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I Am Not Your Negro
I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 documentary film and social critique film essay directed by Raoul Peck, based on James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript Remember This House. Narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin's recollections of civil rights movement leaders such as Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his personal observations of American history. The documentary was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary.
The film opens with a 1968 interview on The Dick Cavett Show. Cavett notes that Baldwin is often asked a stubborn question: "Why aren't the Negroes optimistic?" He says that many people believe the situation to be improving considerably, with Black people now holding positions of influence across society: as mayors, professional athletes, politicians and TV actors. Cavett asks Baldwin, "Is it at once getting much better and still hopeless?"
In response, Baldwin says, "I don't think there's much hope for it, as long as people are using this peculiar language. It's not a question of what happens to the Negro here, [though] that is a very vivid question for me. The real question is what's going to happen to this country? I have to repeat that." Baldwin continues to assert throughout the film that the fate of the United States is directly linked to how effectively it addresses the plight of Black Americans. The prospects for the entire country and the prospects for Black Americans are inextricably tied together such that the truth and reckoning for one becomes the same for the other.
The film is divided into five chapters across which Baldwin weaves the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Chapter 1, “Paying My Dues,” portrays the school integration era of the civil rights movement, emphasizing the fierce resistance to desegregation displayed by many white Americans in an attempt to maintain the status quo of white supremacy. Peck shows both live footage of Leander Perez (supporting segregation) and photographs of 15-year-old Dorothy Counts (a student integrating a North Carolina school). Peck quotes Baldwin's writings in which he says that while others are addressing civil rights in the U.S., he is across the Atlantic. Baldwin returned to America. Baldwin asserts, “I missed the music, I missed the style… that style possessed by no other people in the world… I missed, in short, my connections, missed the life which had produced me and nourished me and paid for me.”
Chapter 2, "Heroes," highlights how white film protagonists are near-universally portrayed through a romantic, heroic lens when pursuing and protecting their interests, even and especially through the use of violence and rape. Peck uses clips of films and documents as examples. Baldwin's reaction to the black protagonists who do not take vengeance: "because Uncle Tom refuses to take vengeance in his own hands, he was not a hero for me." Peck shows examples of how films and other media portray Black Americans as people suspected of crimes or deviant behavior who face the barbaric consequences of those unfounded suspicions. Peck quotes Baldwin, who states that the characters portrayed by Black actors like Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry), Mantan Moreland, and Willie Best "lied about the world [he] knew, and debased it."
The chapter recognizes the influential impact of the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, which caused Baldwin "to discover that the line which separates a witness from an actor" was small, but "nevertheless, the line is real."
The film shows photographs from the May 1963 meeting between Baldwin, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and playwright Lorraine Hansberry (Baldwin–Kennedy meeting). The narrator describes the meeting as devolving tensely. Hansberry seeks "a moral commitment" from Kennedy in light of "the state of the civilization which produced that photograph of the white cop standing on that Negro woman’s neck in Birmingham." The film reports that though the conversation does not conclude amicably, it may have contributed to Kennedy's awakening to the significance and urgency of racial issues across the country. The chapter concludes with Baldwin demanding that America "forget 'The Negro Problem'" and take responsibility for racial inequality and discrimination as an American problem."
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I Am Not Your Negro
I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 documentary film and social critique film essay directed by Raoul Peck, based on James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript Remember This House. Narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin's recollections of civil rights movement leaders such as Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his personal observations of American history. The documentary was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary.
The film opens with a 1968 interview on The Dick Cavett Show. Cavett notes that Baldwin is often asked a stubborn question: "Why aren't the Negroes optimistic?" He says that many people believe the situation to be improving considerably, with Black people now holding positions of influence across society: as mayors, professional athletes, politicians and TV actors. Cavett asks Baldwin, "Is it at once getting much better and still hopeless?"
In response, Baldwin says, "I don't think there's much hope for it, as long as people are using this peculiar language. It's not a question of what happens to the Negro here, [though] that is a very vivid question for me. The real question is what's going to happen to this country? I have to repeat that." Baldwin continues to assert throughout the film that the fate of the United States is directly linked to how effectively it addresses the plight of Black Americans. The prospects for the entire country and the prospects for Black Americans are inextricably tied together such that the truth and reckoning for one becomes the same for the other.
The film is divided into five chapters across which Baldwin weaves the assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Chapter 1, “Paying My Dues,” portrays the school integration era of the civil rights movement, emphasizing the fierce resistance to desegregation displayed by many white Americans in an attempt to maintain the status quo of white supremacy. Peck shows both live footage of Leander Perez (supporting segregation) and photographs of 15-year-old Dorothy Counts (a student integrating a North Carolina school). Peck quotes Baldwin's writings in which he says that while others are addressing civil rights in the U.S., he is across the Atlantic. Baldwin returned to America. Baldwin asserts, “I missed the music, I missed the style… that style possessed by no other people in the world… I missed, in short, my connections, missed the life which had produced me and nourished me and paid for me.”
Chapter 2, "Heroes," highlights how white film protagonists are near-universally portrayed through a romantic, heroic lens when pursuing and protecting their interests, even and especially through the use of violence and rape. Peck uses clips of films and documents as examples. Baldwin's reaction to the black protagonists who do not take vengeance: "because Uncle Tom refuses to take vengeance in his own hands, he was not a hero for me." Peck shows examples of how films and other media portray Black Americans as people suspected of crimes or deviant behavior who face the barbaric consequences of those unfounded suspicions. Peck quotes Baldwin, who states that the characters portrayed by Black actors like Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry), Mantan Moreland, and Willie Best "lied about the world [he] knew, and debased it."
The chapter recognizes the influential impact of the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, which caused Baldwin "to discover that the line which separates a witness from an actor" was small, but "nevertheless, the line is real."
The film shows photographs from the May 1963 meeting between Baldwin, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and playwright Lorraine Hansberry (Baldwin–Kennedy meeting). The narrator describes the meeting as devolving tensely. Hansberry seeks "a moral commitment" from Kennedy in light of "the state of the civilization which produced that photograph of the white cop standing on that Negro woman’s neck in Birmingham." The film reports that though the conversation does not conclude amicably, it may have contributed to Kennedy's awakening to the significance and urgency of racial issues across the country. The chapter concludes with Baldwin demanding that America "forget 'The Negro Problem'" and take responsibility for racial inequality and discrimination as an American problem."