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.”
Related reading
All OCA James Baldwin posts (Pinboard)
Sunday, August 2, 2026
On James Baldwin’s birthday
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Thanks, Michael. There's a section of that recording of the debate (around minutes 15 and 16) where Baldwin is talking about the way we frame our quarrels. Our first impulse is to frame them in the way they were framed for us by the people who came before us. That impulse is so strong it's hard to see. And so often the people who came before us were just wrong.
ReplyDeleteThat makes me think of the discussion about the right to vote in the 1982 documentary. Yes, getting the right to vote is important. But then — what is there to vote for?
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