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The focus of Part 2 of “Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind” is the religious organization known as the Nation of Islam and its leader in the 1960s, Elijah Muhammad. Baldwin had not given the Nation of Islam much attention, because most of their message was (according to him) not very original, and the demand for a separate Black economy within the United States was nonsensical. Two things about the Nation of Islam that did catch Baldwin’s attention were their dealings with police and the way the crowds reacted to their leaders. Police were afraid to interfere with the Nation of Islam, often standing idle during rallies. Meanwhile, the crowds at the rallies listened intensely and intelligently, rather than with religious fervor. When Baldwin started to attend the rallies, the predominant message he heard was that white people were cursed and devils. This message struck him as no more or less plausible than the claim that Black people were descended from Noah’s son Ham, and cursed because of him (see Genesis 9:20–27). Baldwin notes that much of the success of the Nation of Islam could be traced back to the message that Black people had been lied to and that their suffering was coming to an end, because God was Black.

Baldwin next discusses how, over time, kingdoms and empires fall apart because the flaws in their doctrines are revealed. The German Third Reich permanently refutes any notion that Christian culture is somehow superior to other cultures. While white people were shocked by the events of the Holocaust, Black people were less surprised. Jews in Germany were probably given the same assurances against ethnic cleansing that Black people were in the United States. Baldwin then discusses the experience of Black American soldiers in World War II who faced racism and segregation before and after the war at home. They experienced more freedom while at war than in their homeland. After an event where Baldwin and two of his friends were treated poorly at a bar in Chicago, he realized he pitied white people so as not to despise them.

Read about a Main Idea (#1) in The Fire Next Time: The historical experience of Black people in America is unique.

On another visit to Chicago, Baldwin was invited to have dinner with Elijah Muhammad, who had seen Baldwin appear on a television program with Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam’s second-in-command. Baldwin was frightened when he arrived at Elijah’s home, because he felt he was “summoned into a royal presence.” He also knew that he could not smoke or drink alcohol once inside. Initially, Baldwin was led into a waiting room where the men were separated from the women. At dinner, the men ate at a separate table. Elijah came across as very charismatic and authentic. As Elijah made pronouncements and asked questions, all of the other men around the table murmured their agreement without actively participating. At one point, Elijah declared that Baldwin was not yet brainwashed and was trying to become himself. As the conversation shifted to race, Baldwin stated that he did not see white people as devils, despite all of his poor interactions with them. Elijah explained to Baldwin that the total destruction of white people had been delayed but was imminent. Baldwin thought that the only new feature of such a statement was its candor.

In response to hints that he might soon join the movement, Baldwin replied that he left the church 20 years prior and had not joined anything since then. He told Elijah that he had white friends and was not bothered by interracial marriages. The conversation struck him as a strange parallel to when white people would try to convince their peers that Black people were good and “not subhuman.” Elijah explains that one of the overarching goals was to acquire land and create a separate Black nation. Baldwin recognizes that the United States would never surrender any land, but also thinks about the impact of such an event and how it would shape the continent of North America. Elijah ultimately fails to persuade Baldwin to join them. Due to a difference in what each believed to be his responsibility, he and Elijah would “always be strangers.”

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