The Fire This Time

“I know little. But I know what a good portion of Americans think of my worth. Their disdain takes form. In my head, it is my dark twin. Sometimes I wonder which of us will be remembered if I die soon [...]. Will I be a vicious menace, like Trayvon Martin? An unhinged menace, like Tamir Rice? A monstrous menace, like Mike Brown? An unreasonable menace, like Sandra Bland? A sly menace, like Emmett Till?”

Anthology editor Jesmyn Ward meditates on the deaths of unarmed black Americans, whom white people tend to villainize out of disdain, fear, and hatred. Ward, however, considers the humanity of Trayvon Martin and others, as well as the tragedy of their loss in acts of racially motivated violence.  

“If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world. If we do not dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by the slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!” 

Near the end of Jesmyn Ward’s Introduction, she quotes this passage from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, the title that inspired this anthology. Baldwin issues this call to action for the betterment of race relations in America and warns that a great disaster may visit the U.S. if readers fail to pursue change. “The fire next time” comes from a slave spiritual referencing the biblical flood and predicting a flaming judgment on the earth. 

“Georgie ’n’ em got Grandaddy laid out in the front room like a piece of furniture and ushers fanning the top of Grandmama’s head. We couldn’t find our place in the business of departing: hams out the oven, lemon cake iced, organ tuned, tea made, napkins folded, the children’s black patent leather shoes set out for the dirt road come morning.”

The speaker of Kima Jones’s hybrid poem describes her grandfather’s funeral and the flurry of activity surrounding his death. She depicts specific, sensory details that evoke the Southern environment, foodways, and traditions that make up her home. 

“If I knew anything about being black in America it was that nothing was guaranteed, you couldn’t count on a thing, and all that was certain for most of us was a black death. In my mind, a black death was a slow death, the accumulation of insults, injuries, neglect, second-rate health care, high blood pressure and stress, no time for self-care, no time to sigh, and in the end, the inevitable, the erasing of memory. I wanted to write against this, and so I was writing a history of the people who I did not want to forget.” 

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s conception of “black death” incorporates the themes woven throughout the anthology: memory, the value of black life, and the power of the written word. Ghansah’s essay considers the dead, including her grandfather and James Baldwin, and asks how to dignify and preserve the stories they left behind. She also resists the pervasive devaluation of African Americans through writing. 

“Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.”

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah quotes James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time as she wrestles with his legacy. Although Ghansah was disillusioned about the deaths of African Americans, she observed in Baldwin’s writing a more hopeful view of death. In this passage, Baldwin pierces through the tangle of human society and perceives the solidity of death contained therein. Rather than fearing or resenting this truth, he encourages readers to embrace their lives.

“[...] I remembered how easy it was for me to ignore what was already obvious, so I wrote down some details to remind myself of what I shouldn’t forget: people were carried like chattel on ships to America; they were sold to other people; they were stripped of their names, spiritual practices, and culture; they worked their entire lives without just compensation; they were beaten into submission and terrorized or killed if they chose not to submit; when they died they were buried in the ground at the far edge of town; and as the town grew, roads and houses were built on top of them as if they had never existed.”

In her struggle to emotionally engage with the undignified burial of slaves, Wendy S. Walters forced herself to confront the horrors they endured. Her act of remembrance also speaks to the anthology’s larger message of facing the harsh truths of history to develop empathy, understand current events, and pursue future change.

“We seem to be in a continuing feedback loop of repeating a past that our country has yet to address. Our history is one of spectacular achievement (as in black senators of the Reconstruction era or the advances that culminated in the election of Barack Obama) followed by a violent backlash that threatens to erase the gains and then a long, slow climb to the next mountain, where the cycle begins again.”

This statement encapsulates the central message of Isabel Wilkerson’s essay, which explores the cyclical nature of African American civil rights. She mentions specific events that many hoped would encourage forward momentum, yet white power structures obstructed that momentum, forcing black Americans to fight the same fight all over again. The empowerment of African Americans after the abolition of slavery and in the election of President Barack Obama produced great joy, but not the long-term gains that were hoped for.  

“Rather than verifying facts about America’s first black poet, which had been my intention, I realized literary history had entrusted the story of Wheatley and Peters to a white woman who may have made assumptions about Wheatley’s husband that might not just be wrong, but also the product of racial stereotypes.”

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’s essay identifies a strong strain of white supremacy in the scholarship about poet Phillis Wheatley. The many who relied on Margaretta Matilda Odell’s biography of Wheatley failed to see the deep flaws in her portrayal of Wheatley’s husband, which likely speaks to Odell’s racial biases. Odell depicted John Peters as proud and negligent with little support for her claims. 

“Maybe Peters thought Wheatley was beautiful. He was drawn to her delicate face, to her very dark skin, her full lips, her tight, kinky hair, to the ring in her nose that might have been an ornament she carried from across the water.” 

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers recommends that scholars do away with (or at least recontextualize) their use of Odell’s biography of Phillis Wheatley. Jeffers reimagines what Wheatley’s marriage with John Peters might have been like, considering that they might have shared a loving partnership. In this hypothetical scene, Jeffers shows John Peters reveling in his wife’s beauty. 

“[T]he real rage smolders in meetings where officials redraw precincts to dilute African American voting strength or seek to slash the government payrolls that have long served as sources of black employment. It goes virtually unnoticed, however, because white rage doesn’t have to take to the streets and face rubber bullets to be heard.”

In her essay, Carol Anderson posits that white rage undergirds the disempowerment of black Americans throughout history. Rather than loud, public protests, white establishments express their rage through subtle, institutional disenfranchisement of African Americans. She references black protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, who expressed their grief and rage over discrimination in public and faced rubber bullets during demonstrations.

“Maybe I come from a place where people

are always afraid of dying. 

Maybe that’s just what I tell myself 

so I don’t feel so alone in this body.”

Clint Smith’s poem speaks to the pervasive fear in the black community, threatened by violence from police, vigilantes, and institutions. The speaker expresses an alienation that he questions, perhaps ironically. This alienation connects with what Wendy S. Walters also explores in “Lonely in America.”

“This morning I woke from a ‘deep Negro sleep,’ as Senghor put it. I then took a black shower and shaved a black shave; I walked a black walk and sat a black sit; I wrote some black lines; I coughed black and sneezed black and ate black too. This last at least is literal: grapes, blackberries, the ripest plums.”

Kevin Young ends his fragmentary essay on black identity and racial passing by threading the word black throughout his daily routine. The repetition of this word emphasizes the ineffable nature of his identity, which someone like Rachel Dolezal could not possibly mimic. The repetition and rhythm also create a musical finale to the piece, which lands on a revelatory tone. He references the words of Leopold Senghor, the former Senegalese president and poet. 

“This stank wasn’t that stink. This stank was root and residue of black Southern poverty, and devalued black Southern labor, black Southern excellence, black Southern imagination, and black Southern woman magic. This was the stank from whence black Southern life, love, and labor came.”

Kiese Laymon celebrates his grandmother Catherine throughout his essay and describes her uniqueness with the words “stank” and “freshness” (119). Her chicken factory job left not only a literal smell on her clothes, but also a metaphorical “stank” that was the oppression of black people in the South. She resisted that devaluation in part through hard work and her flashy, homemade personal style. 

“Serendipity, a mentor once told me, is a secular way of speaking of grace; it’s unearned favor. Seen theologically, then, walking is an act of faith. Walking is, after all, interrupted falling. We see, we listen, we speak, and we trust that each step we take won’t be our last, but will lead us into a richer understanding of the self and the world.” 

Committed to walking the cities where he lived, Garnette Cadogan considered the fundamental dignity—and risk—in putting one foot in front of the other. He identifies the faith inherent in walking and how transformative it can be, as walking environments enriches one’s worldview.

“The captain, maybe noticing my shame, offered to give me a ride to the subway station. When he dropped me off and I thanked him for his help, he said, ‘It’s because you were polite that we let you go. If you were acting up it would have been different.’” 

After police surrounded and questioned Garnette Cadogan for suspected criminal activity, they released him, confused and humiliated, back to the streets of New York City. The police captain confirmed that Cadogan’s commitment to maintaining a calm, reasonable demeanor with police saved him from further detainment. However, Cadogan might have been justified for “acting up,” since he had done nothing to deserve this treatment. 

“[T]here really is no mode of empathy that can replicate the daily strain of knowing that as a black person you can be killed for simply being black: no hands in your pockets, no playing music, no sudden movements, no driving your car, no walking at night, no walking in the day, no turning onto this street, no entering this building, no standing your ground, no standing here, no standing there, no talking back, no playing with toy guns, no living while black.”

Claudia Rankine’s litany of forbidden behaviors highlights the arbitrary and confounding effects of racial profiling in America. African Americans can be subjected to terrible violence even when conducting themselves lawfully and normally. Rankine’s references to “standing your ground” and “playing with toy guns” might refer to Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice, respectively, as these phrases describe key circumstances surrounding the young men’s deaths.

“A sustained state of national mourning for black lives is called for in order to point to the undeniability of their devaluation. The hope is that recognition will break a momentum that laws haven’t altered.”

Claudia Rankine explains in part how the Black Lives Matter movement formed and why America must memorialize those lost to racially motivated violence. If Americans corporately grieved the dead, they might realize the humanity of African Americans and stop denying the reality of their systemic devaluation. Then, perhaps, the country would demonstrate a truer equality. 

“Protesters against police brutality dusted off some slogans from the civil rights era, such as ‘No justice—no peace!’ but others were au courant: ‘I can’t breathe,’ ‘Hands up, don’t shoot!’ ‘White silence is violence,’ and most poignant to me as a mother, ‘Is my son next?’” 

Describing the current climate after the deaths of unarmed black Americans, Emily Raboteau lists old and new phrases she heard in protests. The repetition of civil rights slogans speaks to the symmetry between the 1960s and the 2010s. The new phrases demonstrate the horror of the deaths of Eric Garner (“I can’t breathe”) and children like Tamir Rice.

“A woman depicted in the mural’s foreground holds a bullhorn to her mouth. A portion of the text reads, ‘Write down the officer’s badge number, name, and/or other identifying info. You don’t have to answer any questions from police.’ Her advice is specifically targeted to those at risk of being stopped and frisked.”

One of the Know Your Rights murals Emily Raboteau found referenced the stop-and-frisk tactics that New York police practiced for many years. These random searches, which were later outlawed, disproportionately affected communities of color. Through text and visuals, the mural tells community members how to resist this treatment from a constitutional standpoint.

“I had a father, and I had one because I made one. Or rather I composed a father from the men at hand, brothers who kept me long before Obama made it a project.3” 

The central conceit of Mitchell S. Jackson’s essay concerns the “composite father” he made from Big Chris, Sam, Anthony, Henry, and Wesley, each of whom taught him formative lessons. Jackson’s reference to President Barack Obama links to a long footnote, in which the writer describes Obama’s composite father and those of several other presidents. 

“[H]ead south on Mississippi 49, one-

by-one mile markers ticking off 

another minute of your life. Follow this

to its natural conclusion—dead end

at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where

rigging of shrimp boats are loose stitches

in a sky threatening rain.”

The American South emerges as a metaphor in this description from poet Natasha Trethewey. She selects vivid details like the highway, pier, and shrimp boats and infuses them with a suggestion of death. The “dead end” and dark clouds imply some unknown doom or ending, although the poem will end with a hopeful note. 

“One night we shut down the Manhattan Bridge and pushed deep into Crown Heights, an army of flashing blue lights at our backs. With no coordination, no grant dictating our steps or signs, no leader, we marched in lockstep with hundreds of thousands of protestors across the United States and then the globe, and the simple, resonating demand that black lives matter laid bare the twin lies of American equality and exceptionalism.”

Daniel José Older provides a first-person account of the New York City protests following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. This overwhelming crowd careened through an enormous city, proclaiming their outrage and forming a revolution as they went. Older identifies how America’s promises often fail to materialize for African Americans, since the country systematically devalues black life.

“Dear Mira and Leila, I’ve put off writing this letter to you for as long as I can, but I don’t think I can put it off any longer. Please know that there will be times when some people might be hostile or even violent to you for reasons that have nothing to do with your beauty, your humor, or your grace, but only your race and the color of your skin. Please don’t let this restrict your freedom, break your spirit, or kill your joy.”

Edwidge Danticat shares her letter to her daughter Mira and Leila, which expresses her desire both to protect and to encourage them. She writes with urgency, since at the time of her writing many young black people were being killed in acts of racially motivated violence. Danticat does not want her daughters to fear the future, but to advocate for a better one.