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James Baldwin On-Screen

Baldwin’s Nigger

45m

Directed by Horace Ové • 1968 • United Kingdom
Starring James Baldwin, Dick Gregory

In this riveting short documentary by pioneering Trinidadian-British filmmaker Horace Ové, James Baldwin and comedian-activist Dick Gregory speak to a group of radical West Indian students in London about everything from the state of the civil rights movement to the perils of false consciousness. The provocative title, drawn from Baldwin’s words, refers to one of the painful realities of Black American identity: that even his name conjures a history of slavery.

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