Begin Again

James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

By: Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Narrated by: Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A powerful study of how to bear witness in a moment when America is being called to do the same.”—Time

James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race. What can we learn from his struggle in our own moment?

One of the Best Books of the Year: Time, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune • One of Esquire’s Best Biographies of All Time • Winner of the Stowe Prize • Shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice

“Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.”—James Baldwin

Begin Again is one of the great books on James Baldwin and a powerful reckoning with America’s ongoing failure to confront the lies it tells itself about race. Just as in Baldwin’s “after times,” argues Eddie S. Glaude Jr., when white Americans met the civil rights movement’s call for truth and justice with blind rage and the murders of movement leaders, so in our moment were the Obama presidency and the birth of Black Lives Matter answered with the ascendance of Trump and the violent resurgence of white nationalism.

In these brilliant and stirring pages, Glaude finds hope and guidance in Baldwin as he mixes biography—drawn partially from newly uncovered Baldwin interviews—with history, memoir, and poignant analysis of our current moment to reveal the painful cycle of Black resistance and white retrenchment. As Glaude bears witness to the difficult truth of racism’s continued grip on the national soul, Begin Again is a searing exploration of the tangled web of race, trauma, and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America.

The strength we need.

Thank you for this timely piece. Also, thank you for putting into words what we all know what we must do.

Stunning, beautiful, tragic and demanding

It is beautifully written and I could honestly listen to Glaude read anything. His voice is exacting yet calm, deliberate and angry, plaintive and hopeful. The book covers a massive amount of territory and Glaude does an extraordinary job of making the reader/listener feel as if we are there with him in the rooms, at the monuments, at the gravesites. I will relisten again to the entire book in a day or two.

A “Tough Love“ Letter to America

It is true gift to have the author as reader. In his own voice is captured both his reverence for the authentic and examined life of James Baldwin, as well as the hope against hope for a “New America” reflected in Baldwin’s image of a “New Jerusalem.” Will America find the grace and courage to mine the True Gold of equality and justice residing deep within its collective soul, which alone can bridge the “value gap” that riddles its history? Can America confront with courage the Original Sin that haunts and names the inequities of its institutions: that white lives matter more than those of color? This inbred fallacy is the fool’s gold that created America’s “house divided against itself.” What are the building blocks for a “New America?” We the people are the bricks and mortar. The collective soul of our nation is made up of each and every soul and psyche of its citizenship. It is a time of awakening for our nation. For too long we have been asleep to the projections of our shadow self that we allow the outwardly racist amongst us to carry. Baldwin sees them as the swaddling cloths that keep us comfortable in our compliance to an imperfect union. It is time to be stripped of such trappings of our infancy. Time for a nation to grow up to its potential as a more perfect union. Profoundly, it is the youth, black and white together, that are answering this call and leading the way. Will America follow?
Karen Hylen

I did not know.......I find myself repeating these words frequently......

Excellent book packed with historical information about Baldwin and the civil rights movement. Learned about the museum in Montgomery and now will need to take a visit.

Baldwin was a serious man. I will read more of his writings. Thank you Dr. Glaude. You have done a great service to help us navigate these days and understand the ramifications of “the lie”.

Baldwin Unfurled

As if unpacking an attic stowed box of family heirlooms, Dr. Glaude does the same for James Baldwin's work. Piece by piece he shows Baldwin's relevance for our time and places his work on display...