I bought this book about three years ago. It rolled around from one part of the basement to another, finding itself in boxes to be donated, but it never quite made it out of the house. It wasn’t until I read Eddie Glaude Jr.’s Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul that I decided to give it a try. It was the way Glaude spoke in Democracy in Black that led me to finally give Begin Again a try. I’m glad I did.
The essence of Begin Again is Glaude’s attempt to tell James Baldwin’s story against the era he lived in and juxtapose it against the first Trump administration. He thinks along with Baldwin and writes Begin Again as if Baldwin is narrating current times. Considering this book was written during Trump’s first term, it would be interesting to see how Glaude would add to the narrative now that Trump has actualized a number of the initiatives he couldn’t enact during his first term.
The heart of Begin Again is Chapter 1, “The Lie.” Baldwin, much like Stokely Carmichael, believed that white people had to save themselves. Baldwin states that “white people debase and defile themselves” by the way they debase and defile people of color. He also states that “repeated betrayals create unexpected enemies.” The lie permeates throughout the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
The Declaration of Independence states that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, …” while the 14th Amendment, Section 1 of the Constitution forbids states from denying any person “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” or denying anyone “the equal protection of the laws.” Begin Again asserts that if you can convince yourselves that people of color are less than human, then these rights don’t extend to them.
The remaining chapters build on this premise, culminating in the final chapter, Begin Again, where, in order to overcome the past, we Americans have to accept the lie and realize that we have fallen way short of the idealistic rhetoric of equal treatment under the law, etc. How ironic, as the Trump administration works to rewrite history and further substantiate the lie.
If you’re a James Baldwin fan and want to see current times matched against the tumultuous times of the ’50s and ’60s as told by Baldwin expert Eddie Glaude Jr., this is the perfect book for you, and you’ll enjoy it. If you’re a historian and like to see the symmetry in history, you’ll enjoy it as well. If you’re like me and just want people to understand that electing a Black president didn’t eliminate racism, it’s also a perfect read.