‘Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it has been faced...’
I had never heard of American writer and activist James Baldwin until reading this list of the 100 greatest films of all time by decade from TIME magazine. Raoul Peck’s lovingly crafted documentary I Am Not Your Negro takes some of Baldwin’s unpublished writing to create a vitriolic, passionate and emotive video essay on the black experience in America…
Beautifully narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and featuring a fascinating and disparate collection of archive footage, I Am Not Your Negro focuses on Baldwin’s writing through the lens of his relationship with Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Much of the film is made up of archive clips of Baldwin himself on various chat shows and it is in these moments that Peck’s film truly comes to life. Baldwin was a compelling narrator and a convincing philosopher and this film provides him a platform to share his views on race and the American Dream with a new audience.
It is disgraceful that even though Baldwin died in 1987, this film was released in 2016 and yet as we sit here in 2023 race is still an ongoing problem in America and across the world. I Am Not Your Negro is a powerful reminder that there is still much to be done to ensure equality for all and, perhaps most importantly, it’s an entertaining and captivating film.