Author James Baldwin.Magnolia Films
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Director Raoul Peck gave a great honor to the eloquent novelist, poet, playwright and civil rights activist James Baldwin when he set out to make the documentary “I Am Not Your Negro.”
Baldwin died in 1987 of stomach cancer at the age of 63, before he could complete what he thought would be his literary masterwork, “Remember This House.”
It was meant to be a personal and historical treatise on black-white American race relations, tied to Baldwin’s experience with three iconic black American leaders: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. All three were assassinated before they reached the age of 40.
In “I Am Not Your Negro,” Peck has gone a long way toward accomplishing Baldwin’s final mission. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the movie uses only the words written by Baldwin in his unfinished manuscript, and copious film clips of the writer and his three controversial subjects, to create a fascinating and compelling narrative of African-American history from the Civil War through the civil rights movement and into the Black Lives Matter protests of recent years.
The scope and historical through-line of this documentary should make it required viewing at high schools nationwide. Peck provides a searing and frightening look into what race relations were like in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, right up until the death of Tamir Rice here in Cleveland in 2014.
Peck’s documentary is exhaustively researched and uses entertaining clips from movies, music and television talk shows from five decades to examine the tenor and tone of how American popular culture dealt with and also avoided the “Negro Question,” as it was called at the time, which haunts our headlines and neighborhoods to this day.
Peck shows images from the 1890 massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee, South Dakota; the vicious attacks on protesters during the civil rights marches in Selma and Birmingham, Alabama; the 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles; and the beating of Rodney King in 1991.
“I Am Not Your Negro” is a thoughtful and provocative look back on the troubling story of race relations in this country, examined through the prophetic lens of Baldwin’s early essays and other examinations of racial discrimination in the land of the free.
To quote Baldwin: “The story of the Negro in America is the story of America. It is not a pretty story.”
REVIEW
I Am Not Your Negro
Who: Documentary about James Baldwin directed by Raoul Peck. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.
Rated: PG-13.
Running time: 95 minutes.
When: Opens Friday.
Where: Cedar Lee Theatre, 2163 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights.
Rated: A
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