Book Cover Image of You Mean It or You Don’t: James Baldwin’s Radical Challenge by Jamie McGhee and Adam Hollowell

You Mean It or You Don’t: James Baldwin’s Radical Challenge
by Jamie McGhee and Adam Hollowell

    Publication Date: May 31, 2022
    List Price: $24.99
    Format: Hardcover, 196 pages
    Classification: Nonfiction
    ISBN13: 9781506478944
    Imprint: Broadleaf Books
    Publisher: 1517 Media
    Parent Company: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

    Hardcover Description:

    After a speech at UMass Amherst on February 28, 1984, James Baldwin was asked by a student: “You said that the liberal facade and being a liberal is not enough. Well, what is? What is necessary?” Baldwin responded, “Commitment. That is what is necessary. You mean it or you don’t.”

    Taking up that challenge and drawing from Baldwin’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and interviews, You Mean It or You Don’t will spur today’s progressives from conviction to action. It is not enough, authors Hollowell and McGhee urge us, to hold progressive views on racial justice, LGBTQ+ identity, and economic inequality. True and lasting change demands a response to Baldwin’s radical challenge for moral commitment. Called to move from dreams of justice to living it out in communities, churches, and neighborhoods, we can show that we truly mean it.

    Welcome to life with James Baldwin. It is raw and challenging, inspired and embodied, passionate and fully awake.




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