The Fire Is upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America

Nicholas Buccola

Oct 2019 · Princeton University Press · Narrated by Prentice Onayemi

About this audiobook

"A great read."—Whoopi Goldberg, The View

Prentice Onayemi narrates the story of how the clash between the civil rights firebrand and the father of modern conservatism continues to illuminate America's racial divide

This audiobook includes as a bonus feature the original audio recording of the Cambridge Union debate

On February 18, 1965, an overflowing crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to witness a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America's most influential conservative intellectual. The topic was "the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro," and no one who has seen the debate can soon forget it. Nicholas Buccola's The Fire Is upon Us is the first book to tell the full story of the event, the radically different paths that led Baldwin and Buckley to it, the controversies that followed, and how the debate and the decades-long clash between the men continues to illuminate America's racial divide today.

Born in New York City only fifteen months apart, the Harlem-raised Baldwin and the privileged Buckley could not have been more different, but they both rose to the height of American intellectual life during the civil rights movement. By the time they met in Cambridge, Buckley was determined to sound the alarm about a man he considered an "eloquent menace." For his part, Baldwin viewed Buckley as a deluded reactionary whose popularity revealed the sickness of the American soul. The stage was set for an epic confrontation that pitted Baldwin's call for a moral revolution in race relations against Buckley's unabashed elitism and implicit commitment to white supremacy.

A remarkable story of race and the American dream, The Fire Is upon Us reveals the deep roots and lasting legacy of a conflict that continues to haunt our politics.

Ratings and reviews

AÀA BOSS NETWORK

About the author

Nicholas Buccola is the author of The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass and the editor of The Essential Douglass and Abraham Lincoln and Liberal Democracy. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, and many other publications. He is the Elizabeth and Morris Glicksman Chair in Political Science at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, and lives in Portland. Prentice Onayemi has narrated hundreds of audiobooks ranging from literary classics and contemporary fiction to autobiographies and scholarly books. He is the narrator of David W. Blight’s Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom and The Fires of Vengeance by Evan Winter, among other audiobooks.