We have been here before: For James Baldwin, these after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when a similar attempt to compel a national confrontation with the truth was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. From Charlottesville to the policies of child separation at the border, his administration turned its back on the promise of Obama’s presidency and refused to embrace a vision of the country shorn of the insidious belief that white people matter more than others. Glaude, Jr., in a moment when the struggles of Black Lives Matter and the attempt to achieve a new America have been challenged by the election of Donald Trump, a president whose victory represents yet another failure of America to face the lies it tells itself about race. "A powerful study of how to bear witness in a moment when America is being called to do the same." ( Time ) Shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by Chicago Tribune and One of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post and Time In our own moment, when that confrontation feels more urgently needed than ever, what can we learn from his struggle? James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race.
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