Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

In his last interview before his death, Baldwin called himself a despairing witness. The style of his writing changed in this period: He began experimenting with new techniques, employing Black English, adopting non-linear narrative forms, and drawing on Black musical influences. The darkness of Baldwin’s after times demanded different aesthetic choices than those characterizing his early works to better express his anguish and allow him to bear witness. Glaude posits that Baldwin’s work changed in response to the failures of the civil rights movement. Despite the end of segregation, the Civil Rights and Voting Right Acts, and Great Society programs aimed at creating more equity, the country remained steeped in racism. Poverty engulfed large swaths of Black America. Police harassment of Black people and the mass incarceration of Black men accelerated. In short, the belief that White people matter more than others remained prevalent, despite White America’s proclamations to the contrary. Moreover, White America was comfortable with that state of affairs, maintaining that the country had made sufficient progress in matters of race.

In the 1982 docudrama, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Baldwin retraces his time in the South during the civil rights movement, chronicling the collapse of one political order and the emergence of another.