Letter to James Baldwin (in lieu of a ‘Letter to Barack Obama’)

Editorial Note : This letter was first published in June 2010  as “Dear James Baldwin (in lieu of Dear Barack Obama)”  on the now defunct Red Room authors and books website. It is shared below on the eve of what would have been Baldwin’s 97th birthday.
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For many, letter-writing as a literary tool for expressing personal reflections on public and private matters has yet to be surpassed by modern conveniences like emails and texts. Letters somehow seem to emerge out of a deeper wellspring of ...