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Dick Cavett: Mr. Baldwin,
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I'm sure you still meet the remark that:
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"What are the Negroes...
why aren't they optimistic?
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Um... They say, "But
it's getting so much better.
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There are negro mayors,
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00:01:37,766 --> 00:01:39,516
there are negroes in all of sports."
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There are negroes in politics.
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They're even accorded
the ultimate accolade
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of being in television commercials now.
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(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
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- I'm glad you're smiling.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGH)
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Is it at once getting
much better and still hopeless?
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I don't think there's much hope for it,
you know, to tell you the truth,
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as long as people are using
this peculiar language.
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It's not a question of
what happens to the Negro here,
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or to the black man here,
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that's a very vivid question
for me, you know,
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but the real question is what's
going to happen to this country.
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I have to repeat that.
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♪ You're damn right,
I've got the blues, ♪
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♪ From my head down to my shoes ♪
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00:02:25,146 --> 00:02:27,856
♪ You're damn right,
I've got the blues, ♪
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♪ From my head down to my shoes ♪
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♪ I can't win
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♪ 'Cause I don't have a thing to lose ♪
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♪ I stopped by my daughter's house ♪
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♪ You know I just want to use the phone ♪
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♪ I stopped by my daughter's house ♪
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♪ You know I just want to use the phone ♪
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(SAMUEL JACKSON NARRATES WORDS/
VOICE OF JAMES BALDWIN)
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(SIREN BLARING)
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The summer has scarcely begun,
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and I feel already that it's almost over.
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And I will be 55.
35
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Yes, 55, in a month.
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I am about to undertake the journey.
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And this is a journey,
to tell you the truth,
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which I always knew
that I would have to make,
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but had hoped, perhaps,
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certainly had hoped,
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not to have to make so soon.
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I am saying that a journey is called that
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because you cannot know
what you will discover
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00:04:01,534 --> 00:04:02,794
on the journey,
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what you will do with what you find,
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or what you find will do to you.
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Not only have a right to be free,
48
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- we have a duty to be free.
- Crowd: Yeah.
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And so when you sit down on the bus
and you sit down in the front,
50
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or sit down by a white person,
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you are sitting there because
you have a duty to sit down,
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not merely because you have a right.
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Baldwin: The time
of these lives and deaths,
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from a public point of view, is 1955,
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when we first heard of Martin,
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to 1968, when he was murdered.
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00:04:38,237 --> 00:04:41,117
Medgar was murdered in the summer of 1963.
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Malcolm was murdered in 1965.
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♪ Here, take my hand, Precious Lord ♪
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♪ Lead me on ♪
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♪ Let me stand ♪
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♪ I am tired ♪
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♪ I'm weak ♪
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♪ I am worn ♪
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♪ Through the storm ♪
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Baldwin: The three men,
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Medgar, Malcolm, and Martin,
were very different men.
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Consider that Martin was only 26 in 1955.
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He took on his shoulders
the weight of the crimes,
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and the lies, and the hope of a nation.
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I want these three lives to bang against
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and reveal each other,
as in truth, they did
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and use their dreadful journey
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as a means of instructing the people
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whom they loved so much,
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who betrayed them,
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and for whom they gave their lives.
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(TRAIN RATTLES)
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Leander Perez: The moment a negro child
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walks into the school,
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00:06:03,906 --> 00:06:07,576
every decent, self-respecting,
loving parent
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00:06:07,744 --> 00:06:11,084
should take his white child
out of that broken school.
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00:06:11,289 --> 00:06:13,369
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
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00:06:33,811 --> 00:06:35,481
Go back to your own school.
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God forgives murder
and he forgives adultery.
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00:06:47,867 --> 00:06:49,327
But He is very angry
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and He actually curses
all who do integrate.
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- (CROWD SHOUTING)
- (WHISTLES BLOWING)
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Baldwin: That's when
I saw the photograph.
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00:07:06,135 --> 00:07:08,045
On every newspaper kiosk
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00:07:08,221 --> 00:07:11,141
on that wide, tree-shaped
boulevard in Paris,
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00:07:11,307 --> 00:07:14,807
were photographs
of 15-year-old Dorothy Counts
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00:07:14,977 --> 00:07:17,807
being reviled and spat upon by the mob
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as she was making her way to school
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in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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There was unutterable pride,
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tension and anguish in that girl's face
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as she approached the halls of learning,
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with history jeering at her back.
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It made me furious,
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it filled me with both hatred and pity.
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And it made me ashamed.
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Some one of us should have
been there with her!
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But it was on that bright afternoon
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that I knew I was leaving France.
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I could simply no longer sit around Paris,
107
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discussing the Algerian
and the Black American problem.
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00:08:02,316 --> 00:08:04,396
Everybody else was paying their dues,
109
00:08:04,610 --> 00:08:07,700
and it was time I went home and paid mine.
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♪ If you was white, You'd be alright ♪
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♪ If you was brown, Stick around ♪
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♪ But as you's black ♪
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♪ Oh, brother ♪
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♪ Get back, get back, get back ♪
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♪ I went to an employment office ♪
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♪ I got a number and I got in line ♪
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♪ They called everybody's number ♪
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♪ But they never did call mine ♪
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♪ I said, if you was white,
You'd be alright ♪
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♪ If you was brown, Stick around ♪
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♪ But as you's black ♪
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♪ Oh, brother... ♪
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(SIRENS BLARING)
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(INDISTINCT SPEECH)
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Baldwin: I had at last come home.
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If there was, in this, some illusion,
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there was also much truth.
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In the years in Paris,
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I had never been homesick
for anything American.
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Neither waffles, ice cream,
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hot dogs, baseball, majorettes, movies,
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nor the Empire State Building,
nor Coney Island,
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00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:32,070
nor the Statue of Liberty,
nor the Daily News,
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00:09:32,281 --> 00:09:33,451
nor Times Square.
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All of these things had passed out of me.
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They might never have existed,
and it made absolutely
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no difference to me
if I never saw them again.
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But I missed my brothers
and sisters, and my mother.
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They made a difference.
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I wanted to be able to see them,
and to see their children.
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00:10:05,439 --> 00:10:07,189
I hoped that they wouldn't forget me.
142
00:10:07,817 --> 00:10:11,107
I missed Harlem Sunday mornings
and fried chicken,
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00:10:11,279 --> 00:10:13,699
and biscuits, I missed the music,
144
00:10:13,990 --> 00:10:15,370
I missed the style...
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00:10:15,574 --> 00:10:18,584
that style possessed by
no other people in the world.
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I missed the way the dark face closes,
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00:10:23,165 --> 00:10:25,875
the way dark eyes watch, and the way,
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00:10:26,043 --> 00:10:29,713
when a dark face opens,
a light seems to go everywhere.
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00:10:30,506 --> 00:10:33,506
I missed, in short, my connections,
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missed the life which had
produced me and nourished me
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and paid for me.
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Now, though I was a stranger, I was home.
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00:10:47,023 --> 00:10:48,613
(MUSIC PLAYING)
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I am fascinated by the movement
on and off the screen.
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I am about seven.
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00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:06,920
I'm with my mother, or my aunt.
157
00:11:07,877 --> 00:11:11,167
The movie is Dance, Fools, Dance.
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00:11:19,680 --> 00:11:22,730
I was aware that Joan Crawford
was a white lady.
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00:11:24,185 --> 00:11:28,265
Yet, I remember being sent
to the store sometime later,
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00:11:28,773 --> 00:11:30,863
and a colored woman who, to me,
161
00:11:31,067 --> 00:11:32,897
looked exactly like Joan Crawford,
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was buying something.
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She was incredibly beautiful.
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She looked down at me
with so beautiful a smile
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that I was not even embarrassed,
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which was rare for me.
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(APPLAUSE)
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00:11:55,466 --> 00:11:56,926
By this time,
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I had been taken in hand
by a young white schoolteacher
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00:12:00,971 --> 00:12:03,851
named Bill Miller, a beautiful woman,
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00:12:04,475 --> 00:12:05,885
very important to me.
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00:12:07,603 --> 00:12:11,153
She gave me books to read and
talked to me about the books,
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and about the world:
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00:12:13,526 --> 00:12:17,196
about Ethiopia, and Italy,
175
00:12:18,114 --> 00:12:19,914
and the German Third Reich,
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00:12:20,908 --> 00:12:23,198
and took me to see plays and films,
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00:12:23,577 --> 00:12:25,327
to which no one else would have dreamed
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00:12:25,496 --> 00:12:27,326
of taking a ten-year-old boy.
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(INDISTINCT SINGING)
180
00:12:32,044 --> 00:12:34,384
- (SHOUTING)
- (DRUMS PLAYING)
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00:12:36,757 --> 00:12:38,797
It is certainly because of Bill Miller,
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who arrived in my terrifying life so soon,
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that I never really managed
to hate white people.
184
00:12:46,809 --> 00:12:48,309
Though, God knows,
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00:12:48,477 --> 00:12:51,477
I've often wished to murder
more than one or two.
186
00:12:52,106 --> 00:12:54,226
(SHOUTING AND JEERING)
187
00:12:56,694 --> 00:12:58,784
Therefore, I begin to suspect
188
00:12:59,321 --> 00:13:01,741
that white people did not act as they did
189
00:13:01,907 --> 00:13:06,037
because they were white,
but for some other reason.
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00:13:06,454 --> 00:13:08,714
(WHIMPERING)
191
00:13:10,082 --> 00:13:14,382
I was a child of course,
and therefore unsophisticated.
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00:13:14,795 --> 00:13:18,875
I took Bill Miller as she was,
or as she appeared to be to me.
193
00:13:19,592 --> 00:13:22,552
She too, anyway,
was treated like a nigger,
194
00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:24,310
especially by the cops,
195
00:13:24,472 --> 00:13:26,972
and she had no love for landlords.
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00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:30,639
♪ Richard! Can't get him up! ♪
197
00:13:30,811 --> 00:13:33,361
♪ Richard! Can't get him up! ♪
198
00:13:34,064 --> 00:13:36,904
♪ Richard! Can't get him up! ♪
199
00:13:37,276 --> 00:13:39,986
♪ Lazy Richard! Can't get him up! ♪
200
00:13:40,488 --> 00:13:41,658
♪ Richard! ♪
201
00:13:41,822 --> 00:13:45,242
Baldwin: In these days,
no one resembling my father
202
00:13:45,409 --> 00:13:48,119
has yet made an appearance
on the American cinema scene.
203
00:13:48,287 --> 00:13:49,787
♪ Can't get him up! ♪
204
00:13:49,955 --> 00:13:52,575
♪ We'll try to get him on the phone ♪
205
00:13:52,750 --> 00:13:55,540
♪ I was laying down dreamin'... ♪
206
00:13:55,711 --> 00:13:57,761
Baldwin: No, it's not entirely true.
207
00:13:58,422 --> 00:14:02,262
There were, for example,
Stepin Fetchit and Willie Best
208
00:14:02,426 --> 00:14:06,596
and Mantan Moreland,
all of whom, rightly or wrongly,
209
00:14:06,764 --> 00:14:08,064
I loathed.
210
00:14:08,641 --> 00:14:11,601
It seemed to me that they lied
about the world I knew,
211
00:14:11,769 --> 00:14:12,809
and debased it,
212
00:14:12,978 --> 00:14:15,608
and certainly I did not know
anybody like them,
213
00:14:15,773 --> 00:14:17,153
as far as I could tell.
214
00:14:18,275 --> 00:14:21,605
For it also possible that
their comic, bug-eyed terror
215
00:14:21,779 --> 00:14:24,109
contained the truth concerning a terror
216
00:14:24,281 --> 00:14:26,531
by which I hoped never to be engulfed.
217
00:14:28,035 --> 00:14:32,535
Yet, I had no reservations
at all concerning the terror
218
00:14:32,706 --> 00:14:34,666
of the Black janitor in They Won't Forget.
219
00:14:34,833 --> 00:14:36,423
Give me police!
220
00:14:37,044 --> 00:14:38,424
Give me police!
221
00:14:38,587 --> 00:14:41,717
Give me... Give me police!
222
00:14:41,966 --> 00:14:43,626
Baldwin: I think that it was
a black actor
223
00:14:43,801 --> 00:14:46,641
named Clinton Rosemond
who played this part,
224
00:14:47,555 --> 00:14:49,715
and he looked a little like my father.
225
00:14:49,890 --> 00:14:51,640
I didn't do it. I didn't do it!
226
00:14:51,809 --> 00:14:53,769
I didn't do it! I didn't do it!
227
00:14:53,936 --> 00:14:55,846
Baldwin: He is terrified
because a young white girl
228
00:14:56,021 --> 00:14:59,151
in this small Southern town
has been raped and murdered,
229
00:14:59,316 --> 00:15:01,736
and her body has been found
upon the premises
230
00:15:01,902 --> 00:15:03,202
of which he is the janitor.
231
00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:05,030
Good morning, Tump.
232
00:15:06,323 --> 00:15:08,163
Baldwin: The role
of the janitor is small,
233
00:15:09,285 --> 00:15:12,705
yet the man's face
bangs in my memory until today.
234
00:15:12,913 --> 00:15:15,213
- I have done nothing.
- Nobody says you have, Tom.
235
00:15:15,416 --> 00:15:16,416
But they might.
236
00:15:16,584 --> 00:15:19,964
Baldwin: The film's
icy brutality both scared me...
237
00:15:20,129 --> 00:15:21,049
What for?
238
00:15:21,213 --> 00:15:22,633
...and strengthened me.
239
00:15:23,465 --> 00:15:26,175
(WHIPPING)
240
00:15:29,054 --> 00:15:31,314
- (INAUDIBLE)
- (WHIPPING)
241
00:15:43,694 --> 00:15:46,414
Baldwin: Because Uncle Tom
refuses to take vengeance
242
00:15:46,614 --> 00:15:50,084
in his own hands,
he was not a hero for me.
243
00:15:50,826 --> 00:15:52,746
- (GUNSHOT)
- (SCREAMING)
244
00:15:52,995 --> 00:15:55,655
Heroes, as far as I could see,
where white,
245
00:15:55,831 --> 00:15:58,131
and not merely because of the movies,
246
00:15:58,334 --> 00:16:00,544
but because of the land in which I lived,
247
00:16:00,711 --> 00:16:03,421
of which movies were simply a reflection.
248
00:16:04,340 --> 00:16:07,550
I despised and feared those heroes
249
00:16:07,718 --> 00:16:10,548
because they did take vengeance
into their own hands.
250
00:16:11,096 --> 00:16:13,216
They thought vengeance was theirs to take.
251
00:16:14,099 --> 00:16:16,639
And, yes, I understood that:
252
00:16:17,770 --> 00:16:20,520
my countrymen were my enemy.
253
00:16:22,107 --> 00:16:23,147
(SCREAMING)
254
00:16:32,201 --> 00:16:36,001
I suspect that all these stories
are designed to reassure us
255
00:16:36,163 --> 00:16:37,753
that no crime was committed.
256
00:16:38,749 --> 00:16:41,289
We've made a legend out of a massacre.
257
00:16:45,422 --> 00:16:48,262
Baldwin: Leaving aside
all the physical facts
258
00:16:48,425 --> 00:16:49,585
which one can quote.
259
00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:52,760
Leaving aside rape or murder.
260
00:16:52,930 --> 00:16:56,520
Leaving aside the bloody catalog
of oppression,
261
00:16:56,934 --> 00:16:59,944
which we are, in one way,
too familiar with already,
262
00:17:00,521 --> 00:17:02,441
what this does to the subjugated
263
00:17:02,815 --> 00:17:05,025
is to destroy his sense of reality.
264
00:17:05,776 --> 00:17:08,696
This means, in the case
of an American negro,
265
00:17:09,029 --> 00:17:10,409
born in that glittering republic,
266
00:17:11,365 --> 00:17:12,945
and in the moment you are born,
267
00:17:13,492 --> 00:17:16,872
since you don't know any better,
every stick and stone
268
00:17:17,037 --> 00:17:18,827
and every face is white,
269
00:17:19,623 --> 00:17:21,883
and since you have not yet seen a mirror,
270
00:17:22,042 --> 00:17:23,502
you suppose that you are too.
271
00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:28,260
It comes as a great shock
around the age of five,
272
00:17:28,382 --> 00:17:29,842
or six, or seven,
273
00:17:29,967 --> 00:17:32,337
to discover that Gary Cooper
killing off the Indians,
274
00:17:32,511 --> 00:17:34,641
when you were rooting for Gary Cooper,
275
00:17:35,889 --> 00:17:38,229
- that the Indians were you.
- (CROWD MURMUR)
276
00:17:38,434 --> 00:17:41,814
It comes as a great shock
to discover the country,
277
00:17:41,979 --> 00:17:43,479
which is your birthplace,
278
00:17:43,856 --> 00:17:46,726
and to which you owe
your life and your identity,
279
00:17:47,276 --> 00:17:50,026
has not, in its whole system of reality,
280
00:17:50,404 --> 00:17:52,574
evolved any place for you.
281
00:17:56,493 --> 00:18:03,463
Baldwin:
282
00:18:06,670 --> 00:18:08,840
I know how to do it, technically.
283
00:18:09,006 --> 00:18:11,466
It is a matter of research and journeys.
284
00:18:11,842 --> 00:18:15,512
And with you or without you,
I will do it anyway.
285
00:18:17,181 --> 00:18:20,021
I begin in September,
when I go on the road.
286
00:18:20,726 --> 00:18:23,646
"The road" means my return to the South.
287
00:18:24,354 --> 00:18:27,574
It means briefly, for example,
seeing Myrlie Evers,
288
00:18:27,733 --> 00:18:28,863
and the children.
289
00:18:29,067 --> 00:18:31,527
Those children who are children no longer.
290
00:18:33,071 --> 00:18:36,781
It means going back to Atlanta,
to Selma, to Birmingham.
291
00:18:39,161 --> 00:18:41,161
It means seeing Coretta Scott King,
292
00:18:41,330 --> 00:18:42,620
and Martin's children.
293
00:18:43,415 --> 00:18:44,825
I know that Martin's daughter,
294
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,960
whose name I don't remember,
and Malcolm's oldest daughter,
295
00:18:49,129 --> 00:18:52,009
whose name is Attalah
are both in the theatre,
296
00:18:52,257 --> 00:18:53,967
and apparently are friends.
297
00:18:55,093 --> 00:18:58,473
It means seeing Betty Shabazz,
Malcolm's widow,
298
00:18:58,639 --> 00:19:00,219
and the five younger children.
299
00:19:00,933 --> 00:19:03,643
It means exposing myself
as one of the witnesses
300
00:19:03,811 --> 00:19:06,561
to the lives and deaths
of their famous fathers.
301
00:19:07,022 --> 00:19:10,322
And it means much, much more than that.
302
00:19:10,692 --> 00:19:14,402
"A clod of witnesses,"
as old St. Paul once put it.
303
00:19:21,620 --> 00:19:24,250
Baldwin:
304
00:19:26,208 --> 00:19:28,918
I saw Malcolm before I met him.
305
00:19:30,295 --> 00:19:32,755
I was giving a lecture
somewhere in New York.
306
00:19:33,215 --> 00:19:35,835
Malcolm was sitting
in the first row of the hall,
307
00:19:36,009 --> 00:19:39,849
bending forward at such an angle
that his long arms
308
00:19:40,013 --> 00:19:42,773
nearly caressed the ankles
of his long legs,
309
00:19:43,016 --> 00:19:44,426
staring up at me.
310
00:19:45,686 --> 00:19:47,266
I very nearly panicked.
311
00:19:47,896 --> 00:19:51,476
I knew Malcolm only by legend,
and this legend,
312
00:19:51,650 --> 00:19:53,530
since I was a Harlem street boy,
313
00:19:53,735 --> 00:19:56,565
I was sufficiently astute to distrust.
314
00:19:58,198 --> 00:20:01,578
Malcolm might be the torch
that white people claim he was,
315
00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:03,540
though, in general,
316
00:20:04,079 --> 00:20:06,499
white America's evaluations
of these matters
317
00:20:06,665 --> 00:20:09,325
would be laughable and even pathetic
318
00:20:10,002 --> 00:20:13,462
did not these evaluations
have such wicked results.
319
00:20:14,631 --> 00:20:15,761
On the other hand,
320
00:20:15,924 --> 00:20:18,434
Malcolm had no reason to trust me either.
321
00:20:19,261 --> 00:20:21,721
And so I stumbled through my lecture,
322
00:20:22,639 --> 00:20:25,979
with Malcolm never
taking his eyes from my face.
323
00:20:26,143 --> 00:20:30,273
♪ Don't know why ♪
324
00:20:30,772 --> 00:20:33,942
♪ There's no sun up in the sky ♪
325
00:20:34,109 --> 00:20:36,739
♪ Stormy weather ♪
326
00:20:37,279 --> 00:20:43,039
♪ Since my man and I ain't together ♪
327
00:20:44,620 --> 00:20:50,290
♪ Keeps rainin' all the time ♪
328
00:20:54,838 --> 00:20:57,418
Baldwin: As a member of the NAACP,
329
00:20:57,591 --> 00:21:00,721
Medgar was investigating
the murder of a black man,
330
00:21:00,886 --> 00:21:02,796
which had occurred months before,
331
00:21:03,430 --> 00:21:05,390
had shown me letters from black people
332
00:21:05,557 --> 00:21:06,807
asking him to do this,
333
00:21:07,142 --> 00:21:09,142
and he had asked me to come with him.
334
00:21:09,603 --> 00:21:10,603
♪ Raise up! ♪
335
00:21:10,771 --> 00:21:14,231
♪ Get yourself together,
And drive that funky soul ♪
336
00:21:14,399 --> 00:21:15,689
Baldwin: I was terribly frightened,
337
00:21:16,401 --> 00:21:19,491
but perhaps that fieldtrip
will help us define
338
00:21:19,655 --> 00:21:22,025
what I mean by the word "witness".
339
00:21:24,451 --> 00:21:27,451
I was to discover that the line
which separates a witness
340
00:21:27,621 --> 00:21:30,831
from an actor is a very thin line indeed.
341
00:21:31,541 --> 00:21:34,421
Nevertheless, the line is real.
342
00:21:36,088 --> 00:21:38,508
I was not, for example, a Black Muslim,
343
00:21:38,882 --> 00:21:41,262
in the same way,
though for different reasons,
344
00:21:41,426 --> 00:21:43,426
that I never became a Black Panther.
345
00:21:44,137 --> 00:21:47,387
Because I did not believe that
all white people were devils,
346
00:21:47,975 --> 00:21:51,265
and I did not want young
black people to believe that.
347
00:21:52,437 --> 00:21:55,607
I was not a member of any
Christian congregation because
348
00:21:55,774 --> 00:21:58,074
I knew that they had not heard
349
00:21:58,235 --> 00:22:00,105
and did not live by the commandment,
350
00:22:00,487 --> 00:22:03,027
"Love one another as I love you."
351
00:22:03,991 --> 00:22:07,331
And I was not a member of the NAACP
352
00:22:07,953 --> 00:22:10,003
because in the North, where I grew up,
353
00:22:10,580 --> 00:22:16,000
the NAACP was fatally entangled
with black class distinctions,
354
00:22:16,795 --> 00:22:18,455
or illusions of the same,
355
00:22:19,214 --> 00:22:22,224
which repelled a shoe-shine boy like me.
356
00:22:25,303 --> 00:22:28,313
I did not have to deal with the
criminal state of Mississippi,
357
00:22:28,473 --> 00:22:31,313
hour by hour and day by day,
358
00:22:32,019 --> 00:22:33,939
to say nothing of night after night.
359
00:22:34,771 --> 00:22:38,321
I did not have to sweat
cold sweat after decisions
360
00:22:38,483 --> 00:22:40,743
involving hundreds of thousands of lives.
361
00:22:41,987 --> 00:22:44,317
I was not responsible for raising money,
362
00:22:44,948 --> 00:22:46,698
or deciding how to use it.
363
00:22:47,367 --> 00:22:49,697
I was not responsible for strategy
364
00:22:49,870 --> 00:22:51,960
controlling prayer-meetings, marches,
365
00:22:52,122 --> 00:22:54,792
petitions, voting registration drives.
366
00:22:55,500 --> 00:22:58,170
I saw the Sheriffs, the Deputies,
367
00:22:58,420 --> 00:23:01,050
the Storm Troopers,
more or less in passing.
368
00:23:02,132 --> 00:23:03,932
I was never in town to stay.
369
00:23:05,177 --> 00:23:07,887
This was sometimes hard on my morale,
370
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,270
but I had to accept, as time wore on,
371
00:23:12,225 --> 00:23:14,975
that part of my responsibility,
as a witness,
372
00:23:15,270 --> 00:23:18,690
was to move as largely
and as freely as possible.
373
00:23:19,483 --> 00:23:22,573
To write the story, and to get it out.
374
00:23:30,827 --> 00:23:33,037
(JAZZ MUSIC)
375
00:24:06,571 --> 00:24:08,821
We should all be concerned
with but one goal,
376
00:24:08,990 --> 00:24:10,240
the eradication of crime.
377
00:24:10,992 --> 00:24:13,792
The Federal Bureau of
Investigation is as close to you
378
00:24:13,954 --> 00:24:15,544
as your nearest telephone.
379
00:24:15,705 --> 00:24:17,165
It seeks to be your protector
380
00:24:17,332 --> 00:24:18,962
in all matters within its jurisdiction.
381
00:24:19,126 --> 00:24:20,246
It belongs to you.
382
00:24:50,949 --> 00:24:52,659
(ROCKET FIRING)
383
00:25:18,018 --> 00:25:20,978
Baldwin: White people
are astounded by Birmingham.
384
00:25:21,813 --> 00:25:23,193
Black people aren't.
385
00:25:25,650 --> 00:25:29,030
White people are endlessly
demanding to be reassured
386
00:25:29,196 --> 00:25:31,526
that Birmingham is really on Mars.
387
00:25:35,410 --> 00:25:39,830
They don't want to believe,
still less to act on the belief,
388
00:25:40,832 --> 00:25:42,712
that what is happening in Birmingham
389
00:25:43,418 --> 00:25:45,748
is happening all over the country.
390
00:25:46,046 --> 00:25:48,546
- (CHANTING)
- (WHISTLE BLOWING)
391
00:25:50,258 --> 00:25:52,838
They don't want to realize
that there is not one step,
392
00:25:53,011 --> 00:25:55,311
morally or actually,
393
00:25:55,764 --> 00:25:58,024
between Birmingham and Los Angeles.
394
00:25:58,558 --> 00:26:00,978
(CROWD SHOUTING)
395
00:26:08,735 --> 00:26:11,985
(SINGING AND CLAPPING)
396
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:19,659
Officer: Move on, move on!
397
00:26:20,622 --> 00:26:22,332
(SINGING CONTINUES)
398
00:26:43,270 --> 00:26:44,900
We've invited three men,
399
00:26:45,105 --> 00:26:47,315
on the forefront of The Negro Struggle,
400
00:26:48,149 --> 00:26:49,779
to sit down and talk with us
401
00:26:49,943 --> 00:26:51,823
in front of the television camera.
402
00:26:51,987 --> 00:26:55,527
Each of these men, through
his actions and his words,
403
00:26:56,157 --> 00:26:58,447
but with vastly different
manner and means,
404
00:26:58,952 --> 00:27:02,292
is a spokesman for some segment
of the Negro people today.
405
00:27:03,081 --> 00:27:04,961
Black people in this country
have been the victims
406
00:27:05,125 --> 00:27:08,165
of violence at the hands
of the white man for 400 years.
407
00:27:08,336 --> 00:27:11,416
And following the ignorant
negro preachers,
408
00:27:11,589 --> 00:27:14,379
we have thought that it was
Godlike to turn the other cheek
409
00:27:14,551 --> 00:27:16,051
to the brute that was brutalizing us.
410
00:27:16,219 --> 00:27:19,469
Malcolm X, one of the most
articulate exponents
411
00:27:19,681 --> 00:27:21,981
of the Black Muslim philosophy,
412
00:27:22,475 --> 00:27:25,595
has said of your movement
and your philosophy
413
00:27:25,770 --> 00:27:29,610
that it plays into the hands
of the white oppressors,
414
00:27:29,774 --> 00:27:34,454
that they are happy to hear you talk about
415
00:27:34,738 --> 00:27:39,118
love for the oppressor,
because this disarms the Negro
416
00:27:39,284 --> 00:27:43,294
and fits into the stereotype
of the Negro as a meek,
417
00:27:43,955 --> 00:27:46,245
turning the other cheek sort of creature.
418
00:27:46,416 --> 00:27:50,376
Would you care to comment
on Mr. X's beliefs?
419
00:27:50,587 --> 00:27:54,877
Well, I don't think of love as...
420
00:27:55,050 --> 00:27:57,840
in this context, as emotional bosh,
421
00:27:58,678 --> 00:28:01,848
but I think of love as something strong
422
00:28:02,057 --> 00:28:07,017
and that organizes itself
into powerful direct action.
423
00:28:07,479 --> 00:28:10,899
This is what I've tried to teach
in the struggle in the South.
424
00:28:11,066 --> 00:28:14,686
We are not engaged in a struggle
425
00:28:14,861 --> 00:28:17,111
that means we sit down and do nothing.
426
00:28:18,239 --> 00:28:20,579
There is a great deal
of difference between
427
00:28:20,742 --> 00:28:24,752
non-resistance to evil
and non-violent resistance.
428
00:28:24,913 --> 00:28:28,123
Martin Luther King is just a
20th century or modern Uncle Tom
429
00:28:28,291 --> 00:28:29,631
or a religious Uncle Tom,
430
00:28:29,793 --> 00:28:31,383
who is doing the same thing today
431
00:28:31,544 --> 00:28:34,054
to keep Negroes defenseless
in the face of attack
432
00:28:34,214 --> 00:28:35,634
that Uncle Tom did on the plantation
433
00:28:35,799 --> 00:28:37,339
to keep those Negroes defenseless
434
00:28:37,509 --> 00:28:40,009
in the face of the attacks
of the Klan in that day.
435
00:28:40,512 --> 00:28:45,932
I think, though, that we can be sure
436
00:28:46,101 --> 00:28:47,771
that the vast majority of Negroes
437
00:28:47,936 --> 00:28:50,016
who engage in the demonstrations,
438
00:28:50,188 --> 00:28:54,568
and who understand
the non-violent philosophy,
439
00:28:55,026 --> 00:28:57,026
will be able to face dogs
440
00:28:57,195 --> 00:29:00,065
and all of the other brutal
methods that are used
441
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:01,910
without retaliating with violence,
442
00:29:02,075 --> 00:29:03,485
because they understand
443
00:29:03,660 --> 00:29:07,540
that one of the first principles
of non-violence
444
00:29:07,872 --> 00:29:11,082
is a willingness
to be the recipient of violence,
445
00:29:11,251 --> 00:29:14,801
while never inflicting violence
upon another.
446
00:29:18,383 --> 00:29:20,893
Baldwin: As concerns Malcolm and Martin,
447
00:29:21,261 --> 00:29:23,931
I watched two men,
coming from unimaginably
448
00:29:24,097 --> 00:29:27,557
different backgrounds,
whose positions, originally,
449
00:29:27,725 --> 00:29:29,015
were poles apart,
450
00:29:29,185 --> 00:29:31,855
driven closer and closer together.
451
00:29:34,190 --> 00:29:37,490
By the time each died,
their positions had become,
452
00:29:37,652 --> 00:29:39,952
virtually, the same position.
453
00:29:41,448 --> 00:29:42,988
It can be said, indeed,
454
00:29:43,158 --> 00:29:45,368
that Martin picked up Malcolm's burden,
455
00:29:45,743 --> 00:29:49,253
articulated the vision
which Malcolm had begun to see,
456
00:29:49,414 --> 00:29:51,374
and for which he paid with his life,
457
00:29:51,833 --> 00:29:53,923
and that Malcolm was one of the people
458
00:29:54,127 --> 00:29:55,747
Martin saw on the mountain-top.
459
00:29:57,464 --> 00:29:59,804
Medgar was too young
to have seen this happen,
460
00:29:59,966 --> 00:30:03,136
though he hoped for it, and
would not have been surprised.
461
00:30:04,179 --> 00:30:05,929
But Medgar was murdered first.
462
00:30:08,266 --> 00:30:11,556
I was older than Medgar,
Malcolm and Martin.
463
00:30:12,020 --> 00:30:15,690
I was raised to believe that
the eldest was supposed to be
464
00:30:15,857 --> 00:30:18,987
a model for the younger,
and was, of course,
465
00:30:19,152 --> 00:30:20,742
expected to die first.
466
00:30:22,030 --> 00:30:24,370
Not one of these three lived to be forty.
467
00:30:26,367 --> 00:30:29,577
Two, four, six eight,
we don't want to integrate!
468
00:30:29,746 --> 00:30:32,706
Two, four, six eight,
we don't want to integrate!
469
00:30:33,708 --> 00:30:36,128
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
470
00:30:41,966 --> 00:30:45,756
We want King! We want King! We want King!
471
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:49,600
- (GUNSHOT)
- (SCREAMING)
472
00:30:50,934 --> 00:30:52,894
(SHOUTING)
473
00:30:59,150 --> 00:31:01,440
We need an organization
that no one downtown loves.
474
00:31:01,986 --> 00:31:04,816
We need one that's ready
and willing to take action,
475
00:31:05,740 --> 00:31:08,990
any kind of action,
by any means necessary.
476
00:31:09,452 --> 00:31:11,202
(APPLAUSE)
477
00:31:12,997 --> 00:31:14,167
When Malcolm talks,
478
00:31:14,332 --> 00:31:16,042
or one of the Muslim ministers talk,
479
00:31:16,209 --> 00:31:20,129
they articulate for all
the Negro people who hear them,
480
00:31:20,713 --> 00:31:25,093
who listen to them,
they articulate their suffering.
481
00:31:26,219 --> 00:31:28,759
The suffering which has been
in this country so long denied.
482
00:31:29,556 --> 00:31:32,596
That's Malcolm's great authority
over any of his audiences.
483
00:31:32,934 --> 00:31:34,604
He corroborates their reality.
484
00:31:35,228 --> 00:31:38,188
He tells them that
they really exist, you know.
485
00:31:39,357 --> 00:31:41,437
- (SHOUTING)
- (SIRENS BLARING)
486
00:31:42,944 --> 00:31:44,784
Officer: Get back. Get back!
487
00:31:46,030 --> 00:31:47,910
- I am!
- (INDISTINCT CHANTING)
488
00:31:48,157 --> 00:31:49,907
- I am!
- (INDISTINCT CHANTING)
489
00:31:50,076 --> 00:31:51,866
(SIRENS BLARING)
490
00:31:54,163 --> 00:31:56,463
(EXPLOSIONS)
491
00:32:03,881 --> 00:32:06,261
There are days, this is one of them...
492
00:32:09,053 --> 00:32:10,433
...when you wonder...
493
00:32:12,807 --> 00:32:14,227
...what your role is in this country
494
00:32:14,392 --> 00:32:15,942
and what your future is in it.
495
00:32:17,061 --> 00:32:18,981
How precisely
are you going to reconcile...
496
00:32:21,733 --> 00:32:24,653
...yourself to your situation here,
497
00:32:25,153 --> 00:32:28,623
and how you are going to communicate...
498
00:32:30,575 --> 00:32:34,495
...to the vast, heedless, unthinking...
499
00:32:36,331 --> 00:32:38,671
...cruel white majority
500
00:32:39,334 --> 00:32:40,544
that you are here.
501
00:32:41,961 --> 00:32:44,921
I'm terrified at the moral apathy,
502
00:32:45,089 --> 00:32:46,629
the death of the heart,
503
00:32:47,467 --> 00:32:49,217
which is happening in my country.
504
00:32:49,886 --> 00:32:54,426
These people have deluded
themselves for so long
505
00:32:54,891 --> 00:32:56,811
that they really don't think I'm human.
506
00:32:57,810 --> 00:33:00,610
I base this on their conduct,
not on what they say.
507
00:33:01,230 --> 00:33:03,940
And this means that they
have become, in themselves...
508
00:33:05,652 --> 00:33:07,402
...moral monsters.
509
00:33:08,905 --> 00:33:11,115
- (JAZZ MUSIC)
- (INDISTINCT CHATTER)
510
00:33:11,282 --> 00:33:12,332
(CAMERAS CLICKING)
511
00:33:43,064 --> 00:33:45,574
Most of the white Americans
I've ever encountered,
512
00:33:45,733 --> 00:33:48,283
really, you know, had
a Negro friend or a Negro maid
513
00:33:48,444 --> 00:33:51,364
or somebody in high school,
but they never, you know,
514
00:33:51,531 --> 00:33:54,081
or rarely, after school was over
or whatever,
515
00:33:54,242 --> 00:33:55,832
came to my kitchen, you know.
516
00:33:55,993 --> 00:33:59,623
We were segregated
from the schoolhouse door.
517
00:33:59,789 --> 00:34:02,289
Therefore, he doesn't know,
he really does not know,
518
00:34:02,458 --> 00:34:04,088
what it was like for me to leave my house,
519
00:34:04,252 --> 00:34:05,802
to leave the school and go back to Harlem.
520
00:34:05,962 --> 00:34:07,422
He doesn't know how Negroes live.
521
00:34:07,588 --> 00:34:10,218
And it comes as a great surprise
to the Kennedy brothers
522
00:34:10,383 --> 00:34:11,843
and to everybody else in the country.
523
00:34:12,552 --> 00:34:14,682
I'm certain, again, you know,
524
00:34:14,846 --> 00:34:17,926
that again like most white
Americans I have encountered,
525
00:34:18,099 --> 00:34:19,349
they have no...
526
00:34:19,976 --> 00:34:21,726
I'm sure they have nothing
whatever against Negroes...
527
00:34:21,894 --> 00:34:23,524
That's really not the question.
528
00:34:23,730 --> 00:34:26,190
The question is really
a kind of apathy and ignorance,
529
00:34:26,524 --> 00:34:28,284
which is the price we pay for segregation.
530
00:34:28,443 --> 00:34:29,613
That's what segregation means.
531
00:34:29,736 --> 00:34:31,566
You don't know what's happening
on the other side of the wall,
532
00:34:31,738 --> 00:34:32,858
because you don't want to know.
533
00:34:33,030 --> 00:34:34,700
I was in some way,
534
00:34:34,866 --> 00:34:37,946
in those years,
without entirely realizing it,
535
00:34:38,327 --> 00:34:41,407
the great Black Hope
of the great White Father.
536
00:34:42,373 --> 00:34:46,383
I was not a racist, or so I thought.
537
00:34:47,170 --> 00:34:51,670
Malcolm was a racist, or so they thought.
538
00:34:52,675 --> 00:34:57,095
In fact, we were simply
trapped in the same situation.
539
00:34:58,639 --> 00:35:00,429
Well, you tell that to my boy tonight,
540
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,350
when you put him to sleep
on the living room couch.
541
00:35:03,770 --> 00:35:05,190
And you tell it to him in the morning,
542
00:35:05,354 --> 00:35:06,484
when his mother goes out of here
543
00:35:06,647 --> 00:35:07,977
to take care of somebody else's kids.
544
00:35:08,149 --> 00:35:10,739
And tell it to me, when we want
some curtains or some drapes
545
00:35:10,902 --> 00:35:13,322
and you sneak out of here and
go work in somebody's kitchen.
546
00:35:13,488 --> 00:35:15,318
All I want is to make
a future for this family.
547
00:35:15,490 --> 00:35:18,240
All I want is to be able to
stand in front of my boy
548
00:35:18,451 --> 00:35:20,871
like my father never was able to do to me.
549
00:35:22,288 --> 00:35:26,788
Baldwin:
550
00:35:28,461 --> 00:35:31,381
Lorraine Hansberry
would not be very much younger
551
00:35:31,547 --> 00:35:33,717
than I am now, if she were alive.
552
00:35:34,967 --> 00:35:37,387
At the time of the Bobby Kennedy meeting,
553
00:35:37,553 --> 00:35:39,433
she was thirty-three.
554
00:35:41,349 --> 00:35:45,599
That was one of the very last
times I saw her on her feet,
555
00:35:46,354 --> 00:35:48,944
and she died at the age of thirty-four.
556
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:52,990
I miss her so much.
557
00:35:55,655 --> 00:35:58,405
People forget how young everybody was.
558
00:35:59,367 --> 00:36:02,617
Bobby Kennedy, for another,
quite different example,
559
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:04,410
was thirty-eight.
560
00:36:05,832 --> 00:36:07,962
We wanted him to tell his brother,
561
00:36:08,125 --> 00:36:10,585
the president,
to personally escort to school,
562
00:36:10,753 --> 00:36:14,303
on that day or the day after,
a small black girl,
563
00:36:14,674 --> 00:36:17,434
already scheduled
to enter Deep South School.
564
00:36:17,927 --> 00:36:19,637
"That way," we said,
565
00:36:20,263 --> 00:36:24,063
"it will be clear that
whoever spits on that child
566
00:36:24,517 --> 00:36:25,767
will be spitting on the nation."
567
00:36:27,645 --> 00:36:29,305
He didn't understand this either.
568
00:36:29,981 --> 00:36:34,401
"It would be," he said,
"a meaningless moral gesture."
569
00:36:36,237 --> 00:36:40,907
"We would like," said Lorraine,
"from you, a moral commitment".
570
00:36:42,118 --> 00:36:43,448
He looked insulted,
571
00:36:44,036 --> 00:36:47,156
seemed to feel that
he'd been wasting his time.
572
00:36:49,250 --> 00:36:52,920
Well, Lorraine sat still,
watching all the while.
573
00:36:56,799 --> 00:36:58,259
She looked at Bobby Kennedy,
574
00:36:58,467 --> 00:37:01,347
who, perhaps for the first time,
looked at her.
575
00:37:03,472 --> 00:37:05,312
"But I am very worried," she said,
576
00:37:05,892 --> 00:37:08,482
"about the state of the civilization
577
00:37:08,644 --> 00:37:11,404
which produced that photograph
of the white cop
578
00:37:11,564 --> 00:37:14,904
standing on that Negro woman's
neck in Birmingham."
579
00:37:18,070 --> 00:37:19,320
Then she smiled.
580
00:37:20,323 --> 00:37:24,163
And I am glad
that she was not smiling at me.
581
00:37:26,370 --> 00:37:28,790
"Goodbye Mr. Attorney General," she said,
582
00:37:29,624 --> 00:37:32,344
and turned and walked out of the room.
583
00:37:35,671 --> 00:37:38,631
And then, we heard the thunder.
584
00:37:49,852 --> 00:37:52,812
Baldwin:
585
00:37:53,522 --> 00:37:56,532
...He stopped at his house
on the way to the airport
586
00:37:56,692 --> 00:38:00,822
so I could autograph my books
for him, his wife and children.
587
00:38:02,073 --> 00:38:05,203
I remember Myrlie Evers
standing outside, smiling,
588
00:38:05,409 --> 00:38:06,579
and we waved,
589
00:38:07,161 --> 00:38:10,291
and Medgar drove to the airport
and put me on the plane.
590
00:38:13,334 --> 00:38:15,964
Months later, I was in Puerto Rico,
591
00:38:16,337 --> 00:38:17,587
working on my play.
592
00:38:18,923 --> 00:38:21,633
Lucien and I had spent a day or so
593
00:38:21,801 --> 00:38:23,471
wandering around the island,
594
00:38:24,220 --> 00:38:26,220
and now we were driving home.
595
00:38:26,430 --> 00:38:28,390
(CAR RADIO PLAYING)
596
00:38:32,812 --> 00:38:35,312
It was a wonderful, bright, sunny day,
597
00:38:35,815 --> 00:38:39,435
the top to the car was down,
we were laughing and talking,
598
00:38:39,610 --> 00:38:41,150
and the radio was playing.
599
00:38:44,490 --> 00:38:45,910
- Then the music stopped...
- (MUSIC STOPS)
600
00:38:47,743 --> 00:38:50,003
...and a voice announced
that Medgar Evers
601
00:38:50,496 --> 00:38:53,456
had been shot to death
in the carport of his home,
602
00:38:53,874 --> 00:38:57,634
and his wife and children
had seen the big man fall.
603
00:38:57,795 --> 00:39:01,585
♪ Medgar Evers was buried
from the bullet he caught ♪
604
00:39:03,509 --> 00:39:07,299
♪ They lowered him down as a king ♪
605
00:39:10,224 --> 00:39:13,314
♪ But when the shadowy sun ♪
606
00:39:13,477 --> 00:39:15,347
♪ Sets on the one ♪
607
00:39:15,521 --> 00:39:17,731
♪ That fired the gun ♪
608
00:39:18,232 --> 00:39:21,192
♪ He'll see by his grave ♪
609
00:39:21,986 --> 00:39:24,566
♪ On the stone that remains ♪
610
00:39:24,947 --> 00:39:27,407
♪ Carved next to his name ♪
611
00:39:28,075 --> 00:39:30,445
♪ His epitaph plain: ♪
612
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:36,540
♪ Only a pawn in their game ♪
613
00:39:38,836 --> 00:39:41,626
Baldwin: The blue sky seemed
to descend like a blanket.
614
00:39:42,048 --> 00:39:45,218
And I couldn't say anything,
I couldn't cry.
615
00:39:46,510 --> 00:39:48,430
I just remembered his face,
616
00:39:48,888 --> 00:39:52,058
a bright, blunt, handsome face,
617
00:39:52,641 --> 00:39:56,481
and his weariness,
which he wore like his skin,
618
00:39:56,937 --> 00:40:00,687
and the way he said "ro-aad" for road.
619
00:40:03,778 --> 00:40:06,108
And his telling me
how the tatters of clothes
620
00:40:06,322 --> 00:40:10,952
from a lynched body hung,
flapping in the tree for days,
621
00:40:11,994 --> 00:40:15,754
and how he had to pass that tree
every day.
622
00:40:19,168 --> 00:40:20,288
Medgar.
623
00:40:21,378 --> 00:40:22,668
Gone.
624
00:40:23,339 --> 00:40:25,169
♪ Baby, please don't go ♪
625
00:40:26,175 --> 00:40:28,045
♪ Baby, please don't go ♪
626
00:40:28,928 --> 00:40:31,928
♪ Baby, please don't go
Back to New Orleans ♪
627
00:40:32,139 --> 00:40:35,099
♪ You know I love you so
Baby, please don't go ♪
628
00:40:36,477 --> 00:40:38,687
(SONG CONTINUES)
629
00:40:47,988 --> 00:40:51,238
Baldwin: In America,
I was free only in battle,
630
00:40:51,826 --> 00:40:53,326
never free to rest,
631
00:40:54,411 --> 00:40:56,791
and he who finds no way to rest
632
00:40:57,039 --> 00:40:59,079
cannot long survive the battle.
633
00:40:59,250 --> 00:41:01,460
(AFRICAN SINGING AND DRUMMING)
634
00:41:12,012 --> 00:41:14,142
And the young,
white revolutionary remains,
635
00:41:14,306 --> 00:41:18,136
in general, far more romantic
than a black one.
636
00:41:21,605 --> 00:41:24,525
White people have managed
to get through entire lifetimes
637
00:41:24,692 --> 00:41:26,192
in this euphoric state,
638
00:41:27,069 --> 00:41:29,279
but black people have not been so lucky.
639
00:41:30,406 --> 00:41:33,116
A black man who sees the world
the way John Wayne,
640
00:41:33,284 --> 00:41:34,744
for example, sees it...
641
00:41:35,369 --> 00:41:37,289
would not be an eccentric patriot,
642
00:41:37,788 --> 00:41:39,578
but a raving maniac.
643
00:41:42,501 --> 00:41:46,011
The truth is that this country
does not know what to do
644
00:41:46,172 --> 00:41:47,672
with its black population,
645
00:41:48,424 --> 00:41:52,094
dreaming of anything like
"The Final Solution".
646
00:41:58,809 --> 00:42:00,309
Baldwin: The Negro has never been
647
00:42:01,061 --> 00:42:03,811
as docile as white Americans
wanted to believe.
648
00:42:05,149 --> 00:42:06,279
That was a myth.
649
00:42:06,859 --> 00:42:09,069
We were not singing
and dancing down the levee.
650
00:42:10,196 --> 00:42:11,276
We were trying to keep alive,
651
00:42:11,447 --> 00:42:13,487
we were trying to survive
a very brutal system.
652
00:42:14,450 --> 00:42:16,450
The nigger has never
been happy in his place.
653
00:42:22,291 --> 00:42:23,831
Baldwin: One of the most terrible things,
654
00:42:24,001 --> 00:42:25,711
is that, whether I like it or not,
655
00:42:25,878 --> 00:42:27,298
I am an American.
656
00:42:27,463 --> 00:42:31,183
My school really was
the streets of New York City.
657
00:42:31,342 --> 00:42:33,642
My frame of reference was...
658
00:42:34,053 --> 00:42:36,393
George Washington and John Wayne.
659
00:42:36,555 --> 00:42:39,225
But I was a child, you know,
and when a child puts his eyes
660
00:42:39,391 --> 00:42:41,021
on the world, he has to use what he sees.
661
00:42:41,185 --> 00:42:42,435
There's nothing else to use.
662
00:42:42,603 --> 00:42:44,613
And you are formed by what you see,
663
00:42:44,772 --> 00:42:46,902
the choices you have to make,
and the way you discover
664
00:42:47,066 --> 00:42:48,646
what it means to be black in New York
665
00:42:48,817 --> 00:42:50,947
and then throughout the entire country.
666
00:42:53,656 --> 00:42:54,566
(GUN CLICKS)
667
00:42:54,740 --> 00:42:56,990
I know how you watch, as you grow older,
668
00:42:57,243 --> 00:42:58,913
and it's not a figure of speech,
669
00:42:59,078 --> 00:43:00,828
the corpses of your brothers
and your sisters
670
00:43:01,038 --> 00:43:02,328
pile up around you.
671
00:43:02,873 --> 00:43:05,083
And not for anything they have done.
672
00:43:06,126 --> 00:43:08,046
They were too young to have done anything.
673
00:43:09,713 --> 00:43:15,473
But what one does realize
is that when you try to stand up
674
00:43:16,220 --> 00:43:19,850
and look the world in the face
like you had a right to be here,
675
00:43:21,725 --> 00:43:24,515
you have attacked
the entire power structure
676
00:43:24,770 --> 00:43:25,980
of the western world.
677
00:43:30,401 --> 00:43:32,151
Forget "The Negro Problem".
678
00:43:33,153 --> 00:43:34,823
Don't write any voting acts.
679
00:43:35,364 --> 00:43:37,324
We had that. It's called
The Fifteenth Amendment.
680
00:43:38,075 --> 00:43:40,445
During the Civil Rights Bill of 1964,
681
00:43:41,453 --> 00:43:43,753
what you have to look at is what
is happening in this country,
682
00:43:43,914 --> 00:43:45,624
and what is really happening
is that brother
683
00:43:45,791 --> 00:43:48,461
has murdered brother,
knowing it was his brother.
684
00:43:49,628 --> 00:43:52,838
White men have lynched Negroes,
knowing them to be their sons.
685
00:43:54,174 --> 00:43:55,634
White women have had Negroes burned,
686
00:43:55,801 --> 00:43:57,431
knowing them to be their lovers.
687
00:43:58,679 --> 00:44:00,719
It is not a racial problem.
688
00:44:01,598 --> 00:44:03,308
It's a problem of whether or not
you're willing
689
00:44:03,475 --> 00:44:06,305
to look at your life
and be responsible for it,
690
00:44:06,478 --> 00:44:08,018
and then begin to change it.
691
00:44:09,898 --> 00:44:12,438
That great western house
I come from is one house,
692
00:44:12,609 --> 00:44:14,529
and I am one of the children
of that house.
693
00:44:15,279 --> 00:44:18,119
Simply, I am the most
despised child of that house.
694
00:44:18,782 --> 00:44:21,162
And it is because
the American people are unable
695
00:44:21,785 --> 00:44:25,205
to face the fact that
I am flesh of their flesh,
696
00:44:26,123 --> 00:44:30,003
bone of their bone, created by them.
697
00:44:30,419 --> 00:44:33,509
My blood, my father's blood,
is in that soil.
698
00:44:44,641 --> 00:44:45,981
Good afternoon, Ma'am.
699
00:44:46,310 --> 00:44:47,770
It's raining so hard,
700
00:44:47,936 --> 00:44:50,556
I brought rubbers and coat
to fetch my little girl home.
701
00:44:50,731 --> 00:44:52,521
I'm afraid you've made some mistake.
702
00:44:52,733 --> 00:44:53,943
Ain't this the 3B?
703
00:44:54,109 --> 00:44:56,319
- Yes.
- Well, this is it.
704
00:44:56,487 --> 00:44:57,857
It can't be it.
705
00:44:58,030 --> 00:45:00,450
I have no little
colored children in my class.
706
00:45:01,033 --> 00:45:02,993
Oh, thank you.
707
00:45:07,081 --> 00:45:08,621
There's my little girl.
708
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:12,170
Peola, you may you home.
709
00:45:22,888 --> 00:45:25,058
Boy: Gee, I didn't know she was colored.
710
00:45:25,224 --> 00:45:26,524
Girl: Neither did I.
711
00:45:27,101 --> 00:45:29,691
Peola: I hate you,
I hate you, I hate you!
712
00:45:29,895 --> 00:45:31,605
Woman: Peola! Peola!
713
00:45:43,158 --> 00:45:46,658
Baldwin: I know very well
that my ancestors
714
00:45:46,870 --> 00:45:49,290
had no desire to come to this place.
715
00:45:51,792 --> 00:45:55,672
But neither did the ancestors
of the people who became white,
716
00:45:56,338 --> 00:45:59,508
and who require of my captivity a song.
717
00:46:02,177 --> 00:46:04,097
They require a song of me,
718
00:46:05,305 --> 00:46:09,635
less to celebrate my captivity
than to justify their own.
719
00:46:10,185 --> 00:46:11,765
(SOFT PIANO MUSIC)
720
00:46:26,660 --> 00:46:29,200
Baldwin: I have always
been struck, in America,
721
00:46:29,371 --> 00:46:31,921
by an emotional poverty so bottomless,
722
00:46:32,082 --> 00:46:36,342
and a terror of human life,
of human touch,
723
00:46:37,129 --> 00:46:41,049
so deep that virtually no
American appears able to achieve
724
00:46:41,216 --> 00:46:43,256
any viable, organic connection
725
00:46:43,886 --> 00:46:47,426
between his public stance
and his private life.
726
00:46:52,811 --> 00:46:56,901
This failure of the private life
has always had the most
727
00:46:57,065 --> 00:47:00,895
devastating effect
on American public conduct,
728
00:47:01,528 --> 00:47:03,488
and on black-white relations.
729
00:47:05,908 --> 00:47:08,948
If Americans were not so terrified
730
00:47:09,119 --> 00:47:10,579
of their private selves,
731
00:47:11,371 --> 00:47:13,461
they would never have become so dependent
732
00:47:13,624 --> 00:47:16,134
on what they call "The Negro Problem".
733
00:47:16,502 --> 00:47:18,962
They said it wasn't nice to say "nigger".
734
00:47:22,257 --> 00:47:23,177
Nigger!
735
00:47:23,342 --> 00:47:25,182
Nigger! Nigger!
736
00:47:25,886 --> 00:47:29,426
Poor little nigger kids,
love the little nigger kids.
737
00:47:29,598 --> 00:47:30,928
Who loved me?
738
00:47:31,308 --> 00:47:32,638
Who loved me?
739
00:47:33,185 --> 00:47:36,095
Baldwin: This problem,
which they invented
740
00:47:36,313 --> 00:47:38,613
in order to safeguard their purity,
741
00:47:39,399 --> 00:47:43,359
has made of them criminals and monsters,
742
00:47:43,946 --> 00:47:45,566
and it is destroying them.
743
00:47:45,822 --> 00:47:47,412
(BAND PLAYING)
744
00:47:48,033 --> 00:47:53,413
And this, not from anything
Blacks may or may not be doing,
745
00:47:54,122 --> 00:47:55,582
but because of the role
746
00:47:55,749 --> 00:47:58,789
of a guilty and constricted
white imagination
747
00:47:59,169 --> 00:48:00,879
has assigned to the Blacks.
748
00:48:12,599 --> 00:48:14,349
Look man, don't give me that look.
749
00:48:15,435 --> 00:48:17,265
You should have got what was coming to you
750
00:48:17,604 --> 00:48:19,614
after spitting in that guy's face.
751
00:48:21,900 --> 00:48:23,030
Why you...
752
00:48:24,653 --> 00:48:27,823
Baldwin: It is impossible to
accept the premise of the story,
753
00:48:28,448 --> 00:48:32,198
a premise based on the profound
American misunderstanding
754
00:48:32,369 --> 00:48:35,409
of the nature of the hatred
between black and white.
755
00:48:35,956 --> 00:48:37,706
- Man: That time is now.
- (GRUNTS)
756
00:48:39,918 --> 00:48:42,458
The root of the black man's
hatred is rage,
757
00:48:43,338 --> 00:48:45,378
and he does not so much hate white men
758
00:48:45,549 --> 00:48:48,049
as simply wants them out of his way,
759
00:48:49,011 --> 00:48:50,431
and more than that,
760
00:48:51,013 --> 00:48:52,473
out of his children's way.
761
00:48:52,681 --> 00:48:54,311
(BOTH PANTING)
762
00:48:55,267 --> 00:48:57,937
The root of the white man's
hatred is terror.
763
00:48:58,103 --> 00:48:59,273
- (GRUNTS)
- I'm gonna kill you.
764
00:48:59,438 --> 00:49:01,478
A bottomless and nameless terror,
765
00:49:02,065 --> 00:49:04,395
which focuses on this dread figure,
766
00:49:04,651 --> 00:49:07,901
an entity which lives only in his mind.
767
00:49:15,537 --> 00:49:16,657
Run!
768
00:49:16,830 --> 00:49:17,960
Come on!
769
00:49:18,123 --> 00:49:21,083
I can't make it, I can't make it!
770
00:49:27,341 --> 00:49:29,221
Baldwin: When Sidney jumps off the train,
771
00:49:29,468 --> 00:49:31,138
the white liberal people downtown
772
00:49:31,303 --> 00:49:33,063
were much relieved and joyful.
773
00:49:34,014 --> 00:49:36,734
But when black people
saw him jump off the train,
774
00:49:37,225 --> 00:49:41,265
they yelled, "Get back
on the train, you fool!"
775
00:49:44,691 --> 00:49:46,491
The black man jumps off the train
776
00:49:46,693 --> 00:49:48,653
in order to reassure white people,
777
00:49:49,613 --> 00:49:51,913
to make them know that they are not hated,
778
00:49:52,908 --> 00:49:54,988
that though they have made human errors,
779
00:49:55,911 --> 00:49:58,541
they done nothing for which to be hated.
780
00:50:03,001 --> 00:50:06,381
♪ I'm Chiquita Banana
And I'm here to say ♪
781
00:50:06,546 --> 00:50:07,836
♪ I am the top banana... ♪
782
00:50:08,006 --> 00:50:10,126
Baldwin: In spite of the fabulous myths
783
00:50:10,300 --> 00:50:11,800
proliferating in this country
784
00:50:11,968 --> 00:50:14,428
concerning the sexuality of black people,
785
00:50:15,055 --> 00:50:18,555
black men are still used,
in the popular culture,
786
00:50:18,892 --> 00:50:21,942
as though they had
no sexual equipment at all.
787
00:50:24,231 --> 00:50:27,781
Sidney Poitier,
as a black artist, and a man,
788
00:50:28,276 --> 00:50:30,736
is also up against the infantile,
789
00:50:30,904 --> 00:50:32,994
furtive sexuality of this country.
790
00:50:34,074 --> 00:50:37,294
Both he and Harry Belafonte, for example,
791
00:50:37,452 --> 00:50:40,912
are sex symbols,
though no one dares admit that,
792
00:50:41,581 --> 00:50:45,961
still less to use them as any of
the Hollywood he-men are used.
793
00:50:50,048 --> 00:50:53,088
Black people have been robbed
of everything in this country...
794
00:50:53,260 --> 00:50:54,680
I've got something to say to you, boy.
795
00:50:54,845 --> 00:50:58,005
...and they don't want to be
robbed of their artist.
796
00:50:59,015 --> 00:51:00,845
Black people particularly disliked
797
00:51:01,017 --> 00:51:02,557
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,
798
00:51:02,728 --> 00:51:05,648
because they felt that
Sidney was, in effect,
799
00:51:05,814 --> 00:51:07,444
being used against them.
800
00:51:08,483 --> 00:51:10,363
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner may prove,
801
00:51:10,527 --> 00:51:12,947
in some bizarre way, to be a milestone,
802
00:51:13,488 --> 00:51:17,238
because it is really quite
impossible to go any further
803
00:51:17,409 --> 00:51:19,039
in that particular direction.
804
00:51:19,494 --> 00:51:23,874
♪ If you ever plan to motor West... ♪
805
00:51:24,958 --> 00:51:28,338
Baldwin: The next time,
the kissing will have to start.
806
00:51:35,343 --> 00:51:37,683
Well, you've got your ticket?
807
00:51:38,555 --> 00:51:39,805
Here you are.
808
00:51:42,058 --> 00:51:43,268
Thank you.
809
00:51:44,394 --> 00:51:47,114
Baldwin: I am aware
that men do not kiss each other
810
00:51:47,272 --> 00:51:51,742
in American films, nor,
for the most part, in America
811
00:51:52,611 --> 00:51:56,281
nor do the black detective
and the white Sheriff kiss here.
812
00:51:59,534 --> 00:52:02,004
You take care, you hear?
813
00:52:07,459 --> 00:52:08,589
Yeah.
814
00:52:09,795 --> 00:52:11,875
But the obligatory, fade-out-kiss,
815
00:52:12,339 --> 00:52:15,549
in the classic American film,
did not speak of love,
816
00:52:16,176 --> 00:52:18,086
and still less of sex.
817
00:52:19,137 --> 00:52:21,177
It spoke of reconciliation,
818
00:52:22,641 --> 00:52:25,191
of all things now becoming possible.
819
00:52:25,352 --> 00:52:27,232
- (RAIN POURING)
- (WINDSCREEN WIPERS THUDDING)
820
00:52:47,958 --> 00:52:50,708
Baldwin: I knew a blond girl
in the village
821
00:52:51,169 --> 00:52:54,379
a long time ago, and eventually,
822
00:52:54,548 --> 00:52:56,758
we never walked out of the house together.
823
00:53:00,345 --> 00:53:03,095
She was far safer
walking the streets alone
824
00:53:03,598 --> 00:53:05,228
than when walking with me.
825
00:53:06,434 --> 00:53:09,064
A brutal and humiliating fact
826
00:53:09,646 --> 00:53:12,226
which thoroughly destroyed
whatever relationship
827
00:53:12,399 --> 00:53:15,439
this girl and I
might have been able to achieve.
828
00:53:18,405 --> 00:53:20,655
This happens all the time in America,
829
00:53:21,950 --> 00:53:23,830
but Americans have yet to realize
830
00:53:23,994 --> 00:53:26,204
what a sinister fact this is,
831
00:53:26,371 --> 00:53:27,831
and what it says about them.
832
00:53:31,042 --> 00:53:33,632
When we walked out in the evening, then,
833
00:53:34,838 --> 00:53:37,418
she would leave ahead of me, alone.
834
00:53:38,550 --> 00:53:42,970
I would give about five minutes,
and then I would walk out alone,
835
00:53:44,514 --> 00:53:47,894
taking another route, and
meet her on the subway platform.
836
00:53:50,145 --> 00:53:52,015
We would not acknowledge each other.
837
00:53:52,689 --> 00:53:54,769
We would get into the subway car,
838
00:53:54,941 --> 00:53:58,821
sitting at opposite ends of it,
and walk, separately,
839
00:53:58,987 --> 00:54:01,407
through the streets
of the free and the brave,
840
00:54:02,032 --> 00:54:05,742
to wherever we were going...
a friend's house, or the movies.
841
00:54:16,796 --> 00:54:18,046
Man: All over the country,
842
00:54:18,214 --> 00:54:21,184
families such this
are enjoying new prosperity.
843
00:54:21,593 --> 00:54:24,553
They have new interests,
news standards of living,
844
00:54:24,721 --> 00:54:27,721
a buying power
they've never enjoyed before.
845
00:54:27,891 --> 00:54:28,981
There are good prospects
846
00:54:29,142 --> 00:54:31,772
for practically all types
of goods and services.
847
00:54:32,228 --> 00:54:35,268
All too often though,
they are overlooked prospects.
848
00:54:35,649 --> 00:54:38,609
Since 1940, in San Francisco alone,
849
00:54:38,777 --> 00:54:42,357
the Negro market has increased by 89%.
850
00:54:43,406 --> 00:54:46,616
Here are millions of customers
for what you have to sell.
851
00:54:47,285 --> 00:54:52,285
Customers with 15 billion dollars to spend
852
00:54:52,874 --> 00:54:55,214
Baldwin: Someone once said to me
853
00:54:55,377 --> 00:54:59,007
that the people in general
cannot bear very much reality.
854
00:54:59,923 --> 00:55:02,933
He meant by this that they prefer fantasy
855
00:55:03,093 --> 00:55:06,433
to a truthful recreation
of their experience.
856
00:55:07,847 --> 00:55:10,517
People have quite enough reality to bear,
857
00:55:11,017 --> 00:55:12,977
by simply getting through their lives,
858
00:55:13,353 --> 00:55:14,693
raising their children,
859
00:55:15,063 --> 00:55:17,073
dealing with the eternal conundrums
860
00:55:17,232 --> 00:55:20,282
of birth, taxes, and death.
861
00:55:21,111 --> 00:55:25,161
Negroes are continuously making
progress here in this country.
862
00:55:25,323 --> 00:55:27,533
The progress in many areas
is not as fast as it should be,
863
00:55:27,701 --> 00:55:28,831
but they are making progress,
864
00:55:28,994 --> 00:55:30,414
and we will continue to make progress.
865
00:55:30,578 --> 00:55:35,208
There's no reason that they, in
a near and foreseeable future,
866
00:55:35,375 --> 00:55:38,165
that a Negro could also be
president of the United States
867
00:55:39,546 --> 00:55:41,006
I remember, for example,
868
00:55:41,631 --> 00:55:45,091
when the ex-Attorney General,
Mr. Robert Kennedy,
869
00:55:46,845 --> 00:55:50,015
said that it was conceivable
870
00:55:50,932 --> 00:55:54,192
that in 40 years in America,
we might have a Negro president.
871
00:55:55,979 --> 00:55:59,899
And that sounded like
a very emancipated statement,
872
00:56:00,066 --> 00:56:01,526
I suppose, to white people.
873
00:56:02,694 --> 00:56:04,114
They were not in Harlem...
874
00:56:05,447 --> 00:56:07,237
...when this statement was first heard.
875
00:56:08,783 --> 00:56:11,043
And did not hear,
and possibly will never hear,
876
00:56:11,661 --> 00:56:13,331
the laughter and the bitterness
and the scorn
877
00:56:13,496 --> 00:56:15,036
with which this statement was greeted.
878
00:56:15,290 --> 00:56:17,460
From the point of view of the
man in the Harlem barbershop,
879
00:56:17,625 --> 00:56:19,875
Bobby Kennedy only got here yesterday.
880
00:56:21,963 --> 00:56:24,883
And now he's already
on his way to the Presidency.
881
00:56:25,550 --> 00:56:28,720
We've been here for 400 years
and now he tells us
882
00:56:28,887 --> 00:56:32,467
that maybe in 40 years, if you're good,
883
00:56:33,391 --> 00:56:35,441
we may let you become president.
884
00:56:37,187 --> 00:56:41,937
♪ It was a dream,
Just a dream I had on my mind ♪
885
00:56:46,488 --> 00:56:51,988
♪ It was a dream,
Just a dream I had on my mind ♪
886
00:56:56,122 --> 00:56:58,292
♪ And when I woke up, baby ♪
887
00:56:58,583 --> 00:57:01,383
♪ Not a thing could I find ♪
888
00:57:01,586 --> 00:57:04,586
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
889
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:09,930
♪ I dreamed I was an angel
And had a good time ♪
890
00:57:10,595 --> 00:57:14,515
♪ I dreamed I was satisfying
And nothin' to worry my mind ♪
891
00:57:14,682 --> 00:57:16,562
♪ But it was a dream ♪
892
00:57:17,936 --> 00:57:20,856
♪ Just a dream I had on my mind ♪
893
00:57:31,699 --> 00:57:33,279
Baldwin: Let me put it this way,
894
00:57:34,327 --> 00:57:36,657
that from a very literal point of view,
895
00:57:38,081 --> 00:57:40,081
the harbors and the ports
896
00:57:40,333 --> 00:57:43,753
and the railroads of the country,
897
00:57:46,506 --> 00:57:47,666
the economy,
898
00:57:48,508 --> 00:57:52,298
especially in the southern states,
899
00:57:52,554 --> 00:57:56,144
could not conceivably be
what it has become
900
00:57:56,683 --> 00:57:58,523
if they had not had,
901
00:57:58,685 --> 00:58:01,265
and do not still have,
indeed, and for so long,
902
00:58:01,479 --> 00:58:03,059
so many generations,
903
00:58:03,231 --> 00:58:04,321
cheap labor.
904
00:58:04,524 --> 00:58:05,904
(WESTERN MUSIC PLAYING)
905
00:58:49,152 --> 00:58:51,612
Baldwin: It is a terrible thing
906
00:58:51,779 --> 00:58:53,659
for an entire people
907
00:58:53,823 --> 00:58:58,083
to surrender to the notion
that one ninth of its population
908
00:58:58,244 --> 00:58:59,504
is beneath them.
909
00:59:00,163 --> 00:59:02,963
And until that moment,
until the moment comes,
910
00:59:03,875 --> 00:59:06,035
when we, the Americans,
911
00:59:06,252 --> 00:59:10,512
we, the American people,
are able to accept the fact
912
00:59:10,673 --> 00:59:12,263
that I have to accept, for example,
913
00:59:12,425 --> 00:59:14,585
that my ancestors
are both white and black.
914
00:59:15,678 --> 00:59:19,098
That on that continent we are
trying to forge a new identity
915
00:59:19,265 --> 00:59:20,845
for which we need each other,
916
00:59:21,768 --> 00:59:24,898
and that I am not a ward of America.
917
00:59:25,271 --> 00:59:27,821
I am not an object of missionary charity,
918
00:59:28,733 --> 00:59:31,613
I am one of the people
who built the country.
919
00:59:32,946 --> 00:59:34,316
Until this moment,
920
00:59:34,739 --> 00:59:37,369
there is scarcely any hope
for the American Dream,
921
00:59:38,534 --> 00:59:41,584
because people who are denied
participation in it,
922
00:59:43,289 --> 00:59:45,079
by their very presence...
923
00:59:46,417 --> 00:59:47,627
...will wreck it.
924
00:59:48,419 --> 00:59:51,209
And if that happens, it is a
very grave moment for the West.
925
00:59:51,381 --> 00:59:53,681
- Thank you.
- (APPLAUSE)
926
01:00:11,401 --> 01:00:14,111
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
927
01:00:37,302 --> 01:00:39,012
David Schoenburn:
We're here in the studio today
928
01:00:39,178 --> 01:00:41,928
with seven men who have
two things in common:
929
01:00:42,932 --> 01:00:45,812
they are entertainers and artists;
930
01:00:45,977 --> 01:00:47,727
and they've all come to Washington.
931
01:00:47,895 --> 01:00:50,055
They are seven out of some
two hundred thousand
932
01:00:50,231 --> 01:00:52,901
American citizens who came to the capital
933
01:00:53,109 --> 01:00:55,819
to march for freedom and for jobs.
934
01:00:56,237 --> 01:01:01,027
Will this tremendous outburst
now lead to a course of action,
935
01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:02,370
Mr. Belafonte?
936
01:01:02,535 --> 01:01:05,995
The now that is being
spoken about is the fact that
937
01:01:06,164 --> 01:01:08,004
in a hundred years, finally,
938
01:01:08,708 --> 01:01:11,458
through whatever the causes
have been in history,
939
01:01:11,627 --> 01:01:14,507
and most of them have been
because of oppression,
940
01:01:14,714 --> 01:01:18,844
the Negro people have strongly and fully
941
01:01:19,010 --> 01:01:20,550
taken the bit in their teeth,
942
01:01:20,720 --> 01:01:23,100
they're asking absolutely
no quarter from anyone.
943
01:01:23,264 --> 01:01:25,644
But I do say that
the bulk of the interpretation
944
01:01:25,808 --> 01:01:27,388
of whether this thing is going to end
945
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:29,270
successfully and joyously,
946
01:01:29,437 --> 01:01:31,057
or is going to end disastrously,
947
01:01:31,230 --> 01:01:34,190
lays very heavily
with the white community,
948
01:01:34,359 --> 01:01:36,399
it lays very heavily with the profiteers,
949
01:01:36,569 --> 01:01:39,279
it lays very heavily
with the vested interests.
950
01:01:39,447 --> 01:01:42,527
It lays very heavily
with a great middle stream
951
01:01:42,825 --> 01:01:44,075
in this country,
952
01:01:44,243 --> 01:01:47,463
of people who have refused
to commit themselves,
953
01:01:47,622 --> 01:01:49,622
or even have the slightest knowledge
954
01:01:49,791 --> 01:01:51,881
that these things have been going on.
955
01:01:52,168 --> 01:01:54,128
(OMINOUS MUSIC)
956
01:02:03,471 --> 01:02:06,971
Baldwin: I am speaking as
a member of a certain democracy
957
01:02:07,141 --> 01:02:09,811
in a very complex country,
958
01:02:10,353 --> 01:02:13,563
which insists on being
very narrow-minded.
959
01:02:15,525 --> 01:02:19,105
Simplicity is taken to be
a great American virtue,
960
01:02:19,404 --> 01:02:21,034
along with sincerity.
961
01:02:22,490 --> 01:02:23,450
I am sorry.
962
01:02:23,616 --> 01:02:24,826
I am deeply sorry.
963
01:02:25,368 --> 01:02:26,408
And I am sorry.
964
01:02:26,577 --> 01:02:27,997
I'm deeply sorry about that.
965
01:02:28,162 --> 01:02:29,752
They are no excuses.
966
01:02:29,914 --> 01:02:31,174
I am solely...
967
01:02:31,332 --> 01:02:32,752
We have made plenty of mistakes.
968
01:02:32,917 --> 01:02:34,457
For that, I apologize.
969
01:02:34,877 --> 01:02:36,417
I am very sorry.
970
01:02:36,671 --> 01:02:39,591
I'm sorry I did this to you,
but you gotta get used to it.
971
01:02:39,757 --> 01:02:41,547
It's one of those little problems in life.
972
01:02:41,717 --> 01:02:42,717
I take full responsibility.
973
01:02:42,885 --> 01:02:44,675
I'm here today to again apologize.
974
01:02:44,846 --> 01:02:46,846
I'll just apologize for that to her.
975
01:02:47,014 --> 01:02:49,734
For any mistakes I've made,
I take full responsibility.
976
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:52,480
It's an honor to serve
the city of Ferguson
977
01:02:52,645 --> 01:02:54,105
and the people who live there.
978
01:02:59,068 --> 01:03:00,648
Baldwin: One of the results of this
979
01:03:01,112 --> 01:03:04,452
is that immaturity
is taken to be a virtue too.
980
01:03:05,366 --> 01:03:08,826
So that someone like that,
let's say John Wayne,
981
01:03:08,995 --> 01:03:10,905
who spent most of his time on screen
982
01:03:11,080 --> 01:03:12,330
admonishing Indians,
983
01:03:12,915 --> 01:03:15,995
was in no necessity to grow up.
984
01:03:21,174 --> 01:03:25,014
Baldwin:
985
01:03:25,761 --> 01:03:29,271
We were free and we decided
to treat ourselves
986
01:03:29,432 --> 01:03:31,522
to a really fancy, friendly dinner.
987
01:03:36,272 --> 01:03:39,282
The head waiter came and said
there was a phone call for me,
988
01:03:39,984 --> 01:03:42,204
and my sister Gloria rose to take it.
989
01:03:46,532 --> 01:03:48,992
She was very strange when she came back.
990
01:03:50,286 --> 01:03:51,656
She didn't say anything,
991
01:03:52,538 --> 01:03:55,248
and I began to be afraid
to ask her anything.
992
01:03:58,211 --> 01:04:02,381
Then, nibbling at something
she obviously wasn't tasting,
993
01:04:02,548 --> 01:04:06,258
she said, "Well, I've got to tell you
994
01:04:06,427 --> 01:04:08,597
because the press is on its way over here.
995
01:04:09,805 --> 01:04:11,845
They have just killed Malcolm."
996
01:04:52,181 --> 01:04:54,641
There is nothing in the evidence
997
01:04:54,892 --> 01:04:58,272
offered by the book
of the American republic,
998
01:05:00,815 --> 01:05:04,685
which allows me really to argue
with the cat who says to me,
999
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:08,990
"They needed us to pick the cotton,
1000
01:05:09,824 --> 01:05:11,534
and now they don't need us anymore.
1001
01:05:12,577 --> 01:05:14,867
Now they don't need us,
they're gonna kill us all off,
1002
01:05:15,705 --> 01:05:17,365
just like they did the Indians".
1003
01:05:19,083 --> 01:05:21,343
And I can't say it's a Christian nation.
1004
01:05:22,003 --> 01:05:23,463
Though your brothers
will never do that to you,
1005
01:05:23,629 --> 01:05:25,379
because the record is
too long and too bloody.
1006
01:05:25,548 --> 01:05:26,758
That's all we have done.
1007
01:05:29,051 --> 01:05:35,141
All your buried corpses
now begin to speak.
1008
01:05:37,184 --> 01:05:39,604
I say violence is necessary.
1009
01:05:40,438 --> 01:05:42,478
Violence is a part of America's culture.
1010
01:05:42,648 --> 01:05:44,728
It is as American as cherry pie.
1011
01:05:44,900 --> 01:05:46,400
Black power, Brothers.
1012
01:05:46,569 --> 01:05:48,739
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
1013
01:05:50,990 --> 01:05:53,240
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
1014
01:06:04,587 --> 01:06:06,667
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
1015
01:06:11,010 --> 01:06:12,390
Baldwin: If we were white,
1016
01:06:13,721 --> 01:06:16,521
if we were Irish, if we were Jewish,
1017
01:06:16,682 --> 01:06:20,232
if we were Poles, if we had, in fact,
1018
01:06:20,394 --> 01:06:22,864
in your mind, a frame of reference,
1019
01:06:23,481 --> 01:06:24,771
our heroes would be your heroes too.
1020
01:06:24,940 --> 01:06:26,860
Nat Turner would be a hero
for you instead of a threat.
1021
01:06:27,026 --> 01:06:29,316
Malcolm X might still be alive.
1022
01:06:30,780 --> 01:06:33,120
Everyone is very proud
of brave little Israel,
1023
01:06:33,491 --> 01:06:36,541
a state against which I have nothing,
I don't want to be misinterpreted,
1024
01:06:36,702 --> 01:06:38,122
I'm not an anti-Semite.
1025
01:06:38,371 --> 01:06:40,251
But, you know,
when the Israelis pick up guns,
1026
01:06:40,414 --> 01:06:42,464
or the Poles, or the Irish,
1027
01:06:42,625 --> 01:06:45,495
or any white man in the world says,
1028
01:06:45,670 --> 01:06:47,630
"Give me liberty, or give me death",
1029
01:06:48,506 --> 01:06:50,126
the entire white world applauds.
1030
01:06:50,633 --> 01:06:53,473
When a black man says
exactly the same thing,
1031
01:06:54,595 --> 01:06:55,965
word for word,
1032
01:06:57,098 --> 01:06:59,978
he is judged a criminal
and treated like one
1033
01:07:00,142 --> 01:07:01,852
and everything possible is done
1034
01:07:02,019 --> 01:07:03,599
to make an example of this bad nigger,
1035
01:07:03,771 --> 01:07:05,731
so there won't be any more like him.
1036
01:07:07,316 --> 01:07:09,486
Man: Look out across this land we love,
1037
01:07:10,111 --> 01:07:14,451
look about you whatever you are,
this unending scenic beauty,
1038
01:07:14,865 --> 01:07:16,025
and there's freedom,
1039
01:07:16,492 --> 01:07:18,542
it's an inherent American right
1040
01:07:18,703 --> 01:07:21,913
meaning many different things
to every single citizen.
1041
01:07:22,540 --> 01:07:25,460
It's a leisurely afternoon
of golf along a pleasant course.
1042
01:07:26,419 --> 01:07:29,709
It's an amusement park,
a rollercoaster ride.
1043
01:07:31,298 --> 01:07:32,968
A day at the county fair.
1044
01:07:36,095 --> 01:07:37,675
(FIRE CRACKLING)
1045
01:07:37,847 --> 01:07:39,217
A day of excitement,
1046
01:07:39,557 --> 01:07:43,347
unrestricted travel
across all our 50 states,
1047
01:07:43,686 --> 01:07:46,266
unlimited enjoyment of all these jewels
1048
01:07:46,439 --> 01:07:48,019
in the continent's crown.
1049
01:07:49,358 --> 01:07:51,818
For all of us, there's all of America,
1050
01:07:51,986 --> 01:07:56,656
in all of its scenic beauty,
all of its heritage of history,
1051
01:07:57,283 --> 01:07:59,333
all of its limitless opportunity...
1052
01:08:00,619 --> 01:08:04,829
We've dropped too many bombs
on Vietnam now.
1053
01:08:05,082 --> 01:08:06,292
(APPLAUSE)
1054
01:08:06,500 --> 01:08:10,090
Let us save our national honor!
1055
01:08:10,588 --> 01:08:12,258
Stop the bombing,
1056
01:08:12,465 --> 01:08:13,915
and stop the war!
1057
01:08:14,091 --> 01:08:17,141
(JAZZ MUSIC)
1058
01:08:20,598 --> 01:08:23,598
Baldwin: What I am
trying to say to this country,
1059
01:08:23,893 --> 01:08:25,023
to us,
1060
01:08:25,478 --> 01:08:27,648
is that we must know this.
1061
01:08:28,773 --> 01:08:30,783
We must realize this,
1062
01:08:32,151 --> 01:08:34,491
that no other country in the world
1063
01:08:34,653 --> 01:08:38,533
have been so fat
and so sleek, and so safe,
1064
01:08:38,699 --> 01:08:42,239
and so happy, and so irresponsible,
1065
01:08:43,287 --> 01:08:44,497
and so dead.
1066
01:08:44,872 --> 01:08:48,582
No other country can afford to
dream of a Plymouth and a wife
1067
01:08:48,876 --> 01:08:50,706
and a house with a fence,
1068
01:08:51,212 --> 01:08:53,512
and the children growing up safely
1069
01:08:53,672 --> 01:08:56,512
to go to college and to become executives,
1070
01:08:56,675 --> 01:08:57,755
and then to marry,
1071
01:08:58,010 --> 01:09:00,550
and have the Plymouth and the house
1072
01:09:00,721 --> 01:09:02,011
and so forth.
1073
01:09:02,598 --> 01:09:05,678
A great many people do not live this way,
1074
01:09:06,352 --> 01:09:07,942
and cannot imagine it,
1075
01:09:08,187 --> 01:09:11,437
and do not know that when
we talk about "democracy",
1076
01:09:11,607 --> 01:09:12,977
this is what we mean.
1077
01:09:16,111 --> 01:09:18,111
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
1078
01:09:29,416 --> 01:09:31,746
Baldwin: The industry is compelled,
1079
01:09:31,919 --> 01:09:33,339
given the way it is built,
1080
01:09:33,546 --> 01:09:35,376
to present to the American people
1081
01:09:35,548 --> 01:09:38,468
a self-perpetuating fantasy
of American life.
1082
01:09:39,635 --> 01:09:42,925
Their concept of entertainment
is difficult to distinguish
1083
01:09:43,097 --> 01:09:44,927
from the use of narcotics.
1084
01:09:45,099 --> 01:09:47,889
What worries you about
them having black partners?
1085
01:09:48,060 --> 01:09:50,230
Do you think people are
gonna look down on them,
1086
01:09:50,437 --> 01:09:52,647
- or judge them?
- Yes, I think people look down.
1087
01:09:52,940 --> 01:09:54,730
(CHEERING)
1088
01:10:00,739 --> 01:10:03,489
Baldwin: To watch the TV screen
for any length of time
1089
01:10:03,659 --> 01:10:06,409
is to learn some really frightening things
1090
01:10:06,620 --> 01:10:09,120
about the American sense of reality.
1091
01:10:09,999 --> 01:10:13,289
We are cruelly trapped between
what we would like to be
1092
01:10:13,460 --> 01:10:15,380
and what we actually are.
1093
01:10:15,546 --> 01:10:19,046
And we cannot possibly become
what we would like to be until
1094
01:10:19,216 --> 01:10:23,846
we are willing to ask ourselves
just why the lives we lead
1095
01:10:24,013 --> 01:10:26,473
on this continent are mainly so empty,
1096
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:28,730
so tame, and so ugly.
1097
01:10:30,561 --> 01:10:33,861
These images are designed not to trouble,
1098
01:10:34,315 --> 01:10:35,605
but to reassure.
1099
01:10:36,150 --> 01:10:39,740
They also weaken our ability
to deal with the world as it is,
1100
01:10:40,905 --> 01:10:43,235
ourselves as we are.
1101
01:10:46,869 --> 01:10:49,499
I would like to add someone
to our group here,
1102
01:10:49,747 --> 01:10:51,247
Professor Paul Weiss,
1103
01:10:51,415 --> 01:10:52,995
the sterling professor
of philosophy at Yale.
1104
01:10:53,167 --> 01:10:55,087
- (APPLAUSE)
- (PIANO MUSIC PLAYING)
1105
01:11:05,888 --> 01:11:07,598
Were you able to listen
to the show backstage?
1106
01:11:07,765 --> 01:11:09,015
I heard a good deal of it,
1107
01:11:09,183 --> 01:11:11,103
but then I was behind the whatsitmajig.
1108
01:11:11,268 --> 01:11:13,308
- Yes.
- So I heard only some of it.
1109
01:11:13,479 --> 01:11:15,359
Did you hear anything
that you disagreed with?
1110
01:11:15,522 --> 01:11:17,442
I disagreed with a great deal of it,
1111
01:11:17,608 --> 01:11:20,398
and of course, there's
a good deal I agree with.
1112
01:11:20,694 --> 01:11:25,164
But I think he's overlooking
one very important matter,
1113
01:11:25,324 --> 01:11:26,414
I think.
1114
01:11:26,659 --> 01:11:29,619
Each one of us,
I think, is terribly alone.
1115
01:11:29,828 --> 01:11:32,408
He lives his own individual life.
1116
01:11:32,581 --> 01:11:35,711
He has all kind of obstacles,
the way of religion or color
1117
01:11:35,876 --> 01:11:38,666
or size or shape or lack of ability,
1118
01:11:38,921 --> 01:11:40,881
and the problem is to become a man.
1119
01:11:41,048 --> 01:11:43,428
But what I was discussing
was not that problem, really.
1120
01:11:43,592 --> 01:11:45,892
I was discussing
the difficulties, the obstacles,
1121
01:11:46,095 --> 01:11:48,465
the very real danger of death
1122
01:11:48,681 --> 01:11:51,271
thrown up by the society
when a Negro, when a black man,
1123
01:11:51,433 --> 01:11:52,733
attempts to become a man.
1124
01:11:52,893 --> 01:11:55,693
All this emphasis
upon black man and white,
1125
01:11:55,854 --> 01:11:59,324
does emphasize something which is here,
1126
01:11:59,483 --> 01:12:02,193
but it emphasizes,
or perhaps exaggerates it,
1127
01:12:02,361 --> 01:12:05,911
and therefore makes us
put people together in groups
1128
01:12:06,073 --> 01:12:07,533
which they ought not to be in.
1129
01:12:07,700 --> 01:12:10,120
I have more in common with a black scholar
1130
01:12:10,285 --> 01:12:12,865
than I have with a white man
who is against scholarship.
1131
01:12:13,163 --> 01:12:15,623
And you have more in common
with a white author
1132
01:12:15,791 --> 01:12:18,001
than you have with someone
who is against all literature.
1133
01:12:18,168 --> 01:12:20,628
So why must we always
concentrate on color,
1134
01:12:20,796 --> 01:12:22,006
or religion, or this?
1135
01:12:22,172 --> 01:12:24,052
There are other ways of connecting men.
1136
01:12:24,216 --> 01:12:25,376
Baldwin: I'll tell you this.
1137
01:12:25,592 --> 01:12:28,052
When I left this country in 1948,
1138
01:12:28,220 --> 01:12:29,850
I left this country for one reason only,
1139
01:12:30,014 --> 01:12:31,564
one reason... I didn't care where I went.
1140
01:12:31,724 --> 01:12:34,144
I might've gone to Hong Kong,
I might have gone to Timbuktu.
1141
01:12:34,309 --> 01:12:36,189
I ended up in Paris,
on the streets of Paris,
1142
01:12:36,353 --> 01:12:38,273
with 40 dollars in my pocket
and the theory
1143
01:12:38,439 --> 01:12:40,859
that nothing worse
could happen to me there
1144
01:12:41,025 --> 01:12:42,645
than had already happened to me here.
1145
01:12:42,860 --> 01:12:45,070
You talk about making it
as a writer by yourself,
1146
01:12:45,237 --> 01:12:47,157
you have to be able then
to turn up all the antennae
1147
01:12:47,322 --> 01:12:48,492
by which you live,
1148
01:12:48,657 --> 01:12:50,277
because once you turn your back
on this society,
1149
01:12:50,451 --> 01:12:51,791
you may die.
1150
01:12:52,578 --> 01:12:53,948
- You may die.
- (APPLAUSE)
1151
01:12:54,121 --> 01:12:55,911
And it's very hard to sit at a typewriter,
1152
01:12:56,081 --> 01:12:57,211
and concentrate on that,
1153
01:12:57,374 --> 01:12:59,294
if you are afraid of the world around you.
1154
01:12:59,585 --> 01:13:01,955
The years I lived in Paris
did one thing for me:
1155
01:13:02,504 --> 01:13:04,924
they released me from
that particular social terror,
1156
01:13:05,090 --> 01:13:07,510
which was not the paranoia of my own mind,
1157
01:13:07,676 --> 01:13:10,506
but a real social danger visible
in the face of every cop,
1158
01:13:10,679 --> 01:13:13,809
every boss, everybody.
1159
01:13:13,974 --> 01:13:15,934
(AUDIENCE APPLAUD)
1160
01:13:18,187 --> 01:13:20,977
I don't know what most white
people in this country feel.
1161
01:13:21,148 --> 01:13:22,818
But I can only include what they feel
1162
01:13:22,983 --> 01:13:24,573
from that state of their institutions.
1163
01:13:24,818 --> 01:13:27,108
I don't know if white Christians
hate Negroes or not,
1164
01:13:27,279 --> 01:13:29,359
but I know we have a
Christian church which is white
1165
01:13:29,531 --> 01:13:31,201
and a Christian church which is black.
1166
01:13:31,366 --> 01:13:32,826
I know, as Malcolm X once put it,
1167
01:13:32,993 --> 01:13:34,833
the most segregated hour in American life
1168
01:13:34,995 --> 01:13:36,325
is high noon on Sunday.
1169
01:13:36,497 --> 01:13:38,497
That says a great deal for me
about a Christian nation.
1170
01:13:38,665 --> 01:13:41,205
It means I can't afford to trust
most white Christians
1171
01:13:41,376 --> 01:13:43,496
and I certainly cannot trust
the Christian church.
1172
01:13:43,670 --> 01:13:46,170
I don't know whether the
labor unions and their bosses
1173
01:13:46,340 --> 01:13:48,340
really hate me. That doesn't matter,
1174
01:13:48,509 --> 01:13:49,969
but I know I'm not in their unions.
1175
01:13:50,135 --> 01:13:51,385
I don't know if the Real Estate Lobby
1176
01:13:51,553 --> 01:13:52,933
has anything against black people,
1177
01:13:53,097 --> 01:13:55,847
but I know the Real Estate Lobby
is keeping me in the ghetto.
1178
01:13:56,016 --> 01:13:58,846
I don't know if the board of
education hates black people,
1179
01:13:59,019 --> 01:14:01,359
but I know the textbooks
they give my children to read,
1180
01:14:01,522 --> 01:14:03,232
and the schools that we have to go to.
1181
01:14:03,398 --> 01:14:04,938
Now, this is the evidence.
1182
01:14:05,150 --> 01:14:06,900
You want me to make an act of faith,
1183
01:14:07,236 --> 01:14:09,656
risking myself, my wife, my woman,
1184
01:14:09,822 --> 01:14:11,162
my sister, my children,
1185
01:14:11,323 --> 01:14:14,283
on some idealism which you assure me
1186
01:14:14,451 --> 01:14:16,501
exists in America,
which I have never seen.
1187
01:14:16,662 --> 01:14:18,082
- (APPLAUSE)
- Weiss: Hold on a second.
1188
01:14:23,585 --> 01:14:25,665
Baldwin: All of the Western nations
1189
01:14:26,088 --> 01:14:27,758
have been caught in a lie,
1190
01:14:28,882 --> 01:14:31,342
the lie of their pretended humanism.
1191
01:14:32,928 --> 01:14:37,178
This means that their history
has no moral justification,
1192
01:14:37,975 --> 01:14:40,935
and that the West has no moral authority.
1193
01:14:44,106 --> 01:14:45,226
(INAUDIBLE)
1194
01:14:47,109 --> 01:14:48,689
Baldwin: "Vile as I am,"
1195
01:14:49,278 --> 01:14:52,528
states one of the characters
in Dostoevsky's The Idiot,
1196
01:14:53,157 --> 01:14:56,947
"I don't believe in the wagons
that bring bread to humanity.
1197
01:14:57,828 --> 01:15:00,958
For the wagons
that bring bread to humanity,
1198
01:15:01,290 --> 01:15:04,920
may coldly exclude
a considerable part of humanity
1199
01:15:05,085 --> 01:15:06,915
from enjoying what is brought."
1200
01:15:07,171 --> 01:15:08,511
(EXCITED CHEERS)
1201
01:15:10,007 --> 01:15:12,797
For a very long time, America prospered.
1202
01:15:13,135 --> 01:15:16,715
This prosperity cost millions
of people their lives.
1203
01:15:17,431 --> 01:15:21,811
Now, not even the people who are
the most spectacular recipients
1204
01:15:21,977 --> 01:15:24,267
of the benefits of this prosperity
1205
01:15:24,813 --> 01:15:27,363
are able to endure these benefits.
1206
01:15:28,025 --> 01:15:31,195
They can neither understand
them nor do without them.
1207
01:15:32,279 --> 01:15:36,829
Above all, they cannot imagine
the price paid by their victims,
1208
01:15:36,992 --> 01:15:39,542
or subjects, for this way of life,
1209
01:15:40,078 --> 01:15:42,618
and so they cannot afford to know why
1210
01:15:42,789 --> 01:15:44,249
the victims are revolting.
1211
01:15:44,499 --> 01:15:46,379
(GUNSHOTS)
1212
01:15:46,543 --> 01:15:47,713
(SCREAMS)
1213
01:15:49,004 --> 01:15:50,304
Down!
1214
01:15:50,923 --> 01:15:53,513
- On the ground!
- Get on the ground, now!
1215
01:15:56,970 --> 01:15:57,930
Man: Damn, man!
1216
01:15:58,096 --> 01:15:59,506
(SCREAMING)
1217
01:16:02,100 --> 01:16:04,100
Baldwin: This is the formula
1218
01:16:04,436 --> 01:16:07,226
for a nation or a kingdom decline.
1219
01:16:09,316 --> 01:16:12,436
For no kingdom can
maintain itself by force alone.
1220
01:16:13,278 --> 01:16:17,778
Force does not work the way its
advocates think in fact it does.
1221
01:16:17,950 --> 01:16:20,330
- (YELLING)
- (GUNSHOTS)
1222
01:16:20,494 --> 01:16:21,914
It does not, for example,
1223
01:16:22,079 --> 01:16:25,249
reveal to the victim
the strength of the adversary.
1224
01:16:25,415 --> 01:16:28,835
(SCREAMS)
1225
01:16:29,544 --> 01:16:31,214
(GUNSHOTS)
1226
01:16:31,380 --> 01:16:34,720
On the contrary, it reveals the weakness,
1227
01:16:35,050 --> 01:16:37,640
even the panic of the adversary.
1228
01:16:40,138 --> 01:16:43,848
And this revelation
invests the victim with passion.
1229
01:16:48,689 --> 01:16:51,189
(JAZZ MUSIC)
1230
01:16:55,696 --> 01:16:57,606
Baldwin: There is a day in Palm Springs
1231
01:16:57,781 --> 01:17:01,581
that I will remember forever,
a bright day.
1232
01:17:03,495 --> 01:17:06,415
I was based in Hollywood,
working on the screen version
1233
01:17:06,581 --> 01:17:08,631
of the autobiography of Malcolm X.
1234
01:17:10,002 --> 01:17:12,172
This was a difficult assignment,
1235
01:17:13,171 --> 01:17:15,421
since I had known Malcolm, after all,
1236
01:17:16,300 --> 01:17:18,010
crossed swords with him,
1237
01:17:19,011 --> 01:17:20,181
worked with him,
1238
01:17:20,887 --> 01:17:23,057
and held him in that great esteem
1239
01:17:23,223 --> 01:17:25,603
which is not easily distinguishable,
1240
01:17:25,767 --> 01:17:27,267
if it is distinguishable,
1241
01:17:27,894 --> 01:17:28,984
from love.
1242
01:17:31,732 --> 01:17:33,572
Billy Dee Williams had come to town
1243
01:17:33,734 --> 01:17:35,324
and he was staying at the house.
1244
01:17:36,028 --> 01:17:38,658
I very much wanted Billy Dee
for the role of Malcolm.
1245
01:17:41,992 --> 01:17:43,702
The phone had been
brought out to the pool,
1246
01:17:43,869 --> 01:17:45,159
and now it rang.
1247
01:17:46,288 --> 01:17:47,538
And I picked up.
1248
01:17:48,999 --> 01:17:50,629
The record player was still playing.
1249
01:17:54,838 --> 01:17:58,878
"He's not dead yet,
but it's a head wound."
1250
01:18:02,220 --> 01:18:05,100
I have some very sad news for all of you,
1251
01:18:05,682 --> 01:18:09,602
and I think sad news
for all our fellow citizens
1252
01:18:10,729 --> 01:18:13,769
and people who love peace
all over the world.
1253
01:18:14,649 --> 01:18:17,239
And that is that Martin Luther King
1254
01:18:17,611 --> 01:18:18,901
was shot and was killed tonight.
1255
01:18:19,071 --> 01:18:21,071
(CROWD SCREAM)
1256
01:18:27,204 --> 01:18:29,794
Baldwin: I hardly remember
the rest of the evening at all.
1257
01:18:31,875 --> 01:18:33,535
I remember weeping, briefly,
1258
01:18:34,044 --> 01:18:37,214
more in helpless rage than in sorrow,
1259
01:18:38,131 --> 01:18:40,181
and Billy trying to comfort me.
1260
01:18:41,843 --> 01:18:44,353
But I really don't remember
that evening at all.
1261
01:18:45,764 --> 01:18:50,274
♪ Mother dear, May I go downtown ♪
1262
01:18:50,435 --> 01:18:54,305
♪ Instead of out to play, ♪
1263
01:18:54,940 --> 01:18:59,860
♪ And march the streets of Birmingham ♪
1264
01:19:00,028 --> 01:19:03,738
♪ In a Freedom March today? ♪
1265
01:19:05,492 --> 01:19:09,702
♪ But Mother, I won't be alone ♪
1266
01:19:10,163 --> 01:19:14,673
♪ Other children will go with me, ♪
1267
01:19:15,210 --> 01:19:20,090
♪ And march the streets of Birmingham ♪
1268
01:19:20,507 --> 01:19:23,927
♪ To make my country free ♪
1269
01:19:26,847 --> 01:19:28,517
Baldwin: The church was packed.
1270
01:19:29,182 --> 01:19:32,022
In the pew before me sat Marlon Brando,
1271
01:19:32,519 --> 01:19:34,439
Sammy Davis, Eartha Kitt.
1272
01:19:35,188 --> 01:19:36,688
Sidney Poitier nearby.
1273
01:19:38,108 --> 01:19:41,278
I saw Harry Belafonte
sitting next to Coretta King.
1274
01:19:43,321 --> 01:19:44,821
I have a childhood hand over thing
1275
01:19:44,990 --> 01:19:46,620
about not weeping in public.
1276
01:19:47,033 --> 01:19:51,663
And I was concentrating
on holding myself together.
1277
01:19:52,956 --> 01:19:55,126
I did not want to weep for Martin.
1278
01:19:56,293 --> 01:19:57,843
Tears seemed futile.
1279
01:19:58,962 --> 01:20:01,972
But I may also have been afraid,
1280
01:20:02,549 --> 01:20:04,969
and I could not have been the only one,
1281
01:20:05,469 --> 01:20:10,469
that if I began to weep,
I would not be able to stop.
1282
01:20:12,642 --> 01:20:14,942
I started to cry, and I stumbled.
1283
01:20:16,271 --> 01:20:17,691
Sammy grabbed my arm.
1284
01:20:21,610 --> 01:20:24,280
The story of the Negro in America
1285
01:20:24,571 --> 01:20:26,741
is the story of America.
1286
01:20:27,824 --> 01:20:29,834
It is not a pretty story.
1287
01:20:33,038 --> 01:20:34,288
What can we do?
1288
01:20:37,000 --> 01:20:38,840
Well, I am tired.
1289
01:20:39,503 --> 01:20:41,303
I don't know how it will come about,
1290
01:20:42,631 --> 01:20:44,801
I know that no matter how it comes about,
1291
01:20:44,966 --> 01:20:47,216
it will be bloody, it will be hard.
1292
01:20:48,887 --> 01:20:51,517
I still believe that we can do
with this country
1293
01:20:51,681 --> 01:20:54,101
something that has not been done before.
1294
01:20:55,143 --> 01:20:58,233
We are misled here
because we think of numbers.
1295
01:20:59,814 --> 01:21:02,824
You don't need numbers, you need passion.
1296
01:21:03,818 --> 01:21:06,028
And this is proven
by the history of the world.
1297
01:21:07,948 --> 01:21:10,028
The tragedy is that most of the people
1298
01:21:10,200 --> 01:21:12,950
who say they care about it do not care.
1299
01:21:13,245 --> 01:21:16,615
What they care about is
their safety and their profits.
1300
01:21:17,415 --> 01:21:19,785
♪ When I was laying in jail ♪
1301
01:21:20,001 --> 01:21:24,511
♪ With my back turned to the wall ♪
1302
01:21:30,554 --> 01:21:32,394
♪ When I was laying in jail ♪
1303
01:21:32,556 --> 01:21:36,886
♪ With my back turned to the wall ♪
1304
01:21:42,023 --> 01:21:44,443
♪ I just laid down
and dreamed I could... ♪
1305
01:21:46,444 --> 01:21:47,954
Baldwin: The American way of life
1306
01:21:48,113 --> 01:21:50,323
has failed to make people happier,
1307
01:21:50,532 --> 01:21:51,992
or make them better.
1308
01:21:52,701 --> 01:21:56,291
We do not want to admit this,
and we do not admit it.
1309
01:21:57,289 --> 01:21:58,669
We persist in believing
1310
01:21:58,832 --> 01:22:01,212
that the empty and criminal
among our children
1311
01:22:01,376 --> 01:22:05,206
are the result of some
miscalculation in the formula
1312
01:22:05,380 --> 01:22:06,760
that can be corrected.
1313
01:22:07,299 --> 01:22:09,969
That the bottomless and aimless hostility
1314
01:22:10,135 --> 01:22:13,175
which makes our cities among
the most dangerous in the world
1315
01:22:13,680 --> 01:22:17,390
is created and felt
by a handful of aberrants,
1316
01:22:18,310 --> 01:22:21,350
that the lack, yawning
everywhere in this country,
1317
01:22:21,521 --> 01:22:24,981
of passionate conviction,
of personal authority,
1318
01:22:25,150 --> 01:22:29,070
proves only our rather appealing
tendency to be gregarious
1319
01:22:29,237 --> 01:22:30,357
and democratic.
1320
01:22:32,115 --> 01:22:34,575
To look around the United States today,
1321
01:22:35,243 --> 01:22:37,953
is enough to make
prophets and angels weep.
1322
01:22:39,414 --> 01:22:41,374
This is not the land of the free.
1323
01:22:41,750 --> 01:22:45,050
It is only very unwillingly
and sporadically...
1324
01:22:45,211 --> 01:22:46,091
(GUN CLICKS)
1325
01:22:46,254 --> 01:22:47,764
...the home of the brave.
1326
01:22:47,922 --> 01:22:49,512
(GUNSHOT)
1327
01:22:49,841 --> 01:22:51,181
(SCREAMING)
1328
01:22:53,136 --> 01:22:55,216
- (GUNSHOT)
- (SCREAMING)
1329
01:22:57,515 --> 01:22:58,635
(SOBBING)
1330
01:22:59,017 --> 01:23:00,437
(GUNSHOT)
1331
01:23:00,602 --> 01:23:01,852
(CAMERA CLICKS)
1332
01:23:03,605 --> 01:23:06,895
Baldwin: I sometimes feel it
to be an absolute miracle
1333
01:23:07,609 --> 01:23:11,239
that the entire black population
of the United States of America
1334
01:23:11,404 --> 01:23:14,914
has not long ago
succumbed to raging paranoia.
1335
01:23:16,076 --> 01:23:17,736
People finally say to you,
1336
01:23:17,911 --> 01:23:20,501
in an attempt to dismiss
the social reality,
1337
01:23:21,748 --> 01:23:23,378
"But you're so bitter!"
1338
01:23:29,506 --> 01:23:33,336
Well, I may or may not be bitter,
1339
01:23:33,968 --> 01:23:38,518
but if I were, I would have
good reasons for it.
1340
01:23:39,099 --> 01:23:43,269
Chief among them that American
blindness, or cowardice,
1341
01:23:43,436 --> 01:23:47,146
which allow us to pretend
that life presents no reasons
1342
01:23:47,315 --> 01:23:48,395
for being bitter.
1343
01:24:13,383 --> 01:24:16,683
In this country,
for a dangerously long time,
1344
01:24:17,554 --> 01:24:19,764
there have been two levels of experience.
1345
01:24:20,890 --> 01:24:22,560
One, to put it cruelly,
1346
01:24:22,726 --> 01:24:26,806
can be summed up in the images
of Gary Cooper and Doris Day,
1347
01:24:26,980 --> 01:24:29,570
two of the most grotesque
appeals to innocence
1348
01:24:29,733 --> 01:24:31,403
the world has ever seen.
1349
01:24:32,152 --> 01:24:36,202
And the other,
subterranean, indispensable,
1350
01:24:36,781 --> 01:24:39,701
and denied, can be summed up, let us say,
1351
01:24:40,160 --> 01:24:43,370
in the tone and in the face
of Ray Charles.
1352
01:24:43,663 --> 01:24:46,003
♪ Hey mama, Don't you treat me wrong ♪
1353
01:24:46,166 --> 01:24:48,626
♪ Come and love your daddy
All night long ♪
1354
01:24:52,380 --> 01:24:55,590
♪ I know it's all right now Hey, hey ♪
1355
01:24:58,845 --> 01:25:00,755
♪ When you see me in misery ♪
1356
01:25:01,598 --> 01:25:03,348
♪ Come on baby, see about me ♪
1357
01:25:03,516 --> 01:25:06,346
Baldwin: There has never been
any genuine confrontation
1358
01:25:06,519 --> 01:25:08,729
between these two levels of experience.
1359
01:25:11,900 --> 01:25:15,570
♪ Should I be bad ♪
1360
01:25:16,738 --> 01:25:18,618
♪ Or nice? ♪
1361
01:25:21,159 --> 01:25:24,289
♪ Should I surrender? ♪
1362
01:25:25,872 --> 01:25:30,502
♪ His pleading words so tenderly ♪
1363
01:25:32,128 --> 01:25:36,168
♪ Entreat me ♪
1364
01:25:37,550 --> 01:25:42,180
♪ Is this the night that love ♪
1365
01:25:42,847 --> 01:25:47,637
♪ Finally defeats me? ♪
1366
01:25:47,852 --> 01:25:52,652
Baldwin: You cannot lynch me
and keep me in ghettos
1367
01:25:53,566 --> 01:25:56,566
without becoming
something monstrous yourselves.
1368
01:25:58,154 --> 01:26:02,124
And furthermore, you give me
a terrifying advantage.
1369
01:26:03,243 --> 01:26:04,833
You never had to look at me.
1370
01:26:06,454 --> 01:26:07,834
I had to look at you.
1371
01:26:09,332 --> 01:26:13,462
I know more about you
than you know about me.
1372
01:26:15,046 --> 01:26:17,966
Not everything that is faced
can be changed,
1373
01:26:19,551 --> 01:26:23,471
but nothing can be changed
until it is faced.
1374
01:26:32,272 --> 01:26:33,902
History is not the past.
1375
01:26:35,149 --> 01:26:36,479
It is the present.
1376
01:26:37,694 --> 01:26:39,654
We carry our history with us.
1377
01:26:40,738 --> 01:26:43,158
We are our history.
1378
01:26:44,868 --> 01:26:48,998
If we pretend otherwise,
we literally are criminals.
1379
01:26:53,334 --> 01:26:54,844
I attest to this.
1380
01:26:56,129 --> 01:26:58,259
The world is not white.
1381
01:26:59,757 --> 01:27:01,627
It never was white,
1382
01:27:02,844 --> 01:27:04,644
cannot be white.
1383
01:27:05,889 --> 01:27:08,889
White is a metaphor for power,
1384
01:27:10,894 --> 01:27:15,234
and that is simply a way of
describing Chase Manhattan Bank.
1385
01:28:05,073 --> 01:28:06,823
I can't be a pessimist,
1386
01:28:08,326 --> 01:28:09,616
because I'm alive.
1387
01:28:10,954 --> 01:28:13,754
To be a pessimist means
you have agreed that human life
1388
01:28:13,915 --> 01:28:17,665
is an academic matter,
so I'm forced to be an optimist.
1389
01:28:17,835 --> 01:28:19,665
I am forced to believe that we can survive
1390
01:28:19,837 --> 01:28:21,337
whatever we must survive.
1391
01:28:22,548 --> 01:28:23,548
But...
1392
01:28:27,887 --> 01:28:29,347
...the Negro in this country...
1393
01:28:32,558 --> 01:28:34,348
...the future of the Negro
in this country...
1394
01:28:36,187 --> 01:28:38,017
...is precisely as bright
1395
01:28:38,189 --> 01:28:40,189
or as dark as the future of the country.
1396
01:28:42,193 --> 01:28:45,413
It is entirely up to the American people
1397
01:28:46,239 --> 01:28:47,449
and not representatives.
1398
01:28:47,615 --> 01:28:49,865
It is entirely up to the American people
1399
01:28:51,035 --> 01:28:55,745
whether or not they are going
to face and deal with
1400
01:28:55,915 --> 01:28:58,915
and embrace the stranger
they have maligned so long.
1401
01:28:59,502 --> 01:29:02,092
What white people have to do
is try to find out,
1402
01:29:02,255 --> 01:29:05,215
in their own hearts, why it was necessary
1403
01:29:05,383 --> 01:29:07,053
to have a "nigger" in the first place,
1404
01:29:07,427 --> 01:29:09,717
because I'm not a nigger, I'm a man.
1405
01:29:10,346 --> 01:29:12,806
But if you think I'm a nigger,
it means you need him.
1406
01:29:13,099 --> 01:29:14,519
The question you've got to ask yourself,
1407
01:29:14,684 --> 01:29:17,274
the white population of this
country has got to ask itself,
1408
01:29:17,687 --> 01:29:19,727
North and South, because it's one country,
1409
01:29:19,897 --> 01:29:21,067
and for the Negro,
1410
01:29:21,232 --> 01:29:22,982
there is no difference between
the North and the South...
1411
01:29:23,151 --> 01:29:26,651
it's just a difference
in the way they castrate you,
1412
01:29:27,321 --> 01:29:31,871
but the fact of the castration
is the American fact.
1413
01:29:33,036 --> 01:29:36,116
If I'm not the nigger here
and you invented him,
1414
01:29:36,289 --> 01:29:37,709
you the white people invented him,
1415
01:29:38,458 --> 01:29:39,998
then you've got to find out why.
1416
01:29:42,253 --> 01:29:43,673
And the future of the country
depends on that,
1417
01:29:43,838 --> 01:29:45,838
whether or not it's able
to ask that question.
1418
01:29:49,594 --> 01:29:52,814
♪ ("THE BLACKER THE BERRY"
BY KENDRICK LAMAR PLAYS) ♪