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As Baltimore is policed like occupied territory today, remembering James Baldwin's words about Harlem in 1966. This article originally appeared in the July 11, 1966 issue of The Nation.

His essays on police brutality still burn hot, but his understanding of sex, self-knowledge and power demand equal attention now. Baldwin does not say that systems of power are unimportant. He insists that liberation is also a mandate on individuality: how one separates oneself from the “habits of thought [that] reinforce and sustain the habits of power”—in essence, how one comes into his or her humanity.

[This is the first of a three-part series, Rage Against the Narrative, by Praxis Senior Editor Dr. Lisa Brock. The series is written in response to the uprising sparked by the killings of unarmed black people throughout the US. The three epigraphs below are gestures to each part.]

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Baldwin’s legacy continues to live.