While I’m not in James Baldwin’s literary league, we both share a love of writing. Those of us who embrace persuasive writing do it for precisely this reason. It is our admittedly modest contribution to changing the world for the better. Since high school, what I have read – both required and in my leisure time – has changed my view of the world, past and present. James Baldwin did in fact change the world.

The bottom line is this: You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it…If there is no moral question, there is no reason to write. I’m an old-fashioned writer and, despite the odds, I want to change the world.—James Baldwin