The paradox-and a fearful paradox it is-is that the American Negro can have no future anywhere, on any continent, as long as he is unwilling to accept his past. To accept one's past-one's history-is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought. How can the American Negro's past be used? The unprecedented price demanded-and at this embattled hour of the world's history-is the transcendence of the realities of color, of nations, and of altars.
( James Baldwin )
[ The Fire Next Time ]
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