Other people cannot see what I see whenever I look into your father's face, for behind your father's face as it is today are all those other faces which were his. You gain a strange perspective on time and human pain and effort. I don't know if you have known anybody from that far back, if you have loved anybody that long, first as an infant, then as a child, then as a man. I have known both of you all your lives and have carried your daddy in my arms and on my shoulders, kissed him and spanked him and watched him learn to walk. I keep seeing your face, which is also the face of your father and my brother. ![]() I have begun this letter five times and torn it up five times. ![]() Over 50 years later his words are, sadly, more relevant than ever. James Baldwin's thoughts on his nephew's future-in a country with a terrible history of racism- first appeared in The Progressive magazine in 1962.
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