''The Fire Next Time'' is a 1963

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...

book by

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; de ...

, containing two

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

s: "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation" and "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind". The book's title comes from a couplet in "

Mary Don't You Weep "Mary Don't You Weep" (alternately titled "O Mary Don't You Weep", "Oh Mary, Don't You Weep, Don't You Mourn", or variations thereof) is a Spiritual that originates from before the American Civil War – thus it is what scholars call a "slave son ...

", an

African-American spiritual Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the ...

: The first essay, written in the form of a letter to Baldwin's 14-year-old nephew, discusses the central role of race in

American history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely ...

. The second essay, which takes up the majority of the book, deals with the relations between race and religion, focusing in particular on Baldwin's experiences with the

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

church as a youth, as well as the

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

ic ideas of others in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

. The two essays were first respectively published in American magazines in late 1962: "Letter from a Region of My Mind" in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', and "My Dungeon Shook" in '' The Progressive''. They were then combined and published in book form in 1963 by

Dial Press The Dial Press was a publishing house founded in 1923 by Lincoln MacVeagh. The Dial Press shared a building with ''The Dial'' and Scofield Thayer worked with both. The first imprint was issued in 1924. Authors included Elizabeth Bowen, W. R. Bu ...

, and in 1964 in Britain by

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.race relations Race relations is a sociological concept that emerged in Chicago in connection with the work of sociologist Robert E. Park and the Chicago race riot of 1919. Race relations designates a paradigm or field in sociology and a legal concept in the ...

in the 1960s. It was released in an audiobook format in 2008, narrated by

Jesse L. Martin Jesse Lamont Martin ('' né'' Watkins; January 18, 1969) is an American actor and singer. He originated the role of Tom Collins on Broadway in the musical ''Rent'' and performed on television as NYPD Detective Ed Green on '' Law & Order'' and ...

Content

The book includes two essays that were written in the 1960s during a time of segregation between White and Black Americans. In his essays, Baldwin’s purpose was to reach a mass white audience and help them to better understand Black Americans' struggle for equal rights. Looking at the time period in which Baldwin’s essays were published shows how purposefully each essay was constructed. At the time, the Civil Rights Movement was beginning to recognize the need for publicity, in particular “story-telling that would generate public support for the movement’s people and goals”. This was the context into which Baldwin’s essays were first published. What made Baldwin’s essays effective is that they were testimonial. Giving testimonial evidence about how racism in America has operated in real people’s lives is an effective strategy for connecting with an audience that is otherwise clueless. The book met both the needs of the Civil Rights Movement for publicity, but also an unspoken need of white audiences who did not understand the movement or the lives of the people involved. Although many of the ideas that Baldwin writes about in his essays were not new to black intellectualism, the way they were presented to their audience was. Baldwin’s writings profoundly “provoked and challenged the dominant white American frame for understanding race relations” during the time that they were first published.

My Dungeon Shook

The first essay, originally appearing in '' The Progressive'' magazine in 1962 and titled "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation", is a letter to Baldwin’s nephew in which he compares his nephew to the men in their family including Baldwin’s brother and father. He tells his nephew about America’s ability to destroy Black men and challenges his nephew to convert his anger due to mistreatment as a Black man into having a passionate and broad outlook on the African-American experience.

Down at the Cross

The second essay originally appeared in ''The New Yorker'' (1962) under the title "Letter from a Region in My Mind". Titled in the book as "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in my Mind", the essay addresses the detriment of Christianity on the Black community and Baldwin’s journey from being a teen pastor to completely pulling away from the church because it felt like a repression of his full experience of humanity. He then recounts his dinner with

Elijah Muhammad Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an African American religious leader, black separatist, and self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah, who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his de ...

where Muhammad educated Baldwin on the

Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African ...

in the hope of getting him to join the movement. In this section Baldwin describes how Black Muslims have made a "black god" to avoid the oppression of a "white god" that Christianity has established within the Black community.

Responses

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall wrote an article that focused on the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

, led by Martin Luther King Jr., building on Baldwin's work. Baldwin's piece examined the issue of racism mainly in his area of Harlem, New York, and Hall emphasized that the racial issue they confronted in America was not a sectional but a national problem. Another article that expands on Baldwin's new religious view was written by Jon Nilson, a theology professor. In ''The Fire Next Time'', Baldwin focused on how Christianity was corrupted. Observing that Baldwin challenged the Catholic Church, Nilson said that the April 1968

assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7 ...

had almost seemed like ''The Fire Next Time'' had come true. In December 2016, ''

Can I Get a Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin ''Creating Can I Get a Witness? The Gospel of James Baldwin'' is a 2016 musical theatrical tribute to writer James Baldwin created by musician Meshell Ndegeocello, it debuted in December 2016 at the Harlem Stage in Harlem, New York. The 2016 worl ...

'', a 2016 musical theatrical tribute to Baldwin by the musician Meshell Ndegeocello and based on ''The Fire Next Time'' was premiered at the Harlem Stage in Harlem. In July 2015, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an article in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' as a modernized version of Baldwin's letter to his nephew called "Letter to My Son", and later published an entire book called ''

Between the World and Me ''Between the World and Me'' is a 2015 nonfiction book written by American author Ta-Nehisi Coates and published by Spiegel & Grau. It is written as a letter to the author's teenage son about the feelings, symbolism, and realities associated wit ...

'' that talks about the current state of the Black experience in America.
- The title was alluded to in

Max Hastings Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings (; born 28 December 1945) is a British journalist and military historian, who has worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, editor-in-chief of ''The Daily Telegraph'', and editor of the ''Evening Standard' ...

' book ''America, 1968: The Fire This Time''.

References

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