Late Baldwin concluded white Americans must save themselves, ceasing his saving work.

Evidence

In the full view of the wreckage of the movement, Baldwin realized he could not save white Americans. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how often he prophesied doom, the country refused to change. America simply doubled down on its ugliness, in different ways. White Americans, he concluded, had to save themselves. This shift in the later work of Baldwin—what the writer Michael Thelwell described to me as “the shift in Baldwin’s we”—disturbed and unsettled those who had previously celebrated his genius. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 54

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s thesis that late Baldwin, dismissed as bitter, is the essential one — the shift being from saving whites to refusing that burden.
• SEED: The ‘shift in Baldwin’s we’ is a perfect framing device for an essay defending the late Baldwin against accusations of pessimism.