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

Glaude stresses the importance of the truth in combating the myriad lies White America tells about itself, its history, and Black people. These lies include White claims to morality and Christianity, even as much of White America supports an openly racist president. The lies also cast Black people as lazy, dishonest, overly sexual, prone to criminality, and dependent on government handouts, to justify racial inequality and maintain the value gap. Falsehoods about American history are also central to White identity. These promote the notion of an innocent country and dismiss historical atrocities, such as the genocide of Native people, slavery, Japanese internment, and the unequal treatment of women, as minor missteps on the road to a more perfect union. Invested in maintaining this identity, White people twist historical events to perpetuate the story of an innocent, fundamentally good America.

To counter this, Glaude prescribes telling unvarnished versions of the past in schools, books, films, and other media and highlights the central importance of Institutions devoted to truth telling. The Legacy Museum and Lynching Memorial in Montgomery are exemplary in this regard, providing a strong counter-narrative to false historical commemoration, such as Confederate monuments. The Legacy Museum and Lynching Memorial provide unique opportunities to interrogate the country’s history of racial injustice by immersing visitors in the sights and sounds of the slave trade, Jim Crow laws, and the world’s largest prison system.