Race, Rage, and Redemption
Issued in a limited run of 1,963 copies, Taschen’s new edition of The Fire Next Time (May)counterpoints James Baldwin’s explosive essays on “the race problem,” as it was euphemistically called in 1963, with photojournalist Steve Schapiro’s closely observed images from the civil rights struggle, shot on assignment for Life and published here for the first time. Last year’s critically acclaimed documentary about Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro, has rekindled interest in the novelist and essayist, and Taschen’s new edition of his influential text will introduce the Black Lives Matter generation to his eloquent yet gut-punchingly-direct writings on race. Schapiro’s photos—segregationists waving Confederate flags, the bullet holes in Fannie Lou Hamer’s front door—are a full-throated response to the call of Baldwin’s sermon.