Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

I started reading Baldwin seriously in graduate school.

I fell in love with the sound of his voice, the power of his pen, his courage, the way he queered politics, how he inhabited his own misfittedness, the way in which he balanced his rage and love.

I'm the author of Begin Again, James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.

You know, I had been thinking I was going to write this intellectual biography of Baldwin.

And I was having all of this trouble.

The archives weren't

weren't yielding what I hoped they would yield.

I'm in Heidelberg, and I experienced this horrible scene.

As we entered the station, I heard screaming.

People in front of us stood still and stared at some kind of commotion.

I followed their eyes.

Four policemen were piled on a Black man.

One officer had his knee in the man's back.

The others twisted his arms.

His pants were halfway down his legs.

His bare ass was exposed.

The police pressed his head down into the concrete as if they were trying to leave the imprint of a leaf there.

With each attempt to cuff him, the man let out a blood-curdling scream.

All eyes were on him as the crowd stood by and watched intently, like spectators at a soccer game without any real attachment to the team's playing.

I watched them as they watched the police and the black man.