America’s refusal to heed Baldwin’s 1963 prophecy forced a radically new demand

Evidence

It was his unvarnished assessment of what had happened to the movement and to him. The book was, in a certain way, an answer to The Fire Next Time. America had refused to heed his prophetic call in 1963, and too many had paid the price of that refusal. Now the country faced the fire, and something radically different was required of us, and of him as an artist. Tinkering around the edges would only seal our fate. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 364

Categorization

• XREF: The late Baldwin answers the beloved early Baldwin — exactly the canon shift the reader argues for.