Page and Stage: James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain
Actor Greig Sargeant performs readings from Baldwin's semi-autobiographical novel, followed by guided discussion on identity, religion, and American history.
Why we picked this
Go Tell It on the Mountain is one of the great American novels about how the past lives inside the present — hearing it performed aloud, then discussed, is a different encounter than reading it alone.
James Baldwin’s debut novel, published in 1953, follows a single day in the life of fourteen-year-old John Grimes against a backdrop spanning slavery, the Great Migration, and the Black church in Harlem. It remains one of the most precise and searing accounts of how inherited trauma, faith, and the search for identity coexist in a single consciousness.
Actor Greig Sargeant performs selected readings from the novel, bringing Baldwin’s prose into the room before discussion moderator Rhonda Evans guides the audience through its central themes: identity, morality, religion, and the long arc of Black American history. Attendees are encouraged to read the novel before attending.
This event is part of the Morgan’s broader engagement with storytelling as a form that crosses generations and genres. Tickets required.