Rand Abdel-Fattah

On the one hand, it's that sort of self-preservation reflex that we have on both that sort of micro and macro level.

And it just makes me think, you know, there's a certain vulnerability that it takes to own up to a lie and to look it straight in the eye and say, this is not the truth.

And so in some ways, you know, that process of confrontation that you yourself, it seems, had to go through just to tackle this subject is also sort of a process of confrontation that Baldwin was saying the country needed to experience.

When we come back, James Baldwin refuses to take the bribe

and pays a heavy price.

Part 2.

The Bribe

And then there was the more radical wing, often called the Black Power Movement, with groups like the Black Panthers who vowed to defend themselves and their communities with arms if necessary.

They were painted as extremist and dangerous by much of the mainstream media.

I'm sorry.

No, don't apologize.

I mean,

There's something in that emotion that you're expressing, just the literal feelings that are bubbling up that come through in so many of Baldwin's writings, right?

He had so much emotion packed into what he was saying because of the things he was seeing, right?

And he was angry.

And I wonder what you make of that anger and anger

how it related to the country's anger.

I mean, was he channeling it?

What James Baldwin can teach us about dealing with our loneliness when we come back.

Throughout his life, James Baldwin felt the solitude of being an outsider.