Glaude’s title of “Begin Again” [Crown Publishing, 2020] calls us to renewed action for racial justice. He gives hopeful examples of past Black rights gained, such as the civil rights laws during Reconstruction after the Civil War, and during the Black Power movement of the 1960s. Yet, he writes that each effort was followed by White backlash Baldwin calls the “After Times.”

 

We are again living in the “After Times” now! This book is not a hopeful story of change; this is a sobering book. Glaude Jr. quotes American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-African civil rights activist, W.E.B. Du Bois, when he says our task of “beginning again” is “a hope, not hopeless, but unhopeful.”

 

Baldwin tells of history and memory between what actually happened, and the kinds of stories we tell about what happened, and for what purpose. The American history we face is not a history of racial justice progress, but what Baldwin calls “the big lie” and the betrayal of history by white supremacy.

 

It is what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called “a poisonous fog of lies.” It is what Dubois called “lies agreed upon.” Decades ago, Dubois said what is true today: “We have too often a deliberate attempt to change the facts of history so that the story will make pleasant reading for White Americans.”

 

Baldwin proposed various solutions, writing, “A moral vision requires a confrontation with history, with slavery, and the ongoing consequences of the After Times, to establish the ground upon which to imagine the country anew.”

 

He said the story we tell about what the country is, and thus who we are, shapes the world we make going forward. After King Jr.’s death, Baldwin wrote, “The tangible things that happened to me – and to Blacks in America – during that whole terrible time was the realization that our destinies are in our hands, Black hands, and no one else’s.”

 

He added, “In their pursuit of a more just America, they made a choice to not adjust themselves to the status quo, and to put their bodies on the line for a different America where Black people, and those on the margins of this society, might flourish.”

 

According to Baldwin, “We must search for an elsewhere to begin anew – to love, to critically assess who we are and who we aspire to be, and to seek refuge in the margins, to fortify our imaginations so we can rejoin the battle.”

 

Baldwin also had some proposals for White people. “You have a lot to face… All that can save you now is your confrontation with your own history… which is not your past, but your present… But your history has led you to this moment, and you can only begin to change yourself and save yourself by looking at what you are doing in the name of your history.”

 

Glaude Jr. writes how “Whites use history to reinforce injustices of the past,” and discusses “all of this hard work, almost Sisyphean labor, in a country so wedded to its legends, and so in need of its illusions.” He adds, “Black folk have sacrificed generations trying to fight it all, and here we are still fighting for an understanding of American history that will finally set White folk free.”

 

Rev. Jim Fairbanks is editor of the “Saving Justice” newsletter, author of “The Religious Institutions of The Bronx and Manhattan,” a former minister, a former chief-of-staff for two council members, a College of New Rochelle adjunct professor, and a father.

 

Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is a Princeton University professor, author, political commentator, and public intellectual who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His New York Times bestseller, “Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own”, takes an exhaustive look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States, and the challenges we face as a democracy. 

 

Editor’s Note: In recognition of Black History Month, check out our latest Inquiring Photographer feature to see what local residents think about the proposed bipartisan African American History Act bill, introduced to Congress once again by Democratic co-sponsors, U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (NY-16) and U.S. Sen. Corey Booker (NJ) as reported, and which, if passed, would invest $10 million over the next 5 years to promote and support education programs dedicated to African American history.