Buried by ABC at the time, the segment reveals a unique glimpse into Baldwin’s private life—as well as his resounding criticism about white fragility, as blisteringly relevant today as it was in 1979.
By Adrienne Westenfeld Jun 15, 2021
In 1979, up-and-coming television producer Joseph Lovett scored the opportunity of a lifetime. Just a few months into his stint at 20/20, ABC’s upstart television news magazine, Lovett was assigned a profile of James Baldwin, pegged to the publication of Baldwin’s nineteenth book, Just Above My Head. Lovett was “beyond thrilled” to tell the titanic American writer’s story—but it’s taken until 2021 for that interview to see the light of day.
The segment also takes viewers behind the scenes of Baldwin’s play, The Amen Corner; during a rehearsal for the Lincoln Center production, Baldwin is shown beaming as he watches the performers. The production was produced and directed by Val Gray Ward, founder of Kuumba Theater, who is featured in the clip along with her Kuumba cast. To see Baldwin laughing and smiling in the thick of rehearsal is a welcome, joyful sight. Yet it’s his words about white fragility and white fear that rise above the 1979 milieu, remaining achingly relevant all these years later.
“White people go around, it seems to me, with a very carefully suppressed terror of Black people—a tremendous uneasiness,” Baldwin said. “They don’t know what the Black face hides. They’re sure it’s hiding something. What it’s hiding is American history. What it’s hiding is what white people know they have done, and what they like doing. White people know very well one thing; it’s the only thing they have to know. They know this; everything else, they’ll say, is a lie. They know they would not like to be Black here. They know that, and they’re telling me lies. They’re telling me and my children nothing but lies.”
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