Later, Baldwin came to see the early history of America as the site of our Fall. In February 1969, Baldwin wrote in The New York Times, For the sake of one’s sanity, one simply ceases trying to make them hear. If they think that things are more important than people—and they do—well, let them think so. Let them be destroyed by their things. If they think I was happy being a slave and am now redeemed by having become—and on their terms, as they think—the equal of my overseers, well, let them think so. If they think I am flattered by their generosity in allowing me to become a sharecropper in a
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