong interest in the work of Dickens).{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=24}}{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=8}} Baldwin wrote a song that earned praise from [[New York Mayor]] [[Fiorello La Guardia]] in a letter that La Guardia sent to him.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=24}} Baldwin also won a prize for a short story that was published in a church newspaper.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=24}} His teachers recommended that he go to a public library on 135th Street in Harlem, a place that became his sanctuary. Baldwin would request on his deathbed that his papers and effects be deposited there.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=24}}

It was at P.S. 24 that Baldwin met Orilla "Bill" Miller, a young white schoolteacher from the Midwest whom Baldwin named as one of the reasons that he "never really managed to hate white people".{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=25}}{{efn|It was from Bill Miller, her sister Henrietta, and Miller's husband Evan Winfield that the young Baldwin started to suspect that "white people did not act as they did because they were white, but for some other reason."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=27}} Miller's openness did not have a similar effect on Baldwin's father.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=16}} Emma Baldwin was pleased with Miller's interest in her son, but David agreed only reluctantly—not daring to refuse the invitation of a white woman, in Baldwin's later estimation, a subservience that Baldwin came to despise.<ref>{{harvnb|Leeming|1994|p=16}}; {{harvnb|Campbell|2021|p=8}}</ref>}} Among other outings, Miller took Baldwin to see an all-Black rendition of [[Orson Welles]]'s take on ''[[Voodoo Macbeth|Macbeth]]'' at the [[Lafayette Theatre (Harlem)|Lafayette Theatre]], from which flowed Baldwin's lifelong desire to succeed as a [[playwright]].{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=28}}{{efn|As Baldwin's biographer and friend David Leeming tells it: "Like [[Henry James]], the writer he most admired, [Baldwin] would have given up almost anything for sustained success as a playwright."{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=28}} Indeed, the last writing Baldwin did before his death was on a play called ''The Welcome Table''.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=28}}}} David was reluctant to let his stepson go to the theatre, because he saw the stage as sinful and was suspicious of Miller. However, Baldwin's mother insisted, reminding his father of the importance of education.{{sfn|Tubbs 2021|pp=358–359}} Miller later directed the first play that Baldwin ever wrote.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=26}}

After P.S. 24, Baldwin entered Harlem's Frederick Douglass Junior High School.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=14}}{{efn|Baldwin's biographers give different years for his entry into Frederick Douglass Junior High School: 1935 and 1936.<ref>{{harvnb|Leeming|1994|p=32}}; {{harvnb|Campbell|2021|p=14}}</ref>}} There, Baldwin met two important influences.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=32}} The first was Herman W. "Bill" Porter, a Black Harvard graduate.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=33}} Porter was the faculty advisor to the school's newspaper, the ''Douglass Pilot'', of which Baldwin would become the editor.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=14}} Porter took Baldwin to the library on 42nd Street to research a piece that would turn into Baldwin's first published essay titled "Harlem—Then and Now", which appeared in the autumn 1937 issue of the ''Douglass Pilot''.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|pp=14–15}} The second of these influences from his time at Frederick Douglass Junior High School was [[Countee Cullen]], the renowned poet of the [[Harlem Renaissance]].{{sfn|Leeming|1994|pp=32–33}} Cullen taught French and was a literary advisor in the English department.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=14}} Baldwin later remarked that he "adored" Cullen's poetry, and his dream to live in France was sparked by Cullen's early impression on him.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=33}} Baldwin graduated from Frederick Douglass Junior High in 1938.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=33}}{{efn|In the summer following his graduation from Frederick Douglass Junior High, the 13-year-old Baldwin experienced what he would call his "violation": he was running an errand for his mother when a tall man in his mid-30s lured him onto the second floor of a store, where the man touched Baldwin sexually. Alarmed by a noise, the man gave Baldwin money and disappeared. Baldwin ran home and threw the money out of his bathroom window.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=34}} Baldwin named this as his first confrontation with homosexuality, an experience he said both scared and aroused him.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=34}}}}

In 1938, Baldwin applied to and was accepted at [[De Witt Clinton High School]] in [[the Bronx]], a predominantly [[White Americans|white]] and [[Jewish Americans|Jewish]] school, where he matriculated that fall.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=37}} He worked on the school's magazine, the ''Magpie'' with [[Richard Avedon]], who went on to become a noted photographer, and [[Emile Capouya]] and [[Sol Stein]], who would both become renowned publishers.{{sfn|Leeming|1994|p=37}} Baldwin did interviews and editing at the magazine and published a number of poems and other writing.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|pp=15–20}} He completed his high school diploma at De Witt Clinton in 1941.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=25}} Baldwin's yearbook listed his career ambition as "novelist-playwright", and his motto in the yearbook was: "Fame is the spur and—ouch!"{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=25}}

Uncomfortable with his discovery during his high school years that he was attracted to men rather than women, Baldwin sought refuge in religion.{{sfn|Kenan 1994|pp=34–37}} He joined the now-demolished Mount Calvary of the Pentecostal Faith Church on [[Lenox Avenue]] in 1937. He then followed Mount Calvary's preacher, Bishop Rose Artemis Horn (who was affectionately known as Mother Horn) when she left to preach at Fireside Pentecostal Assembly.<ref>{{harvnb|Leeming|1994|pp=37–38}}; {{harvnb|Campbell|2021|p=10}}</ref> At the age of 14, "Brother Baldwin", as he was called, first took to Fireside's altar, and it was at Fireside Pentecostal, during his mostly extemporaneous sermons, that Baldwin "learned that he had authority as a speaker and could do things with a crowd."{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=10}} He delivered his final sermon at Fireside Pentecostal in 1941.{{sfn|Campbell|2021|p=10}} Baldwin wrote in the essay "Down at the Cross" that the church "was a mask for self-hatred and despair&nbsp;... salvation stopped at the church door".{{sfn|Kenan 1994|p=41}} He recalled a rare conversation with David Baldwin "in which they had really spoken to one another", during which his stepfather asked: "You'd rather write than preach, wouldn't you?"{{sfn|Kenan 1994|p=41}}