The Fire Is upon Us by Nicholas Buccola

Author:Nicholas Buccola
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2019-07-12T16:00:00+00:00

As Baldwin turned and headed toward his seat next to Heycock, the audience erupted in enthusiastic applause. Just as he had at the conclusion of Heycock’s and Burford’s speeches, Fullerton rose from his president’s chair, which was elevated above the speaker’s platform, in order to ring his bell for the next speaker. Fullerton was especially conscious of rising to his feet quickly to introduce the next speaker because the representatives from the BBC had told him it was important to move things along throughout the night. Soon after Fullerton got up, the students followed suit, enveloping Baldwin in a standing ovation for nearly a minute. As the students applauded, BBC commentator Stevas spoke over the clapping to tell the television audience, “Tremendously moving moment now, the whole of the Union standing and applauding this magnificent speech by James Baldwin. I’ve never seen this happen before in the Union in all the years I have known it.” About halfway through the standing ovation, Baldwin rose to his feet to acknowledge the crowd. He glanced up at the balcony, perhaps to catch a glimpse of his sister and his other guests, and his face lit up with an enormous grin as he looked at Fullerton and around the chamber.

Fullerton, for his part, was feeling rather embarrassed. It was indeed rare for speakers to receive standing ovations in the Union, and he worried that his decision to stand up while still clapping might have given some in the crowd the idea of standing as well. This bothered him because as the president of the Union, he thought it appropriate for him to preside over the debate in a neutral manner, and wondered if Buckley and Burford might have thought that he was leading the standing ovation. It bothered him enough that years later he wrote to Buckley to apologize.95

As the students were engulfing Baldwin in ecstatic applause, Buckley stayed seated with his hands in his lap and surveyed the scene with alarm. Couldn’t these students see through Baldwin’s rhetoric to the threat he posed to their fundamental commitments? Had they not read his writings? First these students had the audacity to laugh mockingly at his debate partner, Burford, and now they were greeting the radical Baldwin with rapturous applause. “I realized,” he wrote later, “that this was not going to be my night.” But rather than attempting to placate the crowd by finding some common ground with Baldwin, Buckley came out swinging. He knew he was going to lose the vote that night, yet he was not about to surrender his pride.

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