TIME: The Weekly Newsmagazine

With The Fire Next Time, Baldwin secured his place in the civil rights movement by providing it with a galvanizing text. It was an instant, international bestseller, and it made Baldwin one of his country’s most famous authors. More than 60 years later, The Fire Next Time remains an indispensable blueprint for understanding race in America.

This issue of TIME—which also covers the campaign of Martin Luther King, Jr., against racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama—introduced Baldwin to a broad middle-class audience. The cover story addresses Baldwin’s growing role as public speaker: “Whenever he walks onstage to address a crowd of whites or blacks, James Baldwin takes the microphone and cries: ‘Can you hear me? … Can you all hear me?’”