America has remained in the dying segregation era’s funeral procession for decades

Evidence

In his reflections on Dr. King, Baldwin wrote that we were witnessing the death of segregation as we knew it, and the question was how long and how expensive the funeral would be. If only he knew. We are still in that funeral procession. To be sure, a world is dying, but we have been slow-walking to put it in the grave, and the costs are mounting. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 282

Categorization

• DEFINE: Directly illustrates the book’s core concept of ‘the after times’ — the period after a failed reckoning — dramatized as an endlessly prolonged funeral procession.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s argument for recanonizing late Baldwin; this is Baldwin on King being read as prophetic of the present.