On The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin published in nineteen sixty-two:
Are we playing with the matches to an unquenchable fire?
James Baldwin was a freelance writer who published a variety of popular books before, during, and after the American Civil Rights Movement. The Fire Next Time is a short book that cuts to the divide between people in the 1960’s United States and, arguably, everywhere else.
Baldwin writes with cunning, courage, and consilience as he summarizes the traumas, fears, hypocrisies, and hopes of majority and minority populations in the United States. Baldwin also reveals the fear and stupidity of humanity as he delivers historical and practical context from his life and the lives of his ancestors… as he warns against further hate, violence, and oppression.
Baldwin condemns the greed, divisiveness, and insecurities that drive hate and bloodshed. Are we living up to Baldwin’s admonishments? Or, are we dividing and destroying? Are we building and repairing? Or, are we playing with the matches to an unquenchable fire?
Sources:
Baldwin, James. (1962). The Fire Next Time. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Wikicommons (2023). Search media – Wikimedia Commons: U.S. Information Agency (1963), Nationaal Archief (1974), & Allen Warren (1969). Search James Baldwin on Wikimedia.org:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=James+baldwin&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image
Deliberating Truth 