The time when James Baldwin wrote The Fire Next Time was when the Civil Rights movement was happening when African Americans were hoping to obtain racial equality. Baldwin’s letter to his nephew is heart wrenching,  one full of emotion as well as nostalgia. He remembers what it was like to be thought of as inferior to whites, he remembers all that his family has been through and everything that they have struggled to get through. Even through all of that his message to his nephew is for him to keep his head up and keep going, to reach for his dreams and try as hard as he can to be the best that he can be. He tells him not to be held back because of what others say and explains all of the hardships his family had to go through because of the limits that were put on their growth by others. The exigence in this letter seems to be the continued racism, internalized as well as industrialized, that had been plaguing the African American community for 100 years and still, unfortunately, continues to plague them as well as others. The constraints in this piece as well as in general at the time were a prejudiced society which influenced Baldwin’s writing and this piece in particular.

The title of the letter is ironic, My Dungeon Shook-Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation, it’s been one hundred years since the emancipation and still blacks did not have basic rights that should be available to everyone, these are human rights. Baldwin has a sort of optimistic outlook but also a bleak one at the same time. He tells his nephew to not let others dictate what he does in life but then believes that blacks will never hold the same positions as white people do. Baldwin argues in his piece that people of color should stand up for themselves and speak up. When he wrote this piece, his audience was mainly African-Americans, at a time when they were fighting for their rights and making themselves heard rather than following along with what they were led for so long to believe was the way things were meant to be.

He delivers this all in an emotional letter written to his nephew meant to teach him of where he came from and what he will most likely go through because of his skin color. Even though the letter is written to his nephew its not meant to be just for him, it’s for everyone else that will be going through similar struggles in their life. Throughout the letter when he speaks of others he does not use any harsh words or sound angry, he seems to use logic and reasoning and wants people to rise up and not turn to violence or anything of that sort.  The letter is meant to use his past as well as his family’s past as a way to guide his nephew and others in the future to do the best that they can and be the best in a society full of prejudice and racism.