Friday marks what would have been the 100th birthday of James Baldwin, the author of incandescent masterpieces including “The Fire Next Time,” “Go Tell It on the Mountain" and “Giovanni’s Room.”

Life took him from a boyhood as the eldest son of a preacher in Harlem to the American South during the Civil Rights Movement. He also spent years in Istanbul, Paris and the South of France, where he died in 1987 at age 63.

A man who wrote fiercely about racial discrimination in the United States and openly about gay people, he became a profoundly influential figure, widely known for his novels, plays and essays, and as a spokesman for the civil rights movement. But to friends and family, he was Jimmy.

“He was fearless,” Paula Whaley, one of his sisters, said in an interview. “He would say, ‘You have to walk straight into it.’”

Here is a look at his life through photographs.

This photograph of Baldwin as a young man appeared on the cover of the first edition of “Notes of a Native Son,” his debut essay collection, published in 1955.