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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsABC Tried to Bury This James Baldwin Interview. Four Decades Later, It's Blisteringly Relevant.
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David Beard
@dabeard
This amazing 1979 ABC interview with James Baldwin never airedand was buried for four decades. In it, Baldwin sounded 2021 themes about white fragility, saying white people have "a very carefully suppressed terror of Black peoplea tremendous uneasiness."
ABC Tried to Bury This James Baldwin Interview. Four Decades Later, It's Blisteringly Relevant.
The newly released clip offers a unique glimpse into Baldwins private lifeas well as his resounding feelings toward white fragility.
esquire.com
10:14 PM · Jun 15, 2021
David Beard
@dabeard
This amazing 1979 ABC interview with James Baldwin never airedand was buried for four decades. In it, Baldwin sounded 2021 themes about white fragility, saying white people have "a very carefully suppressed terror of Black peoplea tremendous uneasiness."
ABC Tried to Bury This James Baldwin Interview. Four Decades Later, It's Blisteringly Relevant.
The newly released clip offers a unique glimpse into Baldwins private lifeas well as his resounding feelings toward white fragility.
esquire.com
10:14 PM · Jun 15, 2021
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a36727428/james-baldwin-1979-abc-interview-buried-surfaced/
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, ABCs upstart television news magazine, Lovett was assigned a profile of James Baldwin, pegged to the publication of Baldwins nineteenth book, Just Above My Head. Lovett was beyond thrilled to tell the titanic American writers storybut its 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 Baldwins private lifeas well as his resounding criticism about white fragility, as blisteringly relevant today as it was in 1979.
When Lovett received the assignment, he was 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 hadnt had a drop to drink and he was brilliant, utterly brilliant, Lovett said. We couldnt 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 Streetthe 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 Baldwins 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 didnt think that. But I knew that he had to write.
*snip*
Watch the interview at article link.
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ABC Tried to Bury This James Baldwin Interview. Four Decades Later, It's Blisteringly Relevant. (Original Post)
Nevilledog
Jun 2021
OP
happy feet
(869 posts)1. Thanks for posting
I enjoyed his prescient thoughts.