JAMES BALDWIN: Interview (Florida Forum, Miami)~~1963

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Uploaded by on Nov 24, 2011

Author James Baldwin taped a candid and fascinating studio interview at WCKT - Miami in 1963. Featured in this edition of the long running program, "Florida Forum": questions by an in-studio audience and a panel of local journalists.


bio:

James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 -- December 1, 1987) was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.

Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America, vis-à-vis their inevitable if unnameable tensions with personal identity, assumptions, uncertainties, yearning, and questing.[1] Some Baldwin essays are booklength, for instance The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976).

His novels and plays fictionalize fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures thwarting the equitable integration of not only blacks yet also of male homosexuals—depicting as well some internalized impediments to such individuals' quest for acceptance—namely in his second novel, Giovanni's Room (1956), written well before the equality of homosexuals was widely espoused in America.[2] Baldwin's best-known novel is his first, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953).

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Uploader Comments (ProjectDystopia)

  • Can you please impose more words on the screen? i can still make out part of the video.

  • @ClassicShowbiz what part can't you make out?

  • @ProjectDystopia the comment was referring to the watermark, one third of the screen being darkened and the overlapping titles in that part.

  • @zibberebbiz The original video was a bit darker and still two-toned, and the date on the video was wrong, it read "1964" rather than "1963". With Youtube editor I added the "1963" to stop the confusion, if you have any other questions let me know.

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All Comments (9)

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  • OMG!!! What crystal clear logic and scintillating intelligence did this brilliant man display. If he were alive today, I would love to hear his analysis of the current plight of black Americans.

  • He was a brilliant, BRILLIANT man!

  • James Baldwin is beautiful.

  • @DaddyKyan In those days, he was not as "open" as a gay intellectual would be today. His sexuality was downplayed in the Af Am community (and still is). 

  • Imagine how brave Baldwin was to be speaking out like he did and be a Black gay man at that time.

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