You may remember her as one of the survivors of shoot out in Jonestown. It looks like Jackie Speier won a special election in San Mateo county which is just south of San Francisco. She will take the seat of Tom Latinos who recently passed away.

She is responsible for some of toughest consumer rights laws in California.

I underwent, during the summer that I became fourteen, a prolonged religious crisis. James Baldwin

I too underwent a crisis. Though it wasn't a religious crisis, it was nonetheless a crisis. What was the crisis? It was a patriotic crisis. You see, I had this undying patriotic belief in the United States. I loved the United States. It was my home. It was my country. It was red, white and blue. You couldn't tell me that I didn't love this country. I dared anyone, even my family to say that I didn't love this country.

So what was my patriotic crises? When I twenty-two, I moved far away from home. I moved because I thought I could go anywhere in this country knowing that I was an American; and that was good enough.  I moved to this new place and settled in and started thinking seriously about my future. My future was on my mind everyday I rode the bus across one of America's biggest cities, Los Angeles.  Time on the bus gave me the opportunity to think. I wondered how I was going to survive in America if I didn't have an education?

Education. That word was the word my mother used like a hammer. I was afraid of what might happen to me if I didn't get one. I took it and her seriously.  I was far away from home, and yet those frightening words came back to haunt me because I felt that I could do more with my life than commuting across Los Angeles on a dirty bus. I was depressed because I had no one there to tell me if I was doing the right thing.

Fear. I used to take that bus across Los Angeles through several neighborhoods. It went from Beverly Hills, near Television City, through Korean and Latino neighborhoods all the way to downtown.  I probably passed every group of colored people in world. That's America to me.  I used to get off the bus one block before Grand Avenue. I think the Disney Music Hall sits on this block now. It used to be a parking lot. This was America. I wondered what side of Los Angeles I would end up on? I had plenty of time on  that bus, sitting in traffic, to think how I could improve my life.

One of the major stops on this bus line in Los Angeles is Vermont Avenue. I noticed the city college each time I sat on the bus to get to and from work. I so desperately wanted to go that school. The word education was always foremost in my mind. I didn't know how I was going to accomplish working and going to school but I was going to try.

The first obstacle in my way was establishing residency in California. At the time,  it took six months. I waited patiently, riding that bus to and from work until I could claim residency. I could hardly wait. Education was planted somewhere deep in my subconscious as I breathed in the noxious fumes from the daily bus trip. The second obstacle was figuring how I could manage going to work and going to school in Los Angeles. I learned that this is easier said than done.

Finally I achieved the goal of residency and I enrolled. I was so happy. I could finally realize my educational objective. I signed up for one class. I tried going for about four or five weeks and I failed. I failed because work and school were on one side of Los Angeles and I lived on the other side. It felt like I was dealt a body blow.

It really takes alot to get me and keep me down. I know at least that I tried once and if tried a second time I would succeed at obtaining a post-secondary education.  Even though it was difficult to figure out how I was going to achieve my educational goal, I knew that I still lived in the greatest country in the world.  I had a job; and I knew if I tried hard enough I would succeed.

In the late fall of 1988, the presidential election rolled around.  Despite one personal failure, I still believed and had faith in my country. I always loved elections. I loved them since I was ten years old. I was so excited to have gained my residency in California for two reasons: I could go to school and I could vote. Since I was unsuccessful on the first score, I had to succeed on the second score. I registered and received instructions on where to vote in my neighborhood.

My neighborhood was on the west side of Los Angeles. It was nestled between Beverly Hills and La Cienega Blvd. I had heard from my neighbors that this used to be a largely Jewish neighborhood. It was difficult to image it as such. It was now--at the time I lived there--mostly African American and Latino.

I remember the 7-Eleven store at the corner of Cadallic and Robertson Blvd. I used to go in and get the usual sundry of convenient items. I went there often enough to engage the clerks in friendly conservation. The store was just around the corner from my polling place. I proudly walked to polling place, cast my vote and left. It was the first time I voted in a national, state and local election in California.

I was so proud of myself, that I decided to go out for the evening. I walked back around corner to a bus stop. It seemed like a waited a long time for the bus to arrive. While I was standing at the bus stop near the 7-Eleven, I noticed a police car driving around the block several times. I wasn't afraid. I had no reason to be afraid. The police car passed one more time. The next thing I know my face was planted in the cement. The police stopped, jump out of their cruiser and threw me to the ground. They told me to be quiet.

They handcuffed me while I was on the ground. They said I was a suspect. They said I was trying to rob the 7-Eleven. They said they were searching me for weapons. Finding none, they said they were searching for drugs. They found NO drugs! They threw me to ground, handcuffed and searched me like I was criminal in my own neighborhood and in my own country. They had no evidence and therefore no proof. They saw my black face and I fit their description of a criminal in United States. I felt like I was a criminal only because they believed I was a criminal. The only crime I committed was being black.

I was so furious. This is first time in my life, that I felt so low,  I wanted to kill someone. I thought I better keep this feeling to myself because I was at the mercy of these police officers. This is the very moment I had a patriotic crisis. How could I believe in a country, my country and its' institutions if they treated me like a criminal? I was so furious that I demanded that the men. who tried to place upon my person crimes they could not prove, to get their commanding officer out the scene before I became one the staggering status in Los Angeles.

You see, I always believed in my country. I had pride in it. I had faith in it until they police nearly beat it out of me. I had a real patriotic crises brought on by the Los Angeles Police department. Until this day, even though I left L.A.,
I am cautious about this country.  She is not  who she says she is. When I saw the Rodney King incident a few years later--from afar, I knew again what all black men felt in Los Angeles and in the United States. Until it happens to you, you will never know what this particular patriotic crisis is like for a black man. Is this a rite of passage for black men in America?

Last but not least, I graduated from a school in California. No one gave it to me I earned every moment and ounce of it.

James Baldwin opens The Fire Next Time with My Dungeon Shook: Letter To My Nephew On The Hundredth Anniversary Of The Emancipation