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PARTISAN REVIEW
South was this dreadful paradox, that the black men were stronger
than the white. I do not know how they did it, but it certainly has
something to do with that, as yet, unwritten history of the Negro woman.
What it comes to, finally, is that the nation has spent a large part of
its time and energy looking away from one of the principal facts of its
life. This failure to look reality in the face diminishes a nation as it
diminishes a person, and it can only be described as unmanly. And
in
exactly the same way that the South imagines that it "knows" the
Negro, the North imagines that it has set him free. Both camps are
deluded. Human freedom is a complex, difficult-and private--thing.
If
we can liken life, for a moment, to a furnace, then freedom is the
fire which burns away illusion. Any honest examination of the national
life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom
with
which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone
who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achieve–
ments must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person.
If
we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of
the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of
nations.
James Baldwin
