The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Finished.
It's an interesting book, first published 1963. I've got (two copies of) the first Penguin edition, reprinted 1965.
He addresses 'The Negro Question' from an interesting perspective. Baldwin was a young preacher before becoming disaffected once he knew the tricks, and he turns first to the way in which the churches help black people cope with persistent poverty and oppression by promising future salvation. Then he recounts in detail a visit to see Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. There is much that he admires in the philosophy and practice of the Nation, but he has reservations about the parallels with far right groups, and, ultimately, finds the assertions and vocal support, while superficially comforting, at heart a bit empty and unconvincing.
His conclusion is, well, inconclusive. But he does talk about how the creation of a US identity depends upon the liberation of white men, which can only come with the liberation of the blacks.
Baldwin is, of course, gay, and I'm not sure how many of his readers would have known this, although Giovanni's Room was published in 1956. Muhammad was not understanding of homosexuality, so his visit (and potential conversion) may not have happened if he had been aware.
Nevertheless, Baldwin is an outsider in many respects, including his schooling among white jewish boys (which he describes in the first part of the book, which is in the form of a letter to his nephew), and takes an outsider perspective on most issues, allowing him an objective approach as well as offering the experience of coming from within the community he describes.
Baldwin has an interesting voice, and his experience as a preacher shows. He uses long and convoluted sentences, and a floweriness of language that sometimes overshadows the meaning behind it. I don't know what Baldwin sounded like (I hope there's something on Youtube I can check out), but the portentous and authoritatively didactical tone puts Morgan Freeman's voice in my head.
For a 90 page essay, it is bursting with held-in emotions of all sorts, and a reasoned, if perhaps flawed, conclusion.