Rand Abdel-Fattah

He was a nomad, spending many years living abroad in France and other parts of Europe.

And whether it was because of the color of his skin, his sexuality, or his fiercely independent thinking, he could never escape being alone.

And the more successful he became as a writer, the more the loneliness followed him.

You know what I love about the way that you're

that you're talking about James Baldwin is, or Jimmy, you've referred to him as Jimmy a few times.

Is this sense of intimacy I feel listening to you talk about him, that you almost know him?

I mean, do you feel that?

I mean, his words resonate so much today as you're repeating them back to us.

I mean, do you feel that he is, his message and his ideas resonate

apply just as much today as they did then?

Did he come out of the civil rights movement feeling...

Hopeful.

Because I look at the moment that we're in now and there's a lot of potential for change.

There's a lot of potential for a real kind of awareness, a reckoning with our history.

But there's also a potential for things to continue.

And I guess I wonder, is the ultimate kind of takeaway from Baldwin a sense of hope in where the country's headed?

Eddie Glaude is a professor at Princeton University and author of Begin Again, James Baldwin's America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.

I'm Randa Abdel-Fattah, and you've been listening to ThruLine from NPR.

And me.

And.