James Baldwin

The essay we're reading this week and the documentary film we're screening are both about James Baldwin. James Baldwin was one of the most important American writers (fiction, essays, plays, etc.) at mid-century. He was also an impassioned advocate and voice for US Civil Rights justice.

The film we're screening, I Am Not Your Negro (dir. Raoul Peck, 2016), is made up mostly of the words of James Baldwin. In addition to many filmed and recorded interviews, actor Samuel L. Jackson speaks the written words to several of Baldwin's texts. One of these texts was his unfinished manuscript Remember This House, a proposed book-length exploration of the lives and deaths of three important Civil Rights leaders who were friends of his and all assassinated young: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some questions I have:

• After watching this film and reading Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah's essay about him, what do you think his significance is for US readers in the 21st century? Or, put another way, what does his work say about us now?
• Had you ever heard about Baldwin? Had you ever read any of his work? Based on Ghansah's essay and Peck's film, what do you make of his work? What is it like?
• Why did Ghansah go to Baldwin's house in Southern France? Why does anyone go to the home of a now-dead historical figure? What does it mean that the house was allowed to fall apart, that it's being torn down, and that it will soon have luxury condos on its site? See here for images of before and after: https://lithub.com/the-last-days-of-james-baldwins-house-in-the-south-of-france/
• What is your sense about why Baldwin moved from the US to France? 
• Why is it significant that Ghansah was the first black intern and that there had never been a black editor at the 150-year-old magazine (Harper's) where she worked ? Is it important that mainstream US publications have black editors (or other editors of color)? Why or why not?
• What questions do you have about James Baldwin?