The Fire Next Time contains two powerful, profound, and intelligent essays written on racism. The first essay named “My Dungeons Shook” is a letter written to his nephew also named James and the second essay “Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind” chronicles Baldwin’s life in Harlem, his faith and loss of faith in Christian Church, his meeting with Elijah Muhammad and his refusal to join with the Nation of Islam.
The ideas exepressed in this short book is too powerful and come from the soul of a man who experienced racial injustice. To review such a work is impossible. What is penned here is my complete fascination with Baldwin’s impassioned narration of the state of the black people in a white America; their struggle to win equality in a white supremacy. His account is surprisingly unbiased. For a man who had to face discrimination for no other reason than his skin colour, Baldwin’s balanced views on racism are laudable. He’s at most frustrated but not bitter.
Baldwin’s notion for a racially united America is praiseworthy. He doesn’t advocate for segregation, a separate black community. This is one reason for his falling out with the Church and his flat refusal to join the Nation of Islam led by Elijah Muhammad. Nor he approves retaliation. Instead, he quite intelligently sets out acceptance and integration as the solution to quell racial division. He preaches this more to the black men than to the white, for he sees that acceptance must come from the oppressed towards the oppressor. In other words, black men must accept the white. Baldwin writes to his namesake nephew that “you must accept them (white people), and accept them with love, for these innocent people have no other hope.” He further says that white men are ignorant and “trapped in a history which they do not understand”. White men believe that black men are inferior to them, and it is the black men who must rise from the lower esteem in which they are held. They must break their chains and challenge the set boundaries to achieve greater heights. That is the only way to force integration with the white. Acceptance and integration would ensure equality and equality would set the foundation to a united America.
The book when published gave a strong voice to the emerging civil rights movement. Despite the expiration of 100 years of Emancipation Proclamation, the lives of the black Americans were hardly improved. They were second-hand citizens of the country in which they were born. They were denied the basic civil and human rights. In The Fire Next Time Baldwin exhorts both black and white Americans to act against racial injustice, demonstrating to the whites the struggle and suffering of their black brethren. Coming from his personal experience, it is a soulful appeal for understanding. At the same time, it’s a warning that failure to address racial injustice could cause greater destruction.
“God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!”
Rating: 4/5
