The Fire Is Upon Us
James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America
Two men argue the American dream at Cambridge in 1965, and neither ever really stops.
In 1965 James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. debated at the Cambridge Union on whether the American dream had been achieved at the expense of Black Americans. Buccola uses that evening as the frame for a dual biography, tracing both men from childhood to the stage and showing how completely their positions were formed before either spoke. Baldwin won the vote overwhelmingly, and Buckley never got over it.
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