In this brief letter, addressed to his 15-year-old nephew, Baldwin announces his aspirations for James, also named after Baldwin, which includes the exhortation that he must live his life so as to survive. Marking the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin takes stock of the harsh reality of social progress since emancipation. Survival is Baldwin’s primary concern, highlighting the fact that the life of a Black teenager was by no means held in high esteem in the Harlem of 1963. In fact, Baldwin grimly notes the similarities between the fragility of African American young men’s social standing in 1963 and the present day. Baldwin lays out the systemic oppression into which James was born.

For example, White people in America espouse values of equality and justice that are not practiced. This hypocrisy is blatantly obvious to Black people, but White people are blind to this fault. Therefore, African Americans must educate the White people who are willing and able to understand this basic double-standard; thereby enacting social change by forcing White America to see the reality of the relationship between white privilege and Black oppression.

Using the extended metaphor of the dungeon, which was the African American reality in 1963, Baldwin also harkens back to traditional Black spiritual hymns, from which his title springs.