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Baldwin originally wrote this letter in 1962 for his nephew, also named James (after the author) upon the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s issuing of the Emancipation Proclaimation. That same year, the letter was published in The Progressive magazine. While genuinely addressed to Baldwin’s nephew, the letter also serves as an essay on the state of race relations and the civil rights movement in the United States at the time.

Read about the historical context for Baldwin’s essays being written in 1962.

Baldwin starts by describing his nephew as both tough and vulnerable and also as sharing with other men in their family an unwillingness to show weakness. James resembles his grandfather, who had a terrible life and gave up long before he died, because he believed in the labels white society gave him. Using the term “cities of destruction” coined by E. Franklin Frazier, Baldwin tells James he will have to overcome the difficult living conditions he was born into, but will only truly be destroyed if he, too, accepts white society’s labels. Baldwin reminisces about helping to raise his infant brother, James’s father. The world’s unkindness to Baldwin’s brother is part of the great crime that has been, and continues to be, perpetrated against all Black people. Their white countrymen are destroying the lives of Black people without knowing it, but also without wanting to know about it. Baldwin sarcastically describes whites as innocent and well-meaning. It’s as if white society does not know that James even exists as a human being. Acknowledging the hardships James has faced, he insists that love is the key to survival.

Read an explanation of a key quote (#1) from The Fire Next Time about the idea of willful ignorance.

Returning to the “cities of destruction” theme, Baldwin says that America placed James in a ghetto so he would die. The poor treatment James has received, and will continue to receive, is due entirely to the fact that he was born Black. White society has expected James to accept that he is worthless and to live a life of defeated mediocrity. Integration is a system that pressures James to become more like white people in order to be accepted. James does not need to try to become more like white people, because they still will not accept him, but James does need to accept white people with genuine love. It is the only hope white people have.

Read about the book’s Main Idea (#4): Racial tensions will ease when white people apply the standards they use for themselves to Black people.

Baldwin argues that whites are trapped by ignorance, unable to understand their history, and unable to release themselves from it. White people need to understand why they believe that Black people are inferior, if they are ever to overcome such feelings. Accepting that Black people are not inferior will be very hard for whites, because it will challenge their identity as white people. James needs to approach white people with love, so they can recognize themselves and stop “fleeing from reality and begin to change it.” Baldwin reminds James that he is part of a lineage of strong, hardworking people as well as a lineage of great poets, one of whom supplied lyrics of an African American Spiritual (the same one Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted in his “I Have a Dream” speech): “The very time I thought I was lost // My dungeon shook and my chains fell off.” This is the source of the title of the letter. Baldwin closes with the thought that while the country is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the celebration comes one hundred years too early. Black people cannot be free until they have helped white people gain the understanding and wisdom needed for them to be free as well. That day is still far off.

Read an explanation of a key quote (#2) about Baldwin’s advice to his nephew for getting by in the world.

Next section “Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind” Part 1

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