Anthology: The Fire This Time, edited by Jesmyn Ward

The Fire This Time, edited by Jesmyn Ward, is a collection of writings in response to the racism that is an integral part of North American, white supremacist society. The title is a reference to James Baldwin’s classic writing on the same issues, more than 50 years ago, a reference that Ward makes explicit in her introduction.

“I read Baldwin’s essay “Notes of a Native Son” while I was in my mid-twenties, and it was a revelation. I’d never read creative nonfiction like Baldwin’s, never encountered this kind of work, work that seemed to see me, to know I needed it. I read it voraciously, desperate for the words on the page. I needed to know that someone else saw the myriad injustices of living while black in this country, that someone so sharp and gifted and human could acknowledge it all, and speak on it again and again. Baldwin was so brutally honest. His prose was frank and elegant in turn, and I returned to him annually after that first impression-forming read. Around a year after Trayvon Martin’s death, a year in which black person after black person died and no one was held accountable, I picked up The Fire Next Time, and I read: “You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger. I tell you this because I love you, and please don’t you ever forget it.” It was as if I sat on my porch steps with a wise father, a kind, present uncle, who said this to me. Told me I was worthy of love. Told me I was worth something in the world. Told me I was a human being. I saw Trayvon’s face, and all the words blurred on the page.

It was then that I knew I wanted to call on some of the great thinkers and extraordinary voices of my generation to help me puzzle this out. I knew that a black boy who lives in the hilly deserts of California, who likes to get high with his friends on the weekend and who freezes in a prickly sweat whenever he sees blue lights in his rearview, would need a book like this. A book that would reckon with the fire of rage and despair and fierce, protective love currently sweeping through the streets and campuses of America. A book that would gather new voices in one place, in a lasting, physical form, and provide a forum for those writers to dissent, to call to account, to witness, to reckon. A book that a girl in rural Missouri could pick up at her local library and, while reading, encounter a voice that hushed her fears. In the pages she would find a wise aunt, a more present mother, who saw her terror and despair threading their fingers through her hair, and would comfort her. We want to tell her this: You matter. I love you. Please don’t forget it.”

Every piece in this collection is important in what it says, and what it asks the reader to contemplate. These are powerful pieces, poems, personal narratives, essays, examinations, exhortations, accusations, inspirations. They talk about growing up black. About walking while black. About the history of black people. About the deaths of Michael Brown, and Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, and Rekia Boyd, and the Charleston church worshippers and Sandra Bland and too many others. About white rage and black mourning. About knowing your rights, and knowing how to behave when you’re stopped for breathing while black. About being a black parent, knowing what you must say to your black child, in the hopes of keeping them alive. About being black in America.