Being in the pulpit, was like being in the theatre; I was behind the scenes and knew how the illusion worked.
James A. BaldwinThe only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.
James A. BaldwinNo one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.
James A. BaldwinSometimes you hear a person speak the truth and you know that they are speaking the truth. But you also know that they have not heard themselves, do not know what they have said: do not know that they have revealed much more than they have said. This may be why the truth remains, on the whole, so rare.
James A. BaldwinPeople are continually pointing out to me the wretchedness of white people in order to console me for the wretchedness of blacks. But an itemized account of the American failure does not console me and it should not console anyone else. That hundreds of thousands of white people are living, in effect, no better than the "niggers" is not a fact to be regarded with complacency. The social and moral bankruptcy suggested by this fact is of the bitterest, most terrifying kind.
James A. BaldwinPeople who have been wronged will attempt to right the wrong; they would not be people if they didn't. They can rarely afford to be scrupulous about the means they will use. They will use such means as come to hand. Neither, in the main, will they distinguish one oppressor from another, nor see through to the root principle of their oppression.
James A. Baldwin