America’s great promise of equality has always rung hollow in the ears of Black Americans. Today, more than 60 years after the civil rights movement, Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr. says the situation is equally dire — and yet, the promise still lives. Drawing from his landmark book Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul and his New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, Dr. Glaude presents a picture of race and democracy that is colored by current events and framed by African American history. Bearing witness to the difficult truth in our country today, Dr. Glaude lays bare the tangled web of race, trauma, and memory, and what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America.

Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr. is James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University.