WEBVTT 00:02.366 --> 00:05.000 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% AMNA NAWAZ: This month, the legendary writer and activist James Baldwin would have turned 100 years old. 00:07.066 --> 00:10.866 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% Baldwin is best known for his novels and essays and as a moral voice addressing race, 00:12.966 --> 00:16.500 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% sexuality and the very fabric of American democracy. Nearly 40 years after his death, 00:17.666 --> 00:19.533 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% his words are more relevant than ever. 00:19.533 --> 00:24.066 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% Jeffrey Brown looks at his enduring legacy for our series Art in Action, 00:24.066 --> 00:29.066 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% exploring the intersection of art and democracy, and our ongoing Canvas coverage. 00:30.466 --> 00:32.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% JAMES BALDWIN, Writer: The inequality suffered by the 00:32.433 --> 00:36.033 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% American Negro population of the United States has hindered the American dream. 00:36.033 --> 00:41.000 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JEFFREY BROWN: James Baldwin, novelist, essayist, civil rights activist, public intellectual, 00:42.900 --> 00:46.600 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% here debating William F. Buckley Jr. at the University of Cambridge in 1965. 00:48.733 --> 00:52.033 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% EDDIE GLAUDE JR., Princeton University: He's engaged in this ongoing work of self-creation, 00:52.033 --> 00:57.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% in this sustained reflection on the power of the American idea. 00:58.733 --> 01:02.800 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% He's bringing the full weight of his intellect to bear on this project. 01:02.800 --> 01:05.800 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% JEFFREY BROWN: Eddie Glaude Jr. is a professor of African American 01:05.800 --> 01:10.800 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% studies at Princeton University and author of the 2020 book "Begin Again: 01:12.266 --> 01:15.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own." 01:15.400 --> 01:18.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: I think, if you read Baldwin closely, 01:18.133 --> 01:23.133 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% there is this underlying idea that we have yet to discover who we are, right, 01:25.500 --> 01:30.000 align:left position:10% line:71% size:80% because the ghosts of the past in so many ways, not only blind us, but they have us by the throat. 01:31.900 --> 01:36.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JEFFREY BROWN: James Arthur Baldwin was born in Harlem in 1924 and raised there 01:36.433 --> 01:41.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% by his mother and stepfather, a Baptist preacher. The oldest of nine children, 01:42.900 --> 01:46.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% he excelled in school and served as a junior minister. 01:46.233 --> 01:51.200 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% A man on the margins, Black and queer, he spent years of his life abroad, much of it in France, 01:53.133 --> 01:57.333 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% beginning at age 24. He wrote novels, including "Go Tell It on the Mountain," 01:59.333 --> 02:03.033 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% an autobiographical book about growing up in Harlem, and "Giovanni's Room" about a 02:05.166 --> 02:08.333 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% tormented love affair between two men living in Paris, and powerful essays exploring race 02:10.333 --> 02:14.433 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% and American identity, including "Notes of a Native Son" and "The Fire Next Time." 02:16.333 --> 02:18.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: He's one of the greatest essayists we have ever produced, 02:18.433 --> 02:22.233 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% the world has ever produced I think, and his subject is us. But his vantage point, 02:24.666 --> 02:29.666 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% it's not that of a victim. His vantage point is from those who've had to bear 02:31.466 --> 02:36.433 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% the burden of America's refusal to look itself squarely in the face. 02:36.433 --> 02:40.866 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JEFFREY BROWN: He was also a playwright and poet, an activist who marched and spoke out 02:40.866 --> 02:45.866 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% for civil rights, including on television, here on "The Dick Cavett Show" in 1969. 02:48.300 --> 02:51.733 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% JAMES BALDWIN: And the word Negro in this country really is designed, finally, to disguise the fact 02:53.666 --> 02:56.766 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% that one is talking about another man, a man like you, who wants what you want. 02:56.766 --> 03:00.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% And insofar as the American public wants to think there has been progress, 03:00.200 --> 03:05.100 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% they overlook one very simple thing. I don't want to be given anything 03:08.100 --> 03:12.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% by you. I just want you to leave me alone, so I can do it myself. 03:12.566 --> 03:17.566 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JEFFREY BROWN: Baldwin died in 1987, but he's remained a powerful cultural presence, 03:18.800 --> 03:20.366 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% one that's only grown in the past decade. 03:20.366 --> 03:25.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% JAMES BALDWIN: There are days - - this is one of them -- when 03:25.000 --> 03:30.000 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in it. 03:32.800 --> 03:37.466 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JEFFREY BROWN: In the 2016 documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," director Raoul Peck 03:37.466 --> 03:40.966 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% drew from Baldwin's own words. As he told me then: 03:40.966 --> 03:45.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% RAOUL PECK, Director: He was already a classic, and he wrote those things 40, 50 03:45.733 --> 03:50.733 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% years ago. And watching the film, you think that he would have -- he wrote that in the morning, 03:52.833 --> 03:57.833 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% the morning before watching the film, because those words are so accurate, they are so prescient 04:00.733 --> 04:05.533 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% and so impactful, that you can't do it better. 04:05.533 --> 04:10.533 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% JEFFREY BROWN: In 2018, Baldwin's 1974 novel "If Beale Street Could Talk" was 04:11.733 --> 04:14.033 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% adapted by Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins. 04:14.033 --> 04:19.033 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% BARRY JENKINS, Director: Whether I had won eight Oscars or no Oscars, it's James damn Baldwin, 04:20.800 --> 04:23.400 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% you know? It's James Baldwin. That's pressure enough, in and of itself, 04:23.400 --> 04:27.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% because I wanted to honor his legacy in the way that I thought it should be honored. 04:27.733 --> 04:32.266 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% JEFFREY BROWN: And now a celebration of the centennial of his birth, including an exhibition 04:32.266 --> 04:37.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% at the National Portrait Gallery called This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin 04:39.566 --> 04:43.066 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% and the Voices of Queer Resistance, which takes its name from a short story he published in 1960, 04:44.900 --> 04:49.633 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% another at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture titled Jimmy: 04:49.633 --> 04:54.633 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% Gods Black Revolutionary Mouth, presenting Baldwin's archive of personal papers. 04:57.000 --> 05:00.733 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% There's a new album by singer-songwriter and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello called No More Water: 05:02.866 --> 05:07.400 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% The Gospel of James Baldwin, and reissues of seminal works with new introductions and artwork. 05:15.533 --> 05:18.833 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% CREE MYLES, Host, "The Baldwin 100": What is the best lesson you have learned being 05:18.833 --> 05:22.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% in the spiritual community that you are in with James Baldwin? 05:22.300 --> 05:24.600 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% JEFFREY BROWN: Along with a podcast, 05:24.600 --> 05:28.700 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% "The Baldwin 100," in which host Cree Myles talks with contemporary writers and thinkers. 05:30.633 --> 05:35.066 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% What is his relevance today, especially when you think about younger people, 05:36.100 --> 05:38.400 align:left position:30% line:83% size:60% younger readers, younger citizens? 05:38.400 --> 05:42.900 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% CREE MYLES: Despite the time that has passed, his amount of truth is still relatively radical. When 05:44.833 --> 05:48.200 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% I think about his novels and "Giovanni's Room," and we're thinking about the ways 05:50.266 --> 05:53.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% that he grappled with, like, sexuality, those are things were still coming to terms with. 05:54.366 --> 05:55.900 align:left position:30% line:83% size:60% JEFFREY BROWN: Acclaimed Irish novelist 05:55.900 --> 05:58.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% Colm Toibin contributed the new book "On James Baldwin." 05:58.066 --> 06:01.466 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% COLM TOIBIN, Author, "On James Baldwin": I'm interested in him as, I suppose, 06:01.466 --> 06:06.466 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% someone who really found ways of dealing with individuality versus community, 06:08.900 --> 06:10.800 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% with being an artist in a difficult time. 06:10.800 --> 06:14.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% But more than anything, more than anything, he wrote well. 06:14.600 --> 06:18.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JEFFREY BROWN: Toibin saw connections to his own upbringing and told us how 06:18.200 --> 06:21.266 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% Baldwin has influenced him as writer and man. 06:21.266 --> 06:26.266 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% COLM TOIBIN: It's a question of engaging with this great intelligence and with the sensuous 06:28.300 --> 06:31.500 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% intelligence, with someone sort of thinking brilliantly and glittering sort of way. 06:31.500 --> 06:36.500 align:left position:10% line:71% size:80% But it is also, of course, developing strategies, which he did in relation to his family, in 06:38.566 --> 06:41.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% relation to Harlem, in relation to Black America, in relation to exile, in relation to attempting 06:41.933 --> 06:46.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% to being an artist in a time of flux, and also in a way of being a gay artist, a homosexual 06:49.066 --> 06:53.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% artist coming out of a world which is very conservative and very religious, and attempting 06:53.266 --> 06:58.266 align:left position:20% line:71% size:70% also to build strategies around that that give you energy, rather than ones that take you down. 06:59.566 --> 07:01.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80% JEFFREY BROWN: One deeply resonant thread through 07:01.566 --> 07:05.833 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% all the commemorations, Baldwin's focus on the fragility of democracy itself. 07:08.266 --> 07:11.100 align:left position:10% line:71% size:80% EDDIE GLAUDE JR.: Baldwin's exposing the lie that is the source of the suffering, that defines this 07:13.466 --> 07:17.600 align:left position:10% line:71% size:80% fragile project, it seems to me. He's committed to democracy. He's committed to America. After all, 07:19.733 --> 07:24.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% we are deeply American. But, by virtue of that commitment, he has to relentlessly critique it. 07:26.900 --> 07:30.233 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% JAMES BALDWIN: It comes as a great shock to discover the country, 07:30.233 --> 07:35.233 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% which is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and your identity, 07:37.000 --> 07:40.800 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70% has not, in its whole system of reality, evolved any place for you. 07:42.866 --> 07:46.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80% JEFFREY BROWN: A commitment, as Glaude puts it, to the complex experiment called America. 07:46.433 --> 07:49.033 align:left position:20% line:83% size:70% For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Jeffrey Brown.