What is the main argument of James Baldwin in "Down at the Cross" in The Fire Next Time?

In this essay
(published first in the New Yorker in 1962 and titled in full "Down at
the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind"), Baldwin examines the ways in which
Christianity and the Nation of Islam have treated African Americans and rejects the idea of race
as more than what he refers to as a "political reality," rather than a "human
reality." He recounts his salvation in a Harlem church when he was a teenager. He sought
refuge in the church because he was deathly afraid of growing up as an African American man and
facing the dismal possibilities of adulthood he saw around him. He condemns Christianity, which
he ultimately rejected, and writes, "In the realm of power, Christianity has operated with
an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty." He thinks that Christianity has perpetuated the
power structure that has relegated African Americans to the bottom of the social
ladder. 

He discusses the power of the Nation of Islam and recounts his
meeting with Elijah Muhammad, who seems to want...