The Fire Next Time

Name: The Fire Next Time
Rating: 4 (1 reviews)
Author: James Baldwin
ISBN: 9780679744726

James Baldwin • 1963

Devastation Rating

Emotionally Ruined

race America history essay

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Our Take

Two essays — a letter to his nephew and an account of meeting Elijah Muhammad — and Baldwin dismantles every American comfort about race in 128 pages. The title is from a spiritual: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time. He was not speaking metaphorically.

Appears In

► Civil Rights — The Movement and Its Cost ► Queer Non-Fiction — The Life That Dared to Be Documented ► Slavery's Long Shadow — History That Lives in the Present

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