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The Fire Next Time occupies a significant transitional space in American history. The essays (both published individually in 1962) speak of the struggle for equality and the civil rights movement. The title of the book suggests that ruin and violence will ensue if the animosity between races continues. In the years that followed, key civil rights advocates were assassinated, including John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, and Malcom X. Before the end of the decade, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., were also assassinated. Baldwin’s warning was quite prophetic. He wrote, but never published, a manuscript (Remember This House), which contained his recollections of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In “Down at the Cross,” Baldwin states that Black Americans’ perspectives shifted, based on the differing perceptions of the country held by Black people and white people. One of the examples that he gives is that Black people would be less likely to support future foreign wars. Earlier in the essay, Baldwin states that many of his peers joined the military without reservation when he was a teenager (during World War II). A few years after it was published, the United States would become actively involved in the Vietnam War, which quickly became a point of contention during the civil rights movement. Many Black Americans refused to be drafted, questioned the moral grounds of the war, and were disproportionately more likely to be drafted. This included heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, at the time, a member of the Nation of Islam, who notably refused to be drafted and was stripped of his title and boxing license.

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