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

Chapter 4 addresses the shift in Baldwin’s work and politics in the wake of the civil rights era, during the rise of Black militancy.

The Black Panther Party formed in 1966 in response to growing poverty, chronic unemployment, and increasing police violence against Black people. Young militants rejected the non-violence advocated by King and the NAACP. For them, revolution was the only path forward. Baldwin took a more nuanced stance, seeing morality (rather than power and policy) as the key to creating a more just society. While he understood that the climate called for a radical course of action and that White America’s continued racism made Black Power necessary, Baldwin both supported of the movement and criticized it. For example, he rejected Black Power’s separatist stance, as well as its call for solidarity based on essentialist ideas of Blackness. Nevertheless, he saw the movement as a justifiable response to the betrayal of the civil rights movement.

Glaude argues that King’s death was a pivotal moment for Baldwin. His work turned inward, focusing on what Black people could do to secure their freedom. In other words, his target audience shifted from White to Black people. Scholars typically describe Baldwin’s post-1963 career as a period of decline inflected by his rage and militant politics.