[News] Watch a Never-Before-Aired James Baldwin Interview From 1979 - brilliant 10-minute video!!

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a36727428/james-baldwin-1979-abc-interview-buried-surfaced/
Watch
a Never-Before-Aired James Baldwin Interview From 1979
Adrienne Westenfeld - June 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*
<https://www.openculture.com/2021/06/watch-a-never-aired-tv-profile-of-james-baldwin-1979.html>
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. Buried by ABC at the time, the segment
has resurfaced over four decades later, revealing 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.

When Lovett received the assignment, he *was*
<https://www.instagram.com/tv/CFLGLZ_BsdT/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet>
excited to meet one of his heroes: “I had been reading [Baldwin] since I
was a teenager. I thought he was brilliant and brave and speaking to the
moment of history that we were all living in. I was thrilled; I was beyond
thrilled.”

Lovett and his crew arrived early, woke Baldwin, shared breakfast with him,
and rolled the cameras before Baldwin, a heavy drinker, had a chance to
imbibe. “He hadn’t had a drop to drink and he was brilliant, utterly
brilliant,” Lovett said. “We couldn’t have been happier. He was such an
eloquent, masterful speaker, with such a great mind. It was such a
privilege.”

Conducted by the late Sylvia Chase, the interview took place at 137 West
71st Street—the Manhattan apartment building Baldwin bought for himself and
his family in 1965, following the success of his early books. It showcases
rare footage of Baldwin relaxed and gregarious at home, surrounded by a
large and close-knit family. In a private conversation with Baldwin’s
mother, Emma Berdis Jones, in the kitchen of her apartment, Chase asked if
Jones always knew that Baldwin would be a wildly successful writer; Jones
responded, “I didn’t think that. But I knew that he had to write.”

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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.”
<https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385334567?linkCode=ogi>

Just Above My Head: A Novel

The far-ranging interview was a resounding success, and Lovett was eager to
see it air. Yet as he was called away on other assignments, including
interviewing Michael Jackson, nothing came of the Baldwin segment. When he
inquired about the delay, ABC reported that it had been scrapped, because,
“Who wants to listen to a Black gay has-been?”

“I was stunned,” Lovett said. “I was absolutely stunned, because in my
mind, James Baldwin was no has-been. He was a classic American writer,
translated into every language in the world, who would live on forever, and
indeed he has. His courage and his eloquence continue to inspire us today.”

In a portion of the segment filmed at the Police Athletic League’s Harlem
Center, Baldwin addressed a group of student reporters, telling one young
student, “Nobody wants a writer until he’s dead.” Uncovering this interview
over forty years later, Baldwin’s unnerving words seem frighteningly
prescient. Lovett will discuss the *20/20 *segment further on June 24 at
8:00 PM, when he moderates a free virtual panel titled *James Baldwin:
Race, Media, and Psychoanalysis*, featuring psychoanalysts Annie Lee Jones
and Victor P. Bonfilio, as well as Aisha Karefa-Smart, Baldwin’s niece.
RSVP *here*
<https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__oU_S2WGSEW1yQkFcOBJTw?fbclid=IwAR2ltU_-UbeXuk70_07QiHyvD64HRA7Dwt3UQ0irGzsQgkrqEt_ZldarCY0>
to help Baldwin’s legacy live on.

Adrienne Westenfeld
<https://www.esquire.com/author/2392/adrienne-westenfeld/> Assistant
Editor Adrienne
Westenfeld is a writer and editor at Esquire, where she covers books and
culture.
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