Analysis Of The Fire Next Time

A book that fully illustrates the hardships of dealing with the reconstruction of a nation after an era of slavery as well as concisely providing insight to a strong civil rights voice is “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin. His writing is a both an examination of race relations in a segregated America, and an impassioned plea for both whites and blacks to abandon the hate and embrace love as an outlet for their differences. The title of the book comes from an negro spiritual quotation that Baldwin directly relates to the inevitable consequences of continuing racial injustice: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!"
The book is broken up into two main sections; Both of which are letters composed by the James Baldwin, the first, “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation” and the second is, “Down At The Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind.” In the first letter to his nephew, Baldwin informs his nephew of the death of his nephew’s father. In the letter, it is clear that the mistreatment of blacks during reconstruction and the civil rights era was inhumane and cruel; often times, society neglected the fact that blacks as humans deserved equality. Baldwin tells younger James that his father “had a terrible life; he was defeated long before he died because, at the bottom of his heart, he really believed what the white people said about him.” James Baldwin is somewhat disgusted that the mistreatment of a man can happen in a land that boasts freedom and equality; not only does racism destroy the physce of it oppressed people but also dampens the establishment which negligently promotes it, which in this case, is the United States government. Baldwin end...

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...-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world’s most direct and virile, that American women are pure.” (Pg. 76)

For the author, this disconnection from reality only fuels feelings of inadequacy and resentment toward others. 

But despite all the anger and pain and harsh analysis that reverberates through the author’s writing, Baldwin’s primary message is that love and understanding is necessary to heal America’s continuing racial strife. The theme runs fluidly and consistently throughout the book, from Baldwin’s transformative period in the church, to his time as an established writer who found himself with many close white frien