James Baldwin's National Press Club Speech (1986)

he gave at the National Press Club in December 1986 his remarks were delivered just 11 months before his death from cancer 10 correspondent for the Lowell Massachusetts Sun I'd like to welcome more members to this luncheon today as well as their guests and to those individuals listening to this broadcast live over the national public radio stations 300 three of them or those who will be watching it later on when a 2300 cable systems affiliated with c-span cable satellite Public Affairs Network before going any further with today's luncheon I would like to remind our members of some upcoming events here next Tuesday December 16th our luncheon guest will be senator William J Fulbright that will be the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Fulbright scholarship program future speakers also include Nobel prize-winning economist James Buchanan on January 23rd and energy secretary John Harrington on February 19th I would like to remind those of you in the audience that if you have any questions for our speaker today I trust that you will please write them down on the cards on your table and send it to the front I will ask as many questions as time permits I would now like to introduce our guests at the head table I asked him to please stand when I call out their names briefly and the ads the audience to withhold their applause until completed from left is uh Bernard Shaw of cable news network I don't get any respect Leena Williams of the New York Times Adrienne Farrell a writer in foreign affairs and a member of our club speakers committee who organized today's luncheon jean-louis repair of the French Embassy Randy Allen the vice president of pyramid video and chairman of the club speakers committee Dorothea Gilliam of the Washington Post H Finley Lewis the Washington bureau chief of the Minneapolis Tribune and Ernest white of w DC UFM and Washington Living magazine [Applause] our guest today Arthur James Baldwin offers a fine lesson for those of us who are writers and those who us our readers that we both shall well heed it's a message of clarity wisdom insight and determination it was the message that was and remains one that needs to be heard twenty-three years ago I'm sorry 33 years ago mr. Baldwin's first book go telling a mountain was published but it was 23 years ago that his essay the fire next time was won first bottom international claim that essays dissecting the u.s. racial problems the road from there has been one of a continual climb into deeper respect from his peers and a reaffirmation of that message in essays plays and more than a dozen books there have been times all over when mr. Baldwin's message while on target has been somewhat controversial he criticized the American establishment for failing to meet with revolutionary leaders such as Ho Chi Minh Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro he has argued that the myth of white supremacy is crumbling superiority is crumbling that warning the television has obliterated recent history and left teenagers with an absence of a feeling of community he has noted that while the United States was willing to liberate Grenada has made no effort to do the same for cities like Detroit or New York and he has said that the problems in the inner cities such as drug and alcohol abuse when unattended until they reached into the white areas of the city those are strong words from a man who once said he was too shy to approach Langston Hughes when they both lived in Harlem mr. Barlow Baldwin said at that time there were to Harlan's a division between the black people who lived on the hill and himself we call it a raggy funky black shoeshine boy mr. Baldwin was born in New York City August 2nd 1924 the first of nine children he's a grandson of a slave and a son of a preacher and he grew up in Harlem began speaking the gospel at age 14 after graduation he held a variety of jobs to support himself and his writing the writing first started appearing after World War 2 publication first in the nation in such magazines and Harper's American mercury the new leader partisan review and commentary those works drew mr. Baldwin into the New York intelligentsia but 1948 feeling frustrated with both the church and America's oppression of blacks he moved to Paris for nine years as was the case for many artists Paris was an important breath of fresh air and mr. Baldwin he wrote that he fell as though he suddenly came out of a docked unknow and found himself beneath the open sky mr. Baldwin now divides his time between homes in New York City and southern France please join me in welcoming mr. James Baldwin to the National Press Club thank you all very much good afternoon I am very pleased to be here I a little surprised when I read it when I knew I was going to come here give it my luck of course the white house was not in trouble and now I'm terribly aware of that house on the hill which is in trouble which means that we are and I'm curious I'm just going to improvise around what's on my mind for a few minutes and then you will ask me questions and maybe we can have a kind of rap session if the white house is in trouble we are now the question is how we got there and I have some suggestions a purely subjective subjection suggestions coming from out of my life but it seems to me the part of what a lot of what upsets me certainly is what I call sometimes myself the view from here now that implies a great many things well I'm speaking as an American citizen I'm speaking as also his grandson of a slave I was speaking as a product and a member of a certain democracy and the product and issue of a certain very complex history someone who represents a very complex country which insists on being simple-minded simplicity it occurs to me has occurred to me more than once in my somewhat stormy life simplicity is taken to be a great America virtue along with sincerity and the result of this is if you are simple minded enough you can become I didn't want to go that far and as long as you're sincere in what you say you haven't got to know what you're talking about these are the American virtues two of them anyway one of the results of this is that immaturity is taken to be a virtue to so that someone like that is a John Wayne the late John Wayne who spent most of his time on screen admonishing Indians wasn't under no necessity to grow up in a movie made during the witch-hunt era of American life when Joe McCarthy kind of illiterate Senate senator but Barry's in see a man was finding communists everywhere somebody made a movie called my son John which dog well I won't bother talk about the cast sorry of a woman whose son is turns out to be a communist defector when she has to somehow reconcile herself to this and cooperate with the FBI to save her son's soul perfectly okay alright but she says one point to her husband was American Legion American Legion hero a model of simplicity and he understands before anybody else does that his son is really a communist how did you understand this because he is such a virtuous American and is probably willing to put his son to death because his son is a communist alright I didn't make that movie you know may I may may or may not have made a lot of money that it but it represented something the climate of the times and something very very profound in the American experience all the American refusal to endure or accept experience one of the things it seems to me that it's always contributed to this adoration of innocence this adoration of immaturity so that we really do get representing us a post-adolescent who's almost 80 years old and we think of this has as a virtue one of the things that is always afflicted the American reality and the American vision is this aversion to history history is not something you read about in a book history is not even the past it's the present because everybody operates whether or not we know it out of a star out of assumptions which are produced and though the images only by our history now the issue this country is not bloodier than that of other countries but it's bloody it is not more criminal than that of other countries but it's criminal or ensure that it's not worse in the history of France or England or any country we can name but it's different it's different for several reasons a few weeks ago I was haven't had the TV set on and I was I was flicking it aimlessly for a while then I thought and then I started doing it deliberately glad when I was i watching I was watching a series of images all of them bloody guns all kinds of weapons corpses cowboys and Indians good guys and bad guys and for a moment it seemed to me that this this completes compulsive set of images I redundant to myself I was watching a person a human being who was very very very very ill and was trapped in these images could not be released from them because all of these images come out of the history which we always deny it is important to recognize that we did steal the land from the people who were here before us we stole it I mean I've on a single treaty made with a person that person known as the American Indian and I Pete we're not talking about the past we're talking about the present we did enslave millions of people because for no other reason because they were black and we did make a lotta money out of slave labor neither is this uncommon it is a part of human history but it is one thing to do something and another to deny it the doctrine of manifest destiny reassure all white Americans that as white people as the guardians of civilization there the right and therefore the duty to exterminate whatever stood in the way of the superior civilization and as for sambal though it may be it can be argued but it's a slavery the strange road to take order to civilize someone that was the argument so that we can see we examine our legends that very shortly after I was discovered in Africa where I was the sometimes noble savage I was in the twinkling of an eye after the Middle Passage I am found on the metro-goldwyn-mayer back locked singing and dancing the noble savage now transformed into the happy donkey no one quite knows how this happened we are living with these myths until the day and it corrupts the view from here because part of what has happened is in the in the effort to deny whence we came we've had to make up a series of myths about it and miss cannot replace reality the reason that the Native American is called Indian for example is due to a monumental error on the part of adventurer Sanjaya by Queen Isabella of Spain to find a Passage to India Chris got lost and when he woke up and saw these people surrounding him since he had to tell Queen Isabella something he said these are Indians and took one back to Spain we call this era has citizens persisted in the language until this hour in a similar way once I became the happy donkey because if I wasn't the happy daughter then something then I was a slave then even if I wasn't happy and something was wrong with slavery so I had to be happy to keep the master happy say nothing of course the mistress out of this profound misapprehension has come a system of reality a system of ideas even a system of thought which makes reality very hard to reach when the slave was discovered and put in Chains obviously he was debased along with his women and his children but he was not the only creature who was the based at that moment the man the people who put him in Chains and also become less than human and debase themselves with a further disadvantage whereas the slave must know the master because masses his the slaves life is in the Masters hands and master cannot fool a slave but the slave hula master was a master wants to be fooled my father all the years that I did with him never dreamed of telling a white person the truth about anything it's only never been at his mind to do so you didn't care what they thought you didn't care they lived to die and he loves them that was very frightening for me to watch my turn came to but I could see what had happened and really it's important now is that out of this endeavor what we call the white American has created only the he wants to see the reason that's important and terrifying and corrupted using here is because when the same white man looks around the world he sees only the he wants to see and that is morally dangerous for the future of this country for our present fortunes the world is full of all kinds of people who live quite beyond the confines of the American imagination and who have nothing whatever to do with the guilt-ridden vision of the world which controls so much of our life and our thinking and which paralysis paralyzes very nearly our moral sense we are living in a world in which every body and everything is interdependent it is not white this world is not black either the future of this world appends everyone in this room and that future depends on to what extent and by what means we liberate ourselves of a key from a vocabulary which now cannot the weight of reality thank you [Applause] mr. Baldwin these questions come from the audience now ask as many as I can as I say and we have a nice wide variety there is a movement of brilliant young women writers Toni Morrison Alice Walker others could you please comment on the air the influences including yourself that have produced this movement that's not best that's back no means an easy question is it partly because I know all those ladies and their friends they're friends of mine I always a little frightened because I failed leave somebody out there anyway I know them all I'm not sure I can answer your question I think I think I think first of all that the arrival of Tony and Maya and Paul Marshall and I was walking for example Louise Merriweather it was in a way inevitable it had to come about because of the role that black women and plated in this country and more specifically the role the black women have played in the lives of all black men and that has always been a very troubled and even dangerous role because the position of the black man in this Republic which makes the situation of black women who have got to we've got to respect their fathers and find a way to protect and protect their sons and their lovers without emasculating them it was time it is time that she began to tell something of that story it is in some senses been condemned but I think I welcome it as deep as the ventilation so to speak of a family quarrel but what they have to say is somewhat terrifying but true and that's what the influences I how do you have where to begin or never go back at least as far as WB Dubois the influence is being in short that work done by black people especially black people to clarify the role of black people here because most white historians and most like most white commentators until today I'm so busy justifying it that they can only lie about it so the Tony and Maya are excavating us all helping to integrate all of us from a very dangerous myth do you feel the problems of southern Africa are properly framed by our media in the context of the American experience or should these African issues be examined more closely in their own African context well I think that I think the american american vision of allAfrica there's got to be compulsively defensive we're all South Africa implicates everyone in this room it brings into question or it reveals the real meaning of the civilizing mission because that's what that's how Africa was civilized but we're watching in Soweto in Johannesburg here's the process no matter how one might wonder pretty lean pretty it up no matter what Hollywood Hollywood has told us the African context which you should be examined of course scarcity exists in the American imagination and one of the reasons for that is that it brings into focus in the uneasy American imagination the real role of black people in this country in the uneasy American imagination the truth being as concerns the presence of black people here that in the generality why people are never never never accepted the real meaning of it and aren't able to imagine even though it is absolutely true that this is not and never has been never can be a white country we have been here together too long and the capillary which we are avoiding has got to deal with that before it can deal with anything as vivid as as dangerous and as overwhelming as a south african situation here's a related question sir that perhaps you can answer do you think that this administration and I assume the questioner means the Reagan administration has a different attitude toward the black population in South Africa and it's concerned about the nationalist in Nicaragua if so is this racial do they want to be easy well they've no concern let us both let's be very blunt about it only this administration is any concerned with Nicaragua either it has concerned with what it takes to be its interests what strikes me is that both snicker agua and South Africa are expected to remain the pawns of the so-called free world forever of course we are against the freedom of South Africa and black freedom because it means communism or that's but people say but it began Sweden Nicaragua for the same reason and we are not the remotest notion what we're talking about in either case period and it is racial mr. Baldwin a questioner wants to know if you've seen the movie she's got to have it if not I'll tell you about it after the luncheon but however they don't interested in my opinion they want to know what you think about the movie have you seen it okay well sorry okay well we'll go to another question then a number of black male writers who have criticized the portrayal of black men as abusers rapists addicts portrait often drawn by black women and one which black men feel perpetuates and negative stereotype do you feel that the image of black men is being falsely portrayed I think name is you black men in this country has always been false no it's late in the day they blame it on black women the color purple of course is not the most controversial of these books are movies in the only way I can answer that question is to say that well the movie I thought was I thought the movie was awful already and in the movie I felt that if you're gonna give me that that particular man that black man then you got to tell me more about him you know I quite I quite see you know the black man that can do all those things but then it's gonna be something wrong with him no and you do have to you have to let me know something more than the catalogue of these of this man's brutality if he were if he were white then he would be you know Paul Newman were playing that cat universe he was very very sick and he thought while your sympathy you'd hope we get well but the black image is very very different all you gotta do not in order to do that it's be black well it's um it's an image of black people which is not entirely to be entirely Allen Walker's fault no that is the way you Republic has seen black people black men since save heard of black men and that is had a terrible effect on black women and or in that context that if it's the motive is to be liberated from these images by by exercising them really then I know amen freedom freedom is very difficult to achieve in its very own and the process is very very awkward but in order to demolish an image sometimes you have to hold it up to the light and see what weight it will bear see where it comes from see what you see if you can live with it and you can't live with it here a little bit that answers your question this one was written apparently as you're answering the last one it's a follow-up could you please go into detail about the role or the comportment of today's american blackmail what should be the role well it's after they send me a little difficult going back into my own history in black history what should be the role was a compartment or today's American one of the difficulties about being a black man in this country has always been the difficulty being a white man because it is assumed it is human several families if no one has ever questioned it I think that black man wants to be a white man white men as I've observed are not sure they want to be white it's got to be exhausting yeah is the tendency flexing your muscles and you know conquering the world and smiling and you know where's white people out furthermore black people always in the president white people you're you watch you you're watching an imitation and you realize this is you try to imitate it because you cannot imitate an imitation therefore throw to the black man in today's America in today's America it's got to be but it always really was or what the Republic always feel it was he is a man and he a man cannot be told what to do men cannot be defined by others and there's nothing new about that what the question really means is how should we alter the American model so that both the black man and the white man can be free that's what the question means I apologize to the person who wrote this cuz I'm having trouble reading it's all get through it as well as I can you talk about facing reality at least by white America don't you think it's time for black America to realize that a great deal of its problems are try are trying to blame them on the past and white America isn't it time for blacks to face up to their own realities to other realities I think that's the general you know I've drifted a question excuse me well I've heard I've heard that before I don't think that black people in the generality certainly can be accused of blaming their situation on the past all play in deep blaming their situation on anybody the situation is much too vivid much too terrible for a kind of self-indulgence but it isn't people have started out with history is not the past situation in the black community in this country is abominable because this is a racist country and every institution in this country's erases institution and the very last thing that a public really wants is an autonomous black community anywhere everybody knows for example that if you build a school in magetta you built it as a stir Factory and the answer to that is not to bus a child to another neighborhood the answer to that is to rebuild a city because human beings can live in a city cities are not supposedly built for money and to make a few people rich now we wanted to deal with that we got to go there in the mean time is the point in blaming the black community for being upset about the community because the community has always been involved with the republic when we tried before some time ago there was a school strike in Harlem in which blacks and Puerto Ricans came into the schools hearing clearing their self responsible for the education of their children and it was very successful strike I was there like the nieces and nephews in school it was broken a United Federation of Teachers and by the city but they did not want first of all that those billions of dollars which is which is the education system it is a billion-dollar business they do not want that money controlled by blacks and Puerto Ricans and that is what we're up against and it's not the past and there's no point in blaming black people for it few questions here that are related on a somewhat different topic why did you choose France as your residence or one of your residences do you consider yourself an exile or an expatriate how would you compare the French attitude toward blacks with that of America or is there as much racism in France as here in the States I went to France from 1948 when I was quite young I went it was $40 no friend one-way ticket or in other words I was getting out of here I was guy I didn't so much go to Paris as leave New York the reason I think all because I knew that one one fine Tuesday somebody's gonna call me just once too often just once too often and somebody was going to die and I didn't care which one of us it was so I split I don't know what's gonna happen to me in Paris but I knew was gonna happen to me here I grew up in Paris in a way and then I came back in a sense one could say that my life in Paris have paid me to go south without never gone south I'd stayed here and wondered if I stayed alive I've been a junkie or a prisoner I've been in no state to go to Montgomery Alabama as a as for I don't consider myself once patriot I'll go to myself in exile I stayed away long enough to grow up as I put it and now I'm a commuter I suppose and the doc the doctor and white supremacy which is what I mean by racism comes out of the so called all the world it wasn't born in Iraq it was brought here and when I first went to Paris or to Europe the French above all could always say ventures want to say you must be very happy to be here baby we don't treat Negroes the way you treated in the States and we're not racist like the Americans are well I looked around me and I could see that the reason they did could be so tolerant that they thought was because they didn't have any in Paris they were working for them far away sending out Algeria and so forth and so it was not a part of the social fabric and of course was very good for me in a way except my mama didn't raise no fools you know I realized with almost once the Algerian was in Paris cuz I was I was poor I was saw as I was with em in the same jails with them the same hotel seeking shifts another way another way we were treated and in a way that's what drove me home because I could see the what was happening been happening in my country was the same thing that was happening in France and since I was not French you couldn't do anything there I came home with I didn't want to duck it now the doctor knew white supremacy which seemed to have have affected Europe less the cities of Europe London Paris Belgium Berlin it's come back to Europe and the same things going on in the European cities is going on in the American cities and for the same reason how would you compare the artistic and creative climate in France to that in the United States well I guess the fairest thing to say is that the European experience and it's put it that way is old enough for them they're not afraid of artists now this doesn't mean they love them all that they respected didn't know that everyone so asking come to somebody like that is bound to come along so they tolerate it and as you know and if you live long enough or if you are safely dead you are they build a statue to you the meantime you're on your own Thanks the questioner asks as a white person reading some of your stories and books I felt a great they were prejudiced and hatred against a white race did I misinterpret a great deal of hatred prejudice and hatred against whites I don't think that I'm happy my life's too short one thing no no one of these I don't think you see the prejudice or hatred against whites at all but I may say so I wrote another country and I wrote you on his room which can hardly be called anti-white diatribes but I think that I think that when I remember a black person tried to tell the truth about a situation to white people to people who think they're white because why does why does the state of mind it's even a moral choice every time I my testimony is true my testimony is a black citizen of this country our black would be citizen of this country and my testimony is true then the American myth is a lie and when this collision happens I'm accused of being prejudiced against white people I have better sense and don't have that much time I don't have some wipers and locked up in my skull walking around me every day in every hour why people have a black person they're locked up in their skills their skulls and that is how they that's why they treat black people the way they do you see what I mean [Applause] there's a several questions here you can choose which one you want to answer they generally deal in the same broad topic how would you assess the state of race relations in America today how much change do you see since the fire next time what are the true issues issues before American civil rights leaders today are any false so on you'll see them all here well it's very difficult question to answer this no seriously because it's the question is question sincere but it's posed and such well it why don't you know what I would like to do what I would really like to do it's an idea but maybe maybe we can take hold of in this room I want to establish Modest Proposal white History Week answer these questions is not to be found in me but in that history which reduces these questions it's late in the day to be talking about race relations what are you talking about and if as long as we have race relations how can they deteriorate or improve I am NOT a race and neither a you know we're talking about the life and death of this country and one of the things I'm not joking when I talk about white History Week one of the things which most afflicts this country is that why people don't know who they are where they come from that's why you think I'm a problem but I am NOT the problem your history is and as long as you pretend you don't know your history you're gonna be the kid the prisoner of it and there's no question of your liberating me because you can't liberate yourselves we're in this together and finally when white people quote-unquote white people talk about progress Reggie but black people all they are saying and all they can possibly mean by the way progress is how quickly and how thoroughly I become white I don't want to become white I want to grow up and so should you thank you with the deaths of Malcolm X and Reverend King in the 1960s black America lost its most activist and disobedient leaders with the shift of black emphasis to politics and corporate America is this a positive change in the right direction I don't have to answer the question because I don't quite know what the what the questioner means about corporate America and I don't quite know what connection that has with human freedom or what we call democracy and change in the right direction I think that the future is not nearly as simple as Maryland's like to think I'm not convinced the machine is going to resolve so many problems I know that we have got to go but you confront I think the fact that if we don't share the earth we may we blow it if you're gonna blow it up I think we have to rethink everything we think is true now because it's not gonna be true tomorrow the Pacific the question would suppose is the future which is more or less coherent and which is safe but in fact the moral choice we have yet to make does not guarantee that any one of the true has a future and the only way we can accommodate ourselves to that is a rethink and recreate our vocabulary which includes the human race we are all demur in this in this room at the mercy our brother let me know it European vision of the world and that vision is obsolete what is the proper role of the black politician today in American society I would think the black the the proper role of the black politician American society in to do with some people in fact are doing which is to to resist the definitions to instruct and to attempt to liberate the children who are the most crucial issue and to have the courage to contest the American reality it may sound outrageous for example we consider this when I was born when I was growing up various people blew themselves up in homemade stills and died during a bathtub gin because alcohol was illegal and dope was legal it did not mean anybody stopped drinking not at all it just meant that there is people made tremendous fortunes out of the illegal liquor and various people died out of illegal liquor a new form of crime was created and that's all what happened now we want to get to the heart of the drug problem legalize it that destroys the profit motive and may save our children nobody who has a habit was gonna for it it's going to go to jail so it's a law which in operation can be used only against the poor and a law like that is a bad law and it's not stop anybody from his fix they just put some people in jail and some people under the ground because a whole lot of money is being made on the anti Doppler which does not work that is one of the things I think the black politician might suggest to white politicians if you see what I mean what content what contemporary topic or topics interest you the most these days I think I'm really going to be obsessed with the future of the young because we the elders are responsible for that and I myself I think you know I learned a lot from young people because young people unlike or unlike people my age in the generality I was on the road really no did find out who was true what people were telling me that the youth of America become hopelessly apathetic and middle aged and dead there are great many things and the people I met and I've been on the road for a year but none of those things the truth I think is that their elders have betrayed them by throwing Jaguars anthem in TV sets and other kind of paraphernalia instead of trying to teach them so trying to raise them instead of loving them and that they've been abandoned to the dream of safety and children unlike their elders are not very easily fooled that's what fascinates me today would you please comment on wall Solyanka and the nobel prize awarded to him in 1986 was that a political act well and one that will certainly it's a political act you know a concession perhaps even on the other hand sorry anchor deserves it it it's a political gesture it will not have the effect whoever we Academy might have hoped but it is a symptom of what has to be what has to become you see the questions and possible grants are because the suggestion is that the power of like that tomorrow is like the politics of politics of today and it ain't gonna just an it's not gonna be that way no one no one in this room now really knows what a political gesture really means because no one is able to envision the future it's meant to bring about that make sense to you why do you believe that simplicity is an American virtue is it the simple man the virtuous model in most societies certainly in communist states where dissent is unpatriotic certainly why do you believe that simplicity is an American virtue you said quite like that but isn't a simple man of virtuous model in most societies certainly in communist states where dissent is unpatriotic dissent is unclear eaat 'ok everywhere the purpose of the state is to remain the state let's not be romantic about that and I didn't say that simplicity is an American virtue and said Americans sink it it's an American virtue and isn't a simple man the virtuous model in most societies certainly in communist States reconquer his sentence on patriotic the simple man depends well it depends what you mean by simplicity simple is not necessarily simple-minded all one goes this far and say that no man is simple that is not possible to contradiction in terms every society is a model of itself and every society's model of itself is false let us face that - I don't know hadlen where I started no state his anxiousness have dissenters in it including this one and there's more than one way to skin a cat and more than one way to silence a dissent down mr. Baldwin there's another one of these threesomes here that we're trying to make it to one question our aren't you perpetuating the white/black problem by criticizing whites and glorifying blacks blacks and whites are supposed to be one in the same don't you think black history week in similar days weeks keep us separate and of all this do you feel that racism is accurately been cited as a reason for so many of these problems well I've taken little questions verse I was not joking about white History Week at all I was told quite some time ago when I was growing up that George Washington couldn't tell a lie and did or did not chopped down the cherry tree I forget I'm serious about that white white Americans really do not know the history and that's one of the reasons they're in trouble and I'm when I when I suggest a white History Week I'm not really despairing you know making a parody of Black History Week but I'm suggesting if the truth about this country is buried in the myths that white people have about themselves and they have these myths have to be excavated him only been excavated by white people or in other words I may know this history the history of this country better than whatever teacher is trying to teach my child for that it's in my interest to understand it in order to be liberated from it most white Americans cling to the idea of a being white and you know because they don't want to find out well but I'll say might be but if I know that I have black and white ancestors so do you and no one of this country can prove they're white no one would dare to try to prove that and I'm not trying to glorify black people or just denigrate white people I'm trying to point out that we are whether we like it or not connected and that a connection should be our triumphs and our glory instead of our shame [Applause] before asking you I guess the last question I'd like to present mr. Baldwin for certificate appreciation for appearing at the National Press Club as well as a National Press Club paperweight now I know we've asked our guests many hard questions today but some people may think this is the hardest one of them all mr. Baldwin which of your books do you consider the best and why I think every writer well I'll be honest honest as I can be I think everybody has two answers that question and the first answer is the next one it's true and if I have a favorite if anyone has a favorite among the books he's published he's always a little bit afraid to say so I'm gonna take a chance and the reason that one the author has a favorite book very often is because the book was so badly treated he's like having an having a bad you know a child of yours badly treated it so I'm just like no you shouldn't treat it in that way and the novel I'm thinking about if you're so badly treated is that tell me along the trains been gone Thanks [Applause] once again I'd like to thank our guest mr. James Baldwin for appearing at this National Press Club luncheon this concludes today's luncheon thank you [Applause]

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Keywords: thepostarchive, feminism, Black, african, american, USA, politics, Blacklivesmatter, lives, matter, Activist, writer, literary, national, press, club, speech, speaks, author, Civil, Rights, Movement, leftist, afro, queer, liberation, theory, gay, male, man, Not Your Negro, Negro, slavery, #IAmNotYourNegro, James, Baldwin, race, sexuality, studies, professor, lecture, BLM, The Fire Next Time, 1986, poet, poetry, age, aging, #BealeStreet, masculinity

Id: 7_1ZEYgtijk

Length: 55min 56sec (3356 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 14 2019