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The Fire Next Time (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)

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Novelist William Styron once remarked that The Fire Next Time shook the conscience of a nation, and that claim was no exaggeration. The book appeared at an edgy moment in American race relations; those fighting for social change were seeking tactics to face down segregationist practices that were, in many communities, centuries old. Baldwin wrote a plea that called for nothing less than an activism of all Americans, whom he urged to reconsider the true state of their land in order “to end the racial nightmare … and change the history of the...

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