"The Fire Next Time"

"God gave Noah the rainbow sign.
No more water, the fire next time."

"The Fire Next Time" had been recommended to me several times in the past, and 2020 is the year I finally read it. Baldwin's work is a powerful personal account of race and civil rights, told in two essays. First, a letter written to his nephew on the 100th anniversary of emancipation; second, Baldwin's observations about religion and race in America.

In "My Dungeon Shook," Baldwin explains to his nephew his pride in his family and understanding of white America, and challenges his nephew to embrace those who fear him as brothers and thereby "make America what America must become." One particularly striking passage:

This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that for the heart of the matter is here and the crux of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits to your ambition were thus expected to be settled. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity and in as many ways as possible that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence. You were expected to make peace with mediocrity.

And near the end:

You know and I know that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too early.

This letter was written nearly 60 years ago, so "one hundred years too early" seems sadly prescient.

The second essay, "Down at the Cross," describes Baldwin's childhood in Harlem and his growing disillusionment with religion. Originally a teen pastor, Baldwin ultimately concluded that the Christianity with which he was familiar is unable to solve – and even exacerbates – racial problems. There are too many important passages to quote, so here are a few I found particularly impactful.

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced.

When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant every body. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did, and it did not apply to white people at all. I was told by a minister, for example, that I should never, on any public conveyance, under any circumstances, rise and give my seat to a white woman. White men never rose for Negro women. Well, that was true enough, in the main—I saw his point. But what was the point, the purpose, of my salvation if it did not permit me to behave with love toward others, no matter how they behaved toward me?

To accept one's past—one's history—is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.

We should certainly know by now that it is one thing to overthrow a dictator or repel an invader and quite another thing really to achieve a revolution. Time and time and time again, the people discover that they have merely betrayed themselves into the hands of yet another Pharaoh, who, since he was necessary to put the broken country together, will not let them go. Perhaps, people being the conundrums that they are, and having so little desire to shoulder the burden of their lives, this is what will always happen. But at the bottom of my heart I do not believe this. I think that people can be better than that, and I know that people can be better than they are.

Verdict: "The Fire Next Time" is the most powerful account of race relations I've read, and as relevant today as when it was first published. Highly recommended.