Through the humanizing first-person viewpoint, Baldwin exhorts, inspires, and enjoins all human beings to aspire to justice and equality for all, wherein integration is not the end goal but instead a co-creation of equality. Baldwin’s essays educate all people, but in particular White people, as to the realities of African American experience in the United States to create change where he can. However, the “black God” offered by Islam fairs no better in Baldwin’s estimation primarily because it too fails to demand or to achieve justice, instead focusing on the wrongs committed by the “white devils,” condemning White people as automatic enemies of all African Americans and reducing the argument to an “us versus them” polemic. These examples of his emotional, metaphysical, and spiritual struggle act as the philosophical argument that ultimately condemns Christianity as a tool of a “white God” that encourages African Americans to wait to be rewarded for their current suffering in heaven. Baldwin’s condemnation of both the church and the mosque is structured as a rhetorical examination in which Baldwin logically supports his points using examples from his life. In this essay, Baldwin exploits several important rhetorical devices through the co-option of both the epistolary and sermonic rhetorical structures that deepen his theme: Christianity and Islam hamper African Americans from demanding equality and civil rights.

The second essay-“Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in my Mind”-is addressed to a broader audience, and its tone is reminiscent of a preacher’s sermon. In this letter, Baldwin urges his nephew not to allow himself to become enraged over the systemic, legal, and socioeconomic discrimination meted out by the White elite power structure, but instead to adopt a more universal, even compassionate, view of racial tensions. The reader immediately becomes a stand-in for the addressee-James, a proud, intelligent, and angry young man, beloved by his uncle. This strategy is particularly effective in the first essay-“My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation”-addressed to Baldwin’s nephew, James, named after the author by the author’s brother. These epistolary essays co-opt the letter format to create a sense of immediacy and connection between the writer and the audience.

Baldwin the fire next time