His work has appeared in the New York Times, salon and many other publications. He is the Elizabeth MorrisPolitical Science at Windsor College in oregon in portland, tonight he presents his new book the fire is upon us, James Baldwin, William Buckley junior and the debate over race in america. Please join me in welcoming nicholas buccola. [applause] thank you. Really appreciate that introduction. I want to start by saying how special it is to me to be with you. I live 3 blocks from here for 5 years when i was in graduate school and i would come to romans every wednesday with my mom kathy who is sitting here and my late cousin kathy martin and we would go to lemley and see a movie and it is special for me to be here tonight. Tonight i am going to talk to you about something that happened in this space, february 18, 1865. February 18, 1965, 54 years ago. This space was filled with 700 people. Every spot on the benches was taken that people sitting on the floor in deep violation of the fire code. 500 more people want to get into the space but couldnt because it was so packed they went to other rooms, this is the cambridge union, the worlds oldest debating society. All these cambridge students wanted to get into the space but it was so full they could not. Why were they all their . They were there to see James Baldwin. The civil rights revolution. Baldwin was one of the most famous writers in the world and the students were excited to see the poet in the flesh. They were also intrigued by the prospect of baldwin sharing the platform with William F Buckley junior. In 1965 buckley was the second most prominent conservative in the United States second only to Barry Goldwater but wasnt quite internationally known yet. The students heard a buzz about buckley. They knew he was a rightwing polemicist. They knew he was a critic of the civil rights revolution. They were intrigued by the prospect of an intellectual battle before their eyes. This space got hotter and hotter. The bbc was there to record the events for an International Television audience so buckley and baldwin, these two embodiments of two movements, baldwin, civil rights revolution, and buckley, the american conservative movement. This book the fire is upon us is about that debate but more than that. The debate constitutes, it is a thick booklet to be used as a doorstop or a weapon. You could do some curls with it. It is 2 pounds. The two chapters about the debate are about 250 pages into the book because buckley and baldwin are almost exact contemporaries. Buckley was born in 1925, baldwin in 1924 and they live parallel lives, so radically different Life Experiences and what i do in the book is i weave their biographies against the backdrop of the rise of the civil rights and conservative movement that they did so much to shape. What i want to do is give a sense of the story leading up to the debate and probably end with the debate itself, try to get the audio to work and watch on youtube later but i want to give you a sense of the book but enough to intrigue you but not enough to satisfy you. There are a lot of questions that will have time for conversation at the end and i look forward to answering your questions. Let me tell you about James Baldwin. Baldwin is born in august in 1924 and all done, the oldest of 9 children, born to his mother bernice, married a man named David Baldwin when baldwin was just a toddler so David Baldwin was the only father james ever knew. Baldwin described his life in harlem is one marked by domination. He said the experience of growing up in harlem in the 20s and 30s he felt dominated by all sorts of individual people trying to limit his opportunities. He describes in the cambridge the data catalog of disasters. The policeman, the taxi driver, the waiter, the landlady, the landlord, the bank, the insurance company, the millions of details of everyday which spelled out to me that i was a worthless human being. Baldwin also describes the ways in which he felt oppressed and dominated by forces that did not have a human face. The vast, merciless, cruel structures of power that limited freedom and opportunity as a young man. Baldwin watched the system of domination consume his father, David Baldwin, james says, was one of the most sad human beings he ever witnessed, he said David Baldwin, father of 9 children, james said he can never remember us in time any of David Baldwins nine children were happy to see him come home. As a father myself when i read that and baldwin asked biographical writings i found it heartbreaking. Baldwin grows up with his father who is a devoutly religious man but cool to all the human beings around him, baldwin wonders as he is growing up why is my father this way . As he gets older he realizes his father is this way because he has come to believe what white people say about him and sees his father eaten alive, dying in 1943 in a mental institution, baldwin as far as he can tell his father is literally dies of despair. Baldwin set the goal but im not going to become my father, i will not be consumed by despair. How can i fight back against this cruel world, baldwin finds his handle, something to hang onto in the streets of harlem and that is language, the power of words. Baldwin is upset with books. He is taken by the power of books to connect human beings across time and space so he reads Charles Dickens and feels a sense of connection to the characters dickens is describing and baldwin begins to write and write and write and never stops writing until the day he dies, tries to make sense of his experience through language. Baldwin ends up following his father in an important way, becomes a preacher so baldwins father was a late pentecostal preacher in harlem storefront churches and James Baldwin at the age of 14 becomes a young minister and although baldwin only stayed in the church for three years he remained a preacher until the day he died and you will see the cambridge speech is a sermon more than anything else, baldwin says there is something about that experience in the church, the sense of connection he felt to his congregation that captured a sense of community that was powerful and never left him. When the church begins to rock and theres nothing quite like that. William f buckley junior is born in november 1925 just a year after baldwin was born. He is born in the same city but may as well have been born in a different planet. Buckley is born to immense wealth and privilege. William f buckley senior was a real estate and wheelman who made, lost and regained fortunes. He was awash in new money. William f buckley juniors mother was the proud daughter of the confederacy who came from new orleans, old money. You have dad, new money, mom, old money, the key word is money. Lots and lots of money. With that money the buckleys did some things you expect, they purchased a vast estate in connecticut they called great film. They devote a lot of resources to the education of their children. Buckley and his siblings received homeschooling, a very elaborate liberal Arts Education was one of buckleys sisters described in this way. It gets a little bit absurd but eloise, one of his sisters says the children received instruction in apologetics, art, ballroom dancing, banjo, birdwatching, building boats and bottles, culinary, canoeing, she goes on enough medical order down to speech, tap dancing, tennis, typing and wood carving. The sorts of things buckleys were learning in that way are important but what is more important is the world sees that they were taught. The Buckley Family was dominated by two particular systems of thought. One was a devout rigid hierarchical brand of catholicism and the second was a political doctrine they called individualism. Individualism was a catch all term for the buckleys mens to communicate hostility to any form of collectivism. Communism, socialism, new deal policies of Franklin Roosevelt but the buckleys were taught to be suspicious of democracy. The buckley children were taught there are some people fit to rule and others fit to be ruled. Good news, buckley children, you are fit to pull. This belief in hierarchy was central to buckleys upbringing and it is important to note this hierarchy was thoroughly racialized so the buckleys have many servants working for them. Many were people of color and buckleys parents taught their children that they were biologically, naturally superior to these people of color but they had a responsibility as a result of their superiority to treat those under them humanely especially those who were loyal. You can see where this is going. Buckley spent his childhood in this setting, goes to millbrook prep school and serves two years in the u. S. Army and after that he and roles at yale as a 21yearold freshman. When he is at yale he expects to find the professors at the lectern will affirm his christian and individualist beliefs and finds some of that. There are some individual mentors he finds it yale but he also finds a lot of professors who are skeptical of, maybe even hostile to christianity and individualism so buckley, also taken by the power of language to change the world similar to baldwin in that regard decides to use his voice and his pen to fight back against the liberals and collectivists who dominate the faculty at yale from his perspective so he begins formal debate at yale and is a master taking on the other side, criticizing liberals, socialists and others and also becomes chairman or manager in chief of the yale daily news and uses that role to write editorials about national politics, the 1940 election happens when hes there which is a fascinating election but he also uses his editorial posts to write, i cant imagine this is a professor, the damning critiques of his professors. Those professors who are engaged in the task of undermining the values of young folks at yale and buckley does something even bolder than that after he graduates. He sits down to write a book length indictment of his alma mater. Can you imagine . God and man at yale. In this book buckley says yale and much of Higher Education is marked by this paradox. Christian individualist, parents and their kids to college only to have them converted into atheistic socialists so buckley says we need to get rid of this hoax called Academic Freedom and have alumni and board of trustees control the hiring and curriculum on college campuses. Buckley then if thats not controversial enough, this book of noise a lot of people but gets peoples attention. This is a guy arriving on the intellectual scene when he publishes it, his next book is defense of Joseph Mccarthy. A book buckley coauthors with his brotherinlaw brent bozo and in this book buckley says Joseph Mccarthy has his flaws. He is an imperfect instrument, but he is playing a vital role in American Political Culture. They had been taught by yale professors that the idea of an open society is an insane idea. Any sane society must be a closed society that enforces a public orthodoxy. There are okay things to believe and others that are not. Clearly communism is not so what kendall taught buckley to believe, the communists need to be excluded from public life and suppressed in various ways. More ominously buckley also came to believe that liberals, one of the accusations, or some people getting caught up in the net that are not actually communists . Buckley says if that is the case mccarthy is doing a terrible job, liberals are still dominating the media, dominating academia and then he says even if it was the case, is it really true that liberals dont deserve to be targeted to cannot because they are evil like communists but because they are mistaken in their analysis of political life so theres an ominous thing buckley leaves hanging whether liberals deserve to be targeted. Meanwhile James Baldwin leaves the United States in 1948 for paris. Is trying to become as it says here and honest man and a good writer. He is struggling and wants to write an autobiographical novel about his experiences growing up in harlem but is having a hard time doing that and thinks what he needs is to leave the United States in order to reflect on the United States so he goes to paris and begins work first as a literary critic reviewing the works of others and then writing his own short stories, his first novel is an autobiographical novel and what baldwin tries to do is to write a novel that doesnt fall into the trap of protest fiction, protest fiction for baldwin is the kind of writing the ideological preoccupation of the author subsumes the humanity of their characters. If baldwin wants to write a novel that captures the depth of his characters lives so he writes a powerful novel, he finishes his second novel giovannis room 1956, goes back to his publisher and says i have another novel for you, prominent publisher in the United States and he looks at it and says what is this . This is roughly a quote. You are a promising young negro writer. Why are you giving me an all white gay novel . For those who have not read it it is a novel about a Young American who goes to paris and falls in love with an italian bartender. Baldwin, 1956, taking on the subject in 1956 so baldwin says to others who are skeptical if you think my primary subject is race or you think my primary subject in giovannis sex you are missing the point. My primary subject is the freedom and fulfillment of human beings and what obstacles either to the freedom and fulfillment of human beings. Both of these are stories about that and i will not be constrained by your expectations, thank you very much. He didnt work with him after that. In his fiction and nonfiction is obsessed with the nexus of identity, morality, and power. How does that lead us to treat ourselves and other people . Who has power, who doesnt and why . This is what baldwin is thinking about to the end of his life. Baldwin as he reflects on these questions says most of us, all of us are in a state of identity crisis, that we dont want to come to terms with who we really are because that is a terrifying thing. He says what we do instead is coming to these delusions that help us feel safe and he says most americans and most human beings are caught in the apparel of status anxiety, social panic. We try to make ourselves feel safe by trying to capture a feeling of superiority to others. Baldwin says if you want to understand race in america or understand any othering we do you have to reflect on his identity crisis so baldwin says if you want to get James Baldwin upset you would ask him about the, quote, negro problem which the terminology of the day. Baldwin says there is no negro problem. If anything there is a white problem. But he says we have to figure out why was it necessary to invent the negro in the first place . You can fill in the category, any category in that space. Baldwin in this period writes that he thinks the negro, this idea was created as a would be antidote to the social panic caused by our fear of losing status. Is a quote from baldwin. When one flips one flips back not a run but back into chaos and no longer knows who he is and this fear suggests to me one of the real reasons for the status of the negro in this country. In a way the negro tells us where the bottom is. Because he is there and where he is beneath us we know where the limits are and how far we must not fall. We must not fall beneath him. So baldwin after he offers this diagnosis in his fiction or nonfiction offers the following prescription which is the politics of love. For James Baldwin love is not a sentimental thing, not a cuddly thing, not a warm and fuzzy thing, love is a tough thing. Love is confrontation. Love is battle, love is war. In order to love ourselves we have to engage in a ruthless introspection and look into ourselves and be honest about what we see, who are we really and why . To love another human being you have to confront that human being and try to help them liberate themselves from the delusions under which they live. Baldwin prescribed a gospel of love, philosophy of love he devotes his life to. Meanwhile William F Buckley junior has a lot of success with the first two books but he is frustrated with the glacial pace of book publishing. I can relate to that and buckley recognizes something. He recognizes in the first half of the 20th century magazines played a really Important Role in American Political Culture on the left. The magazines like the nation, new republic did so much to shape the Progressive Movement so what buckley wants is a magazine of his own that can help do the same thing on the right in the second half of the 20th century. He had a very wealthy father and he said i really want a magazine, so he got an advance on his inheritance and is able to start a magazine and was a very gifted fundraiser so buckley, the first issue of National Review appears in november 1955 over a year in the making before the first issue appears as what buckley is trying to do is make a movement. The conservative movement didnt exist as a coherent thing at the time buckley is starting this project so buckley sets out to get groups on the right wing who otherwise disagree, to unite together. He sees libertarians worried about state power and Economic Affairs and traditionalists worried about the decline of morality and religion in the west and he says i know you dont agree on everything but maybe you can agree on forming a coalition and the coalition, the gl