The Tradition / by Jericho Brown -- Introduction / by Jesmyn Ward -- Part I: Legacy -- Homegoing, AD / by Kima Jones -- The Weight / by Rachel Ghansah -- Lonely in America / by Wendy S. Walters -- Where Do We Go from Here? / by Isabel Wilkerson -- "The Dear Pledges of Our Love": A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's Husband / Honoree Jeffers -- White Rage / by Carol Anderson -- Cracking the Code / by Jesmyn Ward -- Part II: Reckoning -- Queries of Unrest / by Clint Smith -- Blacker Than Thou / by Kevin Young -- Da Art of Storytellin' (a prequel) / by Kiese Laymon -- Black and Blue / by Garnette Cadogan --The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning / by Claudia Rankine -- Know Your Rights! / by Emily Raboteau -- Composite Pops / by Mitchell Jackson -- Part III: Jubilee -- Theories of Time and Space / by Natasha Trethewey -- Love in the Time of Contradiction / by Daniel Jose Older -- Message to My Daughters / by Edwidge Danticat.

Presents a continuation of James Baldwin's 1963"The Fire Next Time" that examines racial issues from the past half-century through essays, poems, and memoir pieces by some of the current generation's most original thinkers and writers.