Summary

In Chapter 6, "Ruins," Glaude describes Baldwin's life and writing during the 1970s. By the end of the period he had become more despairing. However, Glaude says Baldwin never gave up reaching "for the possibility that the country could be better (148). Baldwin was more boldly acknowledging how difficult it seemed for America to change. Despite those some racial reform policies, the country appeared to be repeating its same errors. Ronald Reagan's presidential election only fortified Baldwin's theory. Many believed that sufficient change had been made by the end of legal segregation, and failed to recognize the dangers Reagan's policies caused black and brown communities. "History and time blur as the traumas of the present call forward a litany of past betrayals," Glaude writes; and Reagan's presidency accomplished just that (153).

Reagan's campaign, Glaude explains, rode on ideas of American nostalgia. Yet this nostalgia referred to traumatizing...