He never turns his back on America, even in these darkest of hours in his life and in that of the country. He refused to cede the argument over the country to those who wanted Dr. King dead and cleaved to the idea of being white. After King’s death, he admitted that his strategy had to change, but he never tossed the country aside. Instead, Baldwin criticized America, as he wrote in No Name, “out of a passionate love, hoping to make the kingdom new, to make it honorable and worthy of life.”
