On James Baldwin’s birthday

Heber Taylor reminds his readers that today is James Baldwin’s birthday. It must be no coincidence that the Criterion Channel’s August offerings include James Baldwin On-Screen, five films about him. Missing: the 1965 Cambridge University debate between Baldwin and William F. Buckley, readily available at YouTube.

Last night we watched I Heard It Through the Grapevine (dir. Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley, 1982), a documentary in which Baldwin revisits the American south (with a sidetrip to Newark, New Jersey) and talks with veterans of the fight for human rights. The sad conclusion: everything had changed, and nothing had changed. Baldwin: “Twenty years later, and the same old piano playing the blues.”