The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
This was a short but so very powerful listen.
I listened to this after hearing about it from my friend Jamila and I’m so grateful she shared her thoughts and feelings.
Here is a description:
“A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose,” The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature.”
I sheepishly admit that I first learned about James Baldwin only a couple of years ago when I watched the documentary “I Am Not Your Negro”.
I had just begun the process of waking up to the reality of racial injustice in this country & dismantling the whitewashed history I have been taught my whole life.
I began to see that my view of the world was quite narrow and extremely limited, thanks to women of color in my Be The Bridge group sharing with me and educating me with LOADS of patience, wisdom, and love.
I began to realize that I desperately needed to listen to marginalized voices and learn how to hear their stories, experiences and perspectives…even if that meant it would shatter my view of the world and make me extremely uneasy.
The words in James Baldwin’s writing are beautiful, passionate, heartbreaking, and haunting…
filled with frustration, pain and righteous anger yet also with undeniable strength, love and determined hope.
Read it.
Or listen to it.
Hear his words.
I was in a state of lament the whole time I listened.
As we should be as white people.