The after times consolidate with Ronald Reagan’s election.

Evidence

I have taken the title of this book from a passage in James Baldwin’s last novel, Just Above My Head. In light of the collapse of the civil rights movement and the consolidation of the after times with the election of Ronald Reagan, Baldwin offered these words for those who desperately sought to imagine a way forward: “Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.” Begin again is shorthand for something Baldwin commended to the country in the latter part of his career: that we reexamine the fundamental values and commitments that shape our self-understanding, and that we look back to those beginnings not to reaffirm our greatness or to double down on myths that secure our innocence, but to see where we went wrong and how we might reimagine or re-create ourselves in light of who we initially set out to be. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 559

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘begin again’ as Baldwin’s core late-career demand: reexamine foundational values to see where America went wrong, not to reaffirm greatness.
• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated purpose of defining ‘the after times’ and defending late Baldwin; ties back to chapter framing on Reagan as the consolidation point.