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

Glaude compares his experiences living in Heidelberg, Germany, with Baldwin’s time in France. Leaving the US offered both men respite from the racism of American society, while language barriers sheltered them from the biases of their new surroundings. For Glaude, distance also brought the current state of US politics into sharper focus. Glaude’s approach to this book draws on his personal experiences, Baldwin’s life and writings, and history to provide insights into contemporary American society.

Glaude outlines two critical moments of moral reckoning in the country’s history: The Civil War and Reconstruction (the country’s second founding), undermined by Jim Crow laws; and the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century (the second Reconstruction), undone by calls for law and order and the tax revolt by the so-called silent majority. Both historical moments failed to uproot pernicious ideas about race that lie at the root of the country’s current crisis. Indeed, the abandonment of democratic ideals after the 2016 election of Donald J. Trump to the US presidency, as well as his cruel and bigoted policies, reveal that the notion that America is a country where “all men are created equal” is an outright lie.

Baldwin was disillusioned by Jim Crow and by the deaths of civil rights leaders, like Martin Luther King, Jr.