Donn Harris

James Baldwin, line for line, fiction or essay, is one of our best writers -- his words are a lance, and the wounds will bleed: yet they don't have to be fatal. "The Fire Next Time" is his tightest prose, his most intimate and vulnerable offering, and straight white America would do well to read, listen and understand, deeply understand. This book is a must read for race relations, education, US History, but probably most important is its role in the coming of age of his nephew, and beyond that to black youth and all youth of rebellion, of difference, of challenge to the status quo. Baldwin may not have known it, but this work is an early anthem for #BlackLivesMatter.