In his essay, "Letter from a Region in My Mind" (originally appeared in The New Yorker in

1962 and part of "The Fire Next Time" published in 1963), the influential mid-twentieth-
century essayist and literary author James Baldwin argued that Christendom and other
white structures ascendancy over the Black community was declining; therefore, not only
black people had the opportunity to claim the end of social inequalities, but White people
should renounce their privileges since they told more about their problems as a society than
about Black people. James Baldwin supports his claim about racism with stories and specific
examples that refer to his early life in Harlem, especially his experience in the church, and
with arguments about religion influenced by his encounter with Elijah Muhammad and the
Black Muslim movement. His purpose is to dismount the discourse built around Black
inferiority and to denounce the injustice and oppression Black people suffered daily from a
calm and reasonable perspective in order to convince White moderate people to take a
political position and stop acting passively and Black people to don't fall into the "European"
racism trap while fighting for their rights. He seems to have a moderate White audience in
mind because his tone is personal and subtly critical and he suggests a sort of manifesto in
the final page alluding to White and Black moderates, but especially White ones, to build a
better world filled with "love" (as Baldwin understands the word) to avoid "the fire next
time".