JAMES BALDWIN’S AMERICA AND IT’S URGENT LESSONS FOR OUR OWN
EDDIE S. GLAUDE JR.
James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and author of Democracy in Black
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“Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.” JAMES BALDWIN
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We live, according to Eddie S. Glaude Jr., in the after times, when the promise of Black Lives Matter and the attempt to achieve a new America have been challenged by the election of Donald Trump, a racist president whose victory represents yet another failure of America to face the lies it tells itself about race.
We have been here before: For James Baldwin, the after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when a similar attempt to compel a national confrontation with the truth was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In these years, spanning from the publication of The Fire Next Time in 1963 to that of No Name In The Street in 1972, Baldwin transformed into a more overtly political writer, a change that came at great professional and personal cost. But from that journey, Baldwin emerged with a sense of renewed purpose about the necessity of pushing forward in the face of disillusionment and despair.
In the story of Baldwin’s crucible, Glaude suggests, we can find hope and guidance through our own after times, this Trumpian era of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Mixing biography–drawn partially from newly uncovered interviews–with history, memoir, and trenchant analysis of our current moment, Begin Again is Glaude’s endeavor, following Baldwin, to bear witness to the difficult truth of race in America today. It is at once a searing exploration that lays bear the tangled web of race, trauma and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America.
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“An unparalleled masterpiece of social criticism … Glaude’s stunningly crafted prose–incisive, vulnerable, and beautiful–is as breathtaking as his brilliance. This book is precisely the witness we need for our treacherous times.”
—IMANI PERRY, author of Breathe
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“This book is, undoubtedly, the best treatment we have of Baldwin’s genius and relevance.” —CORNEL WEST, author of Democracy Matters
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“Searing, provocative, and ultimately hopeful … One need not agree with everything in these pages to learn much from them. Begin Again challenges, illuminates, and points us toward if not a more perfect union then at least a more just one.”
—JON MEACHAM, author of The Soul of America
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“Eddie Glaude is such a terrific writer. [His] work is urgent, pained, and strangely hopeful. He is issuing a call to reckoning.”—REBECCA TRAISTER, author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger
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“Filled with passion, lyricism, and fire … a timeless and spellbinding conversation between two brilliant writers, thinkers, and active witnesses.”
—EDWIDGE DANTICAT, author of Brother, I’m Dying
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“The magic of Begin Again is that it allows us to ponder Baldwin both in his perilous era and in our own … Remarkable, and remarkably relevant.”
—TRACY K. SMITH, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Life on Mars
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“Powerful and elegant, Begin Again is at times both loving and angry, challenging and uplifting, and always beautiful. Both Baldwin and this book speak directly to today.”
—WALTER ISAACSON, author of Steve Jobs
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“A rugged literary miracle.” —KIESE LAYMON, author of Heavy
From the cover