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

57 Post Street,San Francisco CA 94104

29 July, 2021

Description

with author Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Cosponsored by Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) Cosponsored by Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) According to Professor Eddie S. Glaude,Jr., we are in the after times-- when the Black Lives Matter movement gave voice for change in America and was challenged and violently suppressed-- demonstrating another failure of this country to face racial justice. For James Baldwin, these after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when a similar national confrontation with the truth was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In these years, spanning from the publication of The Fire Next Time in 1963 to that of No Name in the Street in 1972, Baldwin transformed into a more overtly political writer, a change that came at great professional and personal cost. But from that journey, Baldwin emerged with a sense of renewed purpose about the necessity of pushing forward in the face of disillusionment and despair. In the story of Baldwin’s crucible, Glaude suggests, we can find hope and guidance through our own after times, of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Mixing biography, uncovered interviews, history, memoir, and analysis of our current moment, Begin Again is Glaude’s endeavor, following Baldwin, to bear witness to the difficult truth of race in America today. Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University, where he is also the Chair of the Center for African American Studies and the Chair of the Department of African American Studies. In addition to Begin Again, he is the author of Democracy in Black. The Mechanics' Institute Library and Chess Room is a historic membership library, cultural event center, and chess club located in the Financial District of San Francisco, California at 57 Post Street. Founded in 1854 to serve the vocational needs of out-of-work gold miners, the Institute today is a favorite of avid readers, writers, downtown employees, students, film lovers, chess players, and the 21st century nomadic worker who needs a quiet place to plug in a laptop and do research.