The story of James Baldwin, yet another prominent, vocal African American who was a prominent and eloquent spokesman for what it was like to be black in America in the 1960's told against the history in which he lived. He lived outside the United States with some frequency throughout his life because of his treatment as a second class citizen in his own country. I really like how he framed what he spoke about, especially the lack of narrative about the role of the African American slave work force in the building of our new country, that black Americans are not given their due respect for what they contributed to the new country, albeit against their will. Somehow that lack of freedom has been used to diminish their contributions in a way that belittles them further. What we cannot admit about our history comes back to bite us, literally centuries later.
I would potentially have missed this documentary, which largely tells the story of his life in his own words, and in the words of his contemporaries, if not for the fact that it was nominated for Best Documentary in 2016. Of the three nominees that dealt with race, this is my second favorite one, following 13th. The winner (OJ:Made in America) comes in third, which is not to say that I did not like it. These are three powerful commentaries on the current state of race in our country.
The bottom line is that there is an awful lot of room for massive improvement, and the footage from Charlottesville this year is almost identical to the marches of whites against civil rights in the 1960's. No, we have not made very much progress at all. This movie will seem like it happened yesterday and not 50 years ago.
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