Description:
<jats:p>The author reviews the recently released short film <jats:italic>The Baldwin
Archives</jats:italic> (Laura Seay, 2022), and argues that, in restaging the most
important moments of Baldwin’s 1963 interview for the BBC television
program <jats:italic>Bookstand</jats:italic>, it helps us understand better
Baldwin’s belief that people had a moral obligation “to deal with
other people as though they were simply human beings.” Following the rise
of the Black Power movement in the mid-1960s, this belief contributed to
Baldwin’s marginalization by a younger generation of Black activists who
identified it with a lack of militancy that they attributed to his gender and
sexual nonconformity. But in focusing on the moments in the BBC interview where
Baldwin elaborated his understanding of this obligation, <jats:italic>The Baldwin
Archives</jats:italic> enables us to grasp its radicalism more fully.</jats:p>