In 1979, the African-American writer James Baldwin wrote down ideas for a book on the lives and assassinationErmordungassassinations of his three friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Baldwin had completed only a few dozen pages when he died in 1987. Thirty years later, his idea has inspired director Raoul Peck to take those biographies and everything they meant for the civil-rights movement and turn them into a film.
The story of the negro in America is the story of America
I Am Not Your Negro is blessed with the powerful voice of narratorErzähler(in), Sprecher(in)narrator Samuel L. Jackson announcing that “the story of the negro in America is the story of America”. Linking civil-rights history with later developments in American race relations, the film moves freely and imaginatively between different kinds of material, including recent news coverageBerichterstattungcoverage. As he brings together Baldwin’s own words with archival footageMaterialfootage and examples of how black Americans were portrayed in the media and advertising in the past, Peck suggests that the events of the 1960s remain relevant for America’s continued struggle with hierarchy and racism. Baldwin was a passionate spokesperson for this struggle, and the film does full justice to his eloquenceRedegewandtheiteloquence.
Watch the trailer:
