(WIB) – By the time Edafe Okporo arrived in Harlem in 2016, James Baldwin had been gone nearly three decades. Growing up in Warri, Nigeria, Okporo had read the Harlem Renaissance writer’s work long before he’d walk Baldwin’s streets.

“No matter where you go to, home is always where you feel safe and welcome — and home for Baldwin is always Harlem,” Okporo says. “I’ve been fleeing persecution my entire life, and I’ve been looking for a sense of home. When I came to Harlem, that was the first time I did feel at home.”

Indeed, almost a decade later, Okporo, who owns one of the 50 original gold-plated copies of Baldwin’s award-winning novel “Go Tell it On the Mountain,” says love — and the spirit of Baldwin — are fuel for his activism as a Black and gay refugee.

In 2020, he opened a shelter

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