Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Black Power could never overrun this robust idea of our individuality. Categories, especially racial categories, remain the bait in the trap. Instead, Baldwin insisted that we reach for a better self, and that involved leaving the “swaddling clothes” and certain “habits” behind. Swaddling clothes call forth the image of a baby, of innocence wrapped tight and secure. But in Baldwin’s hands, the clothes refer to a refusal to grow up, and those habits indicate an unwillingness to leave behind childish things. The text of 1 Corinthians 13:11 comes to mind: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.” America had to finally grow up. —