Short Lives: Gary Younge’s Newest Essay Collection is a Plea to Readers
In his 2016 collection of essays, Another Day in the Death of America, award-winning journalist Gary Younge takes on the high death rates of young people in America. As a parent, he has become acutely aware of, and troubled by, the statistics surrounding the gun-related fates met by an average of seven American children per day. Here, he offers the reader a somber snapshot comprised of ten deaths that occurred over a single twenty-four hour period: November 23rd, 2013.
On Fires, Then and Now (Reflections on The Fire This Time)
Widely regarded as an influential work of literature, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time gives voice to the personal nature of injustice while sounding an alarm about the intensity of race relations in the United States. Although it has been 54 years since its publication, Baldwin’s work has particular urgency and resonance in the aftermath of the murders of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Sandra Bland. Given the current political climate in the United States, The Fire Next Time is especially relevant.