Glaude also presents Baldwin’s constant fury and sadness over “the after times” (post-Civil Rights Movement) with an urgency that can still galvanize, though Baldwin has been gone for more than three decades. In his introduction, Glaude says that he was in Heidelberg when he started this book, which gave him a unique perspective of the “current state of our politics.” He says that he didn’t write it as biography or literary criticism or history, although it ended up being “some combination of all three.” This, plus a good measure of personal memoir thrown in, adds a different twist and makes “Begin Again” quite deep.īut not too deep: there’s enough room here for readers to be moved by the parallels that Glaude draws between then and now, and how Baldwin perceived American society before his death.

“With that in mind,” says Glaude, “we have to gather ourselves to fight and to begin again.”

Baldwin, for instance “insisted that we reach for a better self….” He believes “the divisions in the country feel old and worn,” although we do have the tools to alter current racial and political climates. These are the things Baldwin spoke out against, says Glaude, and that we still grapple with – especially in the political climate in which we live. It’s been said that he saw “the lie” and wanted to give “warning” to White readers of the battle to come, but in truth, Glaude says, Baldwin wasn’t sure “whether white America was worthy of warning at all.” Our House First Time Home Buyer’s SeriesĪuthor James Baldwin keenly felt both and during his career, he demanded, through his writing, that America come to terms with “this so-called democracy.” Baldwin was tired of a “set of practices” Glaude calls “the lie,” or “more properly several sets of lies” meant to keep racism alive in as many American systems as possible.īaldwin saw “the lie” and it enraged him: once, early in the Civil Rights Movement, he made a group of Black college students promise that they would never take to heart “the lies” they heard about themselves.BOOK REVIEW: 'Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own' by Eddie S.

Glaude begin again