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My first video essay is now live! Thanks to the readers for your continued support. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.
Lately I’ve had this little black book of James Baldwin’s collected essays by my side, and I’ve kept going back to it. In its pages is my favorite quote:
“There is a reason, after all, that some people wish to colonize the moon, and others dance before it as before an ancient friend.”
I first read those words on a quote card years ago. It wasn’t until I spent hours with his essays that I understood what he actually meant. Spoiler… it was not what I thought.
Baldwin would be 102 today (8/2). So what better day to engage with his legacy.
If you’ve saved my free reading list, you’ll see Baldwin on there too. I hope you learn as much from his work as I have.
The Book:
James Baldwin, Collected Essays (Library of America, 1998), ed. Toni Morrison
Passages I cite in the video:
The moon passage — No Name in the Street (1972), p. 473
The restaurant — “Notes of a Native Son” (1955), p. 71
The letter to his nephew — “My Dungeon Shook,” in The Fire Next Time (1963), pp. 294–295
“Relatively conscious” / “like lovers” — “Down at the Cross,” in The Fire Next Time, p. 346
Thanks for watching! I didn’t put this behind a paywall because I want it to stay open for anyone who needs it. But if you want this newsletter to continue, become a paid subscriber at $8 a month or $80 a year. Your support keeps the lights on and allows me to keep finding the stories from history you won’t find anywhere else.
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