Reading Order
The Amen Corner Reading Order
The Amen Corner (1954) by James Baldwin is his first play — written in 1953 and first performed at Howard University in 1955 before being produced on Broadway in 1965 — about Sister Margaret, a Harlem storefront church pastor who has built her church and her identity around the religious vocation she embraced after leaving her musician husband Luke, believing that her son's illness was God's punishment for her life in the secular world. The play opens as Luke, now dying of tuberculosis, returns to the community, and as Sister Margaret's son David begins to feel the call of music pulling him toward his father's world and away from the church. The Amen Corner is Baldwin's first extended dramatic treatment of the Black church that was his childhood world — his stepfather was a preacher, and the storefront church is the world of Go Tell It on the Mountain — and it is a play about the cost of religious vocation: what Sister Margaret gave up to become what she is, what her church has given her and taken from her, and what her son will have to give up if he stays. The play is also about the relationship between the sacred and the secular in African American culture: the music that David is drawn to is jazz and blues, which in the world of the church is the music of the devil — but in Baldwin's understanding, the music is as much a form of spiritual expression as the church's hymns.
Where to start
Read Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) first — the novel gives the most complete portrait of the Harlem church world that The Amen Corner dramatizes. Any Vintage paperback of The Amen Corner.
Complete The Amen Corner Book List
- 1Buy
The Amen Corner
James Baldwin·1955·The play — Sister Margaret's Harlem storefront church; her dying husband Luke's return; her son David's pull toward music and away from the church; Baldwin's first dramatic treatment of the Black church world of his childhood; the sacred/secular tension in African American culture. - 2Buy
Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin·1953·Baldwin's debut novel — the essential companion; the Harlem church community of Go Tell It on the Mountain is the world The Amen Corner dramatizes; Gabriel Grimes's ministry and Sister Margaret's ministry are companion portraits of the Black church leader. - 3Buy
Blues for Mister Charlie
James Baldwin·1964·Baldwin's second play — the companion dramatic work; where The Amen Corner focuses on the church community and personal vocation, Blues for Mister Charlie focuses on racial violence and the civil rights movement. - 4Buy
Giovanni's Room
James Baldwin·1956·Baldwin's companion novel — the formal achievement of his fiction in the same decade; the question of who David (in both works) will become is the companion question across both works. - 5Buy
A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry·1959·Hansberry's landmark play — the companion in African American drama from the same era; where The Amen Corner focuses on the church and religious vocation, A Raisin in the Sun focuses on economic aspiration and family; both are landmark works in African American drama of the 1950s and 1960s. - 6Buy
Fences
August Wilson·1985·Wilson's play — the companion in African American drama about a Black man's legacy, his son's rebellion, and the specific weight of family history; Troy Maxson is the companion to Luke in their portraits of fathers their sons must reckon with. - 7Buy
The Fire Next Time
James Baldwin·1963·Baldwin's essential essay — the companion nonfiction that makes the same argument as The Amen Corner about the church: that the Black church is both the center of African American community and a form of confinement; the essay is the explicit statement of the argument the play dramatizes. - 8Buy
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston·1937·Hurston's masterpiece — the companion in African American literature about the tension between the community's expectations and the individual's freedom; Janie Crawford's refusal to accept the life the community has assigned her is the companion to David's refusal to accept the church.
The Amen Corner — Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Amen Corner about?
The Amen Corner is set in Sister Margaret Alexander's storefront church in Harlem. Margaret is the church's pastor — a powerful, respected figure who built the church after leaving her husband Luke, a jazz musician whose secular life she believed was corrupting her and her son. The play opens as Luke, now dying of tuberculosis, returns to the Harlem neighborhood where he and Margaret had lived; their son David, who grew up in the church, begins to feel the music calling him and to question his place in his mother's world. As the elders of the church question Margaret's leadership, and as Luke dies in the apartment above the church, Margaret is forced to reckon with what she gave up and who she became.
What is the relationship between the sacred and the secular in the play?
The tension between the sacred and the secular is The Amen Corner's central subject. For Sister Margaret, the church and the secular world are absolute opposites: the music that Luke played, and that David is drawn to, is the music of the world — the devil's music, as it was called in Black church culture. But Baldwin refuses this absolute opposition: the music is as much a spiritual expression as the church's hymns; Luke's life, though secular, has its own form of dignity; and Margaret's church, though sacred, has become a way for Margaret to avoid reckoning with what she gave up. The play's argument — implicit in its dramaturgy — is that the sacred/secular division is false, and that the wholeness Margaret sacrificed for the church was itself a form of spiritual life.
How is The Amen Corner related to Go Tell It on the Mountain?
Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and The Amen Corner (written 1953, first performed 1955) were written at the same time, and they share a world: the Harlem storefront church, the minister-father figure, the son who must decide whether to stay or leave. The novel's John Grimes and the play's David are companion figures — both sons of the church who are being called away from it, both children of a religious parent whose vocation has cost the family something. Gabriel Grimes in the novel and Sister Margaret in the play are companion portraits of the Black church leader as someone whose religion is also a form of self-punishment and self-deception.
When was The Amen Corner first performed?
The Amen Corner was written in 1953 but was first performed at Howard University in 1955, largely due to Baldwin's friendship with Owen Dodson, who directed the premiere. It was not produced on Broadway until 1965, more than a decade later — the delay reflecting both the difficulties of producing serious African American drama in New York and the more hospitable cultural climate of the civil rights era. The 1965 Broadway production starred Beah Richards as Sister Margaret and ran for 84 performances. The play has since been revived numerous times and is now recognized as one of the landmarks of American drama.
What should I read after The Amen Corner?
After The Amen Corner, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) is Baldwin's debut novel and the essential companion in the Harlem church world. Blues for Mister Charlie (1964) is Baldwin's second play. Giovanni's Room (1956) is the companion in his fiction from the same period. For African American drama from the same era, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is the most important companion. For the tradition of African American drama about fathers and sons, August Wilson's Fences is the later major work.
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