James Baldwin, 24 May 1963: “the vast, heedless, unthinking, cruel white majority”

Recognizing in 1963 what would eventually be the Trump voter, James Baldwin in an interview with Kenneth Clark:

“These days—this is one of them—when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in it … [and] how you are going to communicate to the vast, heedless, unthinking, cruel white majority that you are here.” … “I am terrified,” [Baldwin] said, “by the  moral apathy, the death of the heart that is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they really don’t think I am human …. And this means that they have become … moral monsters.” [From The Fire Is Upon Us, Nicholas Buccola, p. 186]

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