I Am Not Your Negro

I Am Not Your Negro

Tuesday, June 20, 2017 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm
  • Library Hall

Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Film by Raoul Peck...from the writings of James Baldwin...in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson.

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends — Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

At the time of Baldwin’s death in 1987, he left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript.

Now, in his incendiary new documentary, master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin’s original words and flood of rich archival material. I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of Black Lives Matter. Combining Baldwin’s manuscript with footage of depictions of African-Americans throughout American history, I Am Not Your Negro uses Baldwin's words to illuminate the pervasiveness of American racism and the efforts to curtail it, from the civil rights movement to #BlackLivesMatter, and explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism.

Run time: 93 min.