More prophetic power out of 90g than nuclear physicists could get out of a gram of uranium.
The Fire Next Time
In a letter to his nephew and a longer essay, Baldwin confronts the distance between America's promises and Black Americans' lives.
90g
Weighs the same as Headlamp
- Ultralight
- Changes the Way You See
- Nonfiction/Essays
James Baldwin published two essays as The Fire Next Time in 1963. The first, a letter to his nephew, says what we still need to hear. The second is a reckoning with race and faith in America that remains heartbreakingly relevant. Baldwin's prophetic power gets more out of its 90g than nuclear physicists could get out of a gram of uranium. A small book that asks a lot of you — and it will sit on your chest for the rest of the trail.
Field notes
Baldwin became a Pentecostal preacher at fourteen and spent three years in the pulpit before rejecting the church. Yet The Fire Next Time is unmistakably the work of a preacher. Its title comes from a Black spiritual's warning of divine judgment, and its second essay moves from Baldwin's religious awakening to a defining dinner with Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. Published during the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, the book turns the language of biblical prophecy against America's racial history. Baldwin had lost his faith in organized religion but retained its rhetorical power: the sermon became an instrument of national reckoning.