Ramtin Arablui

Up to this point, judicial review had only been applied sporadically.

But in Marbury v. Madison, John Marshall formally established it.

In other words, this is the first time the Supreme Court flexed its power to say that what another branch of the federal government wanted to do was not constitutional.

A quick heads up before we get started.

This episode contains some strong language, including a racial slur and mention of suicide.

I'm Ramteen Adab.

Louis, you may have noticed the quote making the rounds on social media.

It goes, Those words were written by James Baldwin, whose voice you heard at the top, in an essay for the New York Times published in 1962.

For many people, it rings as true today as it did then.

The words have a power and clarity that seem to cut through time and space.

Baldwin was an insightful commentator on Black identity, American democracy, and racism.

He saw something deep and ugly and stubborn in American culture, and he never hesitated to call it by its name, to bear witness, regardless of what it cost him.

This is Eddie Glaude, Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University.

The intensity of that scene snapped things into focus for Eddie.

He wasn't gonna write an intellectual history of James Baldwin as he had originally planned.

He was gonna try and write with Baldwin, to try to put him in a deeper, more philosophical context and understand what his work offers us in our world.

He went back to his room and the words just started pouring out.

And to do it, he had to call back to when he started reading James Baldwin more than 30 years earlier.

In the book, you kind of refer to this notion that there's a kind of lie at the center of America's self-image.

And it's something that comes out in your voice and also in Baldwin's observations.