I Am Not Your Negro

1
00:01:25,795 --> 00:01:26,921
Mr. Baldwin,

2
00:01:27,547 --> 00:01:30,633
I'm sure you still
meet the remark that:

3
00:01:31,217 --> 00:01:34,053
"What are the Negroes...
why aren't they optimistic?

4
00:01:34,220 --> 00:01:36,264
Um... They say, "But
it's getting so much better.

5
00:01:36,431 --> 00:01:37,557
There are negro mayors,

6
00:01:37,766 --> 00:01:39,517
there are negroes
in all of sports."

7
00:01:39,684 --> 00:01:41,936
There are negroes in politics.

8
00:01:42,103 --> 00:01:44,355
They're even accorded
the ultimate accolade

9
00:01:44,522 --> 00:01:46,441
of being in
television commercials now.

10
00:01:48,401 --> 00:01:51,112
I'm glad you're smiling.

11
00:01:52,197 --> 00:01:55,617
Is it at once getting
much better and still hopeless?

12
00:01:56,826 --> 00:01:58,495
I don't think there's
much hope for it, you know,

13
00:01:58,661 --> 00:01:59,746
to tell you the truth,

14
00:01:59,913 --> 00:02:02,749
as long as people are using
this peculiar language.

15
00:02:03,291 --> 00:02:06,419
It's not a question of
what happens to the Negro here,

16
00:02:06,586 --> 00:02:07,921
or to the black man here,

17
00:02:08,797 --> 00:02:10,965
that's a very vivid question
for me, you know,

18
00:02:11,132 --> 00:02:13,301
but the real question is what's
going to happen to this country.

19
00:02:13,468 --> 00:02:14,552
I have to repeat that.

20
00:02:14,719 --> 00:02:16,971
<i>♪ You're damn right,
I've got the blues, ♪</i>

21
00:02:18,014 --> 00:02:20,892
<i>♪ From my head
down to my shoes ♪</i>

22
00:02:25,146 --> 00:02:27,857
<i>♪ You're damn right,
I've got the blues, ♪</i>

23
00:02:28,024 --> 00:02:30,276
<i>♪ From my head
down to my shoes ♪</i>

24
00:02:35,323 --> 00:02:37,242
<i>♪ I can't win</i>

25
00:02:37,992 --> 00:02:40,620
<i>♪ 'Cause I don't have
a thing to lose ♪</i>

26
00:02:44,958 --> 00:02:47,919
<i>♪ I stopped by
my daughter's house ♪</i>

27
00:02:48,086 --> 00:02:50,421
<i>♪ You know I just want to
use the phone ♪</i>

28
00:02:55,134 --> 00:02:56,761
<i>♪ I stopped by
my daughter's house ♪</i>

29
00:02:57,846 --> 00:03:00,807
<i>♪ You know I just want to
use the phone ♪</i>

30
00:03:22,620 --> 00:03:24,998
<i>The summer has scarcely begun,</i>

31
00:03:25,623 --> 00:03:28,126
<i>and I feel already
that it's almost over.</i>

32
00:03:30,128 --> 00:03:31,963
<i>And I will be 55.</i>

33
00:03:32,130 --> 00:03:35,967
<i>Yes, 55, in a month.</i>

34
00:03:37,969 --> 00:03:40,054
<i>I am about to undertake
the journey.</i>

35
00:03:41,097 --> 00:03:43,683
<i>And this is a journey,
to tell you the truth,</i>

36
00:03:44,350 --> 00:03:46,936
<i>which I always knew
that I would have to make,</i>

37
00:03:47,437 --> 00:03:49,689
<i>but had hoped, perhaps,</i>

38
00:03:50,315 --> 00:03:52,275
<i>certainly had hoped,</i>

39
00:03:52,609 --> 00:03:54,402
<i>not to have to make so soon.</i>

40
00:03:57,113 --> 00:03:59,240
<i>I am saying that a journey
is called that</i>

41
00:03:59,407 --> 00:04:01,367
<i>because you cannot know
what you will discover</i>

42
00:04:01,534 --> 00:04:02,785
<i>on the journey,</i>

43
00:04:03,328 --> 00:04:05,705
<i>what you will do
with what you find,</i>

44
00:04:05,872 --> 00:04:08,666
<i>or what you find will do to you.</i>

45
00:04:09,959 --> 00:04:11,461
Not only have a right
to be free,

46
00:04:11,628 --> 00:04:13,671
- we have a duty to be free.
- Yeah.

47
00:04:13,838 --> 00:04:16,799
<i>And so when you sit down on the bus
and you sit down in the front,</i>

48
00:04:16,966 --> 00:04:18,718
<i>or sit down by a white person,</i>

49
00:04:19,302 --> 00:04:22,347
you are sitting there because
you have a duty to sit down,

50
00:04:22,513 --> 00:04:24,432
not merely because
you have a right.

51
00:04:25,099 --> 00:04:27,518
<i>The time
of these lives and deaths,</i>

52
00:04:27,685 --> 00:04:30,688
<i>from a public point of view,
is 1955,</i>

53
00:04:30,855 --> 00:04:32,273
<i>when we first heard of Martin,</i>

54
00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:35,109
<i>to 1968, when he was murdered.</i>

55
00:04:38,237 --> 00:04:41,115
<i>Medgar was murdered
in the summer of 1963.</i>

56
00:04:42,033 --> 00:04:44,911
<i>Malcolm was murdered in 1965.</i>

57
00:04:45,078 --> 00:04:48,790
<i>♪ Here, take my hand,
Precious Lord ♪</i>

58
00:04:49,624 --> 00:04:51,209
<i>♪ Lead me on ♪</i>

59
00:04:51,542 --> 00:04:53,127
<i>♪ Let me stand ♪</i>

60
00:04:53,628 --> 00:04:55,171
<i>♪ I am tired ♪</i>

61
00:04:55,421 --> 00:04:56,923
<i>♪ I'm weak ♪</i>

62
00:04:57,256 --> 00:04:59,008
<i>♪ I am worn ♪</i>

63
00:05:01,219 --> 00:05:02,512
<i>♪ Through the storm ♪</i>

64
00:05:02,679 --> 00:05:04,055
<i>The three men,</i>

65
00:05:04,222 --> 00:05:08,393
<i>Medgar, Malcolm, and Martin,
were very different men.</i>

66
00:05:10,687 --> 00:05:14,190
<i>Consider that Martin
was only 26 in 1955.</i>

67
00:05:14,899 --> 00:05:18,277
<i>He took on his shoulders
the weight of the crimes,</i>

68
00:05:18,528 --> 00:05:21,364
<i>and the lies,
and the hope of a nation.</i>

69
00:05:25,326 --> 00:05:27,203
<i>I want these three lives
to bang against</i>

70
00:05:27,370 --> 00:05:30,581
<i>and reveal each other,
as in truth, they did</i>

71
00:05:31,457 --> 00:05:32,834
<i>and use their dreadful journey</i>

72
00:05:33,001 --> 00:05:34,752
<i>as a means of
instructing the people</i>

73
00:05:34,919 --> 00:05:36,421
<i>whom they loved so much,</i>

74
00:05:36,838 --> 00:05:38,006
<i>who betrayed them,</i>

75
00:05:38,673 --> 00:05:40,758
<i>and for whom
they gave their lives.</i>

76
00:06:00,111 --> 00:06:01,904
<i>The moment a negro child</i>

77
00:06:02,071 --> 00:06:03,740
walks into the school,

78
00:06:03,906 --> 00:06:07,577
every decent, self-respecting,
loving parent

79
00:06:07,744 --> 00:06:11,080
should take his white child
out of that broken school.

80
00:06:33,811 --> 00:06:35,480
Go back to your own school.

81
00:06:43,905 --> 00:06:47,408
God forgives murder
and he forgives adultery.

82
00:06:47,867 --> 00:06:49,327
But He is very angry

83
00:06:49,494 --> 00:06:51,954
and He actually curses
all who do integrate.

84
00:07:02,799 --> 00:07:05,051
<i>That's when
I saw the photograph.</i>

85
00:07:06,135 --> 00:07:08,054
<i>On every newspaper kiosk</i>

86
00:07:08,221 --> 00:07:11,140
<i>on that wide, tree-shaped
boulevard in Paris,</i>

87
00:07:11,307 --> 00:07:14,811
<i>were photographs
of 15-year-old Dorothy Counts</i>

88
00:07:14,977 --> 00:07:17,814
<i>being reviled and spat upon
by the mob</i>

89
00:07:17,980 --> 00:07:19,690
<i>as she was making her way
to school</i>

90
00:07:19,857 --> 00:07:21,442
<i>in Charlotte, North Carolina.</i>

91
00:07:22,443 --> 00:07:24,570
<i>There was unutterable pride,</i>

92
00:07:24,737 --> 00:07:27,532
<i>tension and anguish
in that girl's face</i>

93
00:07:27,698 --> 00:07:29,784
<i>as she approached
the halls of learning,</i>

94
00:07:30,118 --> 00:07:32,245
<i>with history jeering
at her back.</i>

95
00:07:33,996 --> 00:07:35,373
<i>It made me furious,</i>

96
00:07:35,998 --> 00:07:39,168
<i>it filled me
with both hatred and pity.</i>

97
00:07:39,627 --> 00:07:41,504
<i>And it made me ashamed.</i>

98
00:07:42,255 --> 00:07:44,841
<i>Some one of us should have
been there with her!</i>

99
00:07:48,636 --> 00:07:50,388
<i>But it was on that
bright afternoon</i>

100
00:07:50,555 --> 00:07:52,890
<i>that I knew
I was leaving France.</i>

101
00:07:54,016 --> 00:07:57,311
<i>I could simply no longer
sit around Paris,</i>

102
00:07:57,478 --> 00:08:01,357
<i>discussing the Algerian
and the Black American problem.</i>

103
00:08:02,316 --> 00:08:04,402
<i>Everybody else
was paying their dues,</i>

104
00:08:04,610 --> 00:08:07,697
<i>and it was time
I went home and paid mine.</i>

105
00:08:08,698 --> 00:08:10,950
<i>♪ If you was white,
You'd be alright ♪</i>

106
00:08:11,242 --> 00:08:13,786
<i>♪ If you was brown,
Stick around ♪</i>

107
00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:15,830
<i>♪ But as you's black ♪</i>

108
00:08:15,997 --> 00:08:17,165
<i>♪ Oh, brother ♪</i>

109
00:08:18,457 --> 00:08:20,710
<i>♪ Get back, get back, get back ♪</i>

110
00:08:23,713 --> 00:08:25,840
<i>♪ I went to
an employment office ♪</i>

111
00:08:26,048 --> 00:08:28,301
<i>♪ I got a number
and I got in line ♪</i>

112
00:08:29,510 --> 00:08:31,304
<i>♪ They called
everybody's number ♪</i>

113
00:08:31,470 --> 00:08:33,848
<i>♪ But they never did call mine ♪</i>

114
00:08:34,015 --> 00:08:37,101
<i>♪ I said, if you was white,
You'd be alright ♪</i>

115
00:08:37,268 --> 00:08:39,937
<i>♪ If you was brown,
Stick around ♪</i>

116
00:08:40,104 --> 00:08:41,731
<i>♪ But as you's black ♪</i>

117
00:08:41,898 --> 00:08:43,191
<i>♪ Oh, brother... ♪</i>

118
00:09:04,295 --> 00:09:06,380
<i>I had at last come home.</i>

119
00:09:07,673 --> 00:09:10,009
<i>If there was, in this,
some illusion,</i>

120
00:09:10,593 --> 00:09:12,178
<i>there was also much truth.</i>

121
00:09:13,721 --> 00:09:15,306
<i>In the years in Paris,</i>

122
00:09:15,681 --> 00:09:18,434
<i>I had never been homesick
for anything American.</i>

123
00:09:18,893 --> 00:09:21,145
<i>Neither waffles, ice cream,</i>

124
00:09:21,312 --> 00:09:25,524
<i>hot dogs, baseball,
majorettes, movies,</i>

125
00:09:26,442 --> 00:09:29,153
<i>nor the Empire State Building,
nor Coney Island,</i>

126
00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:32,073
<i>nor the Statue of Liberty,
nor the</i> Daily News,

127
00:09:32,281 --> 00:09:33,449
<i>nor Times Square.</i>

128
00:09:34,659 --> 00:09:36,452
<i>All of these things
had passed out of me.</i>

129
00:09:37,245 --> 00:09:40,915
<i>They might never have existed,
and it made absolutely</i>

130
00:09:41,082 --> 00:09:44,335
<i>no difference to me
if I never saw them again.</i>

131
00:09:54,053 --> 00:09:58,099
<i>But I missed my brothers
and sisters, and my mother.</i>

132
00:09:58,683 --> 00:09:59,976
<i>They made a difference.</i>

133
00:10:01,018 --> 00:10:04,230
<i>I wanted to be able to see them,
and to see their children.</i>

134
00:10:05,439 --> 00:10:07,191
<i>I hoped that
they wouldn't forget me.</i>

135
00:10:07,817 --> 00:10:11,112
<i>I missed Harlem Sunday mornings
and fried chicken,</i>

136
00:10:11,279 --> 00:10:13,698
<i>and biscuits,
I missed the music,</i>

137
00:10:13,990 --> 00:10:15,366
<i>I missed the style...</i>

138
00:10:15,574 --> 00:10:18,577
<i>that style possessed by
no other people in the world.</i>

139
00:10:20,162 --> 00:10:22,999
<i>I missed the way
the dark face closes,</i>

140
00:10:23,165 --> 00:10:25,876
<i>the way dark eyes watch,
and the way,</i>

141
00:10:26,043 --> 00:10:29,714
<i>when a dark face opens,
a light seems to go everywhere.</i>

142
00:10:30,506 --> 00:10:33,509
<i>I missed, in short,
my connections,</i>

143
00:10:33,676 --> 00:10:38,139
<i>missed the life which had
produced me and nourished me</i>

144
00:10:38,306 --> 00:10:39,557
<i>and paid for me.</i>

145
00:10:40,433 --> 00:10:45,229
<i>Now, though I was a stranger,
I was home.</i>

146
00:10:55,573 --> 00:10:59,285
<i>I am fascinated by the movement
on and off the screen.</i>

147
00:11:01,954 --> 00:11:03,372
<i>I am about seven.</i>

148
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:06,917
<i>I'm with my mother, or my aunt.</i>

149
00:11:07,877 --> 00:11:11,172
<i>The movie is</i>
Dance, Fools, Dance.

150
00:11:19,680 --> 00:11:22,725
<i>I was aware that Joan Crawford
was a white lady.</i>

151
00:11:24,185 --> 00:11:28,272
<i>Yet, I remember being sent
to the store sometime later,</i>

152
00:11:28,773 --> 00:11:30,858
<i>and a colored woman who, to me,</i>

153
00:11:31,067 --> 00:11:32,902
<i>looked exactly
like Joan Crawford,</i>

154
00:11:33,235 --> 00:11:34,487
<i>was buying something.</i>

155
00:11:35,446 --> 00:11:37,156
<i>She was incredibly beautiful.</i>

156
00:11:37,907 --> 00:11:41,160
<i>She looked down at me
with so beautiful a smile</i>

157
00:11:41,911 --> 00:11:43,871
<i>that I was not even embarrassed,</i>

158
00:11:44,789 --> 00:11:46,248
<i>which was rare for me.</i>

159
00:11:55,466 --> 00:11:56,926
<i>By this time,</i>

160
00:11:57,301 --> 00:12:00,805
<i>I had been taken in hand
by a young white schoolteacher</i>

161
00:12:00,971 --> 00:12:03,849
<i>named Bill Miller,
a beautiful woman,</i>

162
00:12:04,475 --> 00:12:05,893
<i>very important to me.</i>

163
00:12:07,603 --> 00:12:11,148
<i>She gave me books to read and
talked to me about the books,</i>

164
00:12:11,315 --> 00:12:12,733
<i>and about the world:</i>

165
00:12:13,526 --> 00:12:17,196
<i>about Ethiopia, and Italy,</i>

166
00:12:18,114 --> 00:12:19,907
<i>and the German Third Reich,</i>

167
00:12:20,908 --> 00:12:23,202
<i>and took me to see
plays and films,</i>

168
00:12:23,577 --> 00:12:25,329
<i>to which no one else
would have dreamed</i>

169
00:12:25,496 --> 00:12:27,331
<i>of taking a ten-year-old boy.</i>

170
00:12:36,757 --> 00:12:38,801
<i>It is certainly
because of Bill Miller,</i>

171
00:12:39,093 --> 00:12:42,012
<i>who arrived
in my terrifying life so soon,</i>

172
00:12:42,805 --> 00:12:45,891
<i>that I never really managed
to hate white people.</i>

173
00:12:46,809 --> 00:12:48,310
<i>Though, God knows,</i>

174
00:12:48,477 --> 00:12:51,480
<i>I've often wished to murder
more than one or two.</i>

175
00:12:56,694 --> 00:12:58,779
<i>Therefore, I begin to suspect</i>

176
00:12:59,321 --> 00:13:01,740
<i>that white people
did not act as they did</i>

177
00:13:01,907 --> 00:13:06,036
<i>because they were white,
but for some other reason.</i>

178
00:13:10,082 --> 00:13:14,378
<i>I was a child of course,
and therefore unsophisticated.</i>

179
00:13:14,795 --> 00:13:18,883
<i>I took Bill Miller as she was,
or as she appeared to be to me.</i>

180
00:13:19,592 --> 00:13:22,553
<i>She too, anyway,
was treated like a nigger,</i>

181
00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:24,305
<i>especially by the cops,</i>

182
00:13:24,472 --> 00:13:26,974
<i>and she had no love
for landlords.</i>

183
00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:30,644
<i>♪ Richard!
Can't get him up! ♪</i>

184
00:13:30,811 --> 00:13:33,355
<i>♪ Richard!
Can't get him up! ♪</i>

185
00:13:34,064 --> 00:13:36,901
<i>♪ Richard!
Can't get him up! ♪</i>

186
00:13:37,276 --> 00:13:39,987
<i>♪ Lazy Richard!
Can't get him up! ♪</i>

187
00:13:40,488 --> 00:13:41,655
<i>♪ Richard! ♪</i>

188
00:13:41,822 --> 00:13:45,242
<i>In these days,
no one resembling my father</i>

189
00:13:45,409 --> 00:13:48,120
<i>has yet made an appearance
on the American cinema scene.</i>

190
00:13:48,287 --> 00:13:49,788
<i>♪ Can't get him up! ♪</i>

191
00:13:49,955 --> 00:13:52,583
<i>♪ We'll try to get him
on the phone ♪</i>

192
00:13:52,750 --> 00:13:55,544
<i>♪ I was laying down
dreamin'... ♪</i>

193
00:13:55,711 --> 00:13:57,755
<i>No, it's not entirely true.</i>

194
00:13:58,422 --> 00:14:02,259
<i>There were, for example,
Stepin Fetchit and Willie Best</i>

195
00:14:02,426 --> 00:14:06,597
<i>and Mantan Moreland,
all of whom, rightly or wrongly,</i>

196
00:14:06,764 --> 00:14:08,057
<i>I loathed.</i>

197
00:14:08,641 --> 00:14:11,602
<i>It seemed to me that they lied
about the world I knew,</i>

198
00:14:11,769 --> 00:14:12,811
<i>and debased it,</i>

199
00:14:12,978 --> 00:14:15,606
<i>and certainly I did not know
anybody like them,</i>

200
00:14:15,773 --> 00:14:17,149
<i>as far as I could tell.</i>

201
00:14:18,275 --> 00:14:21,612
<i>For it also possible that
their comic, bug-eyed terror</i>

202
00:14:21,779 --> 00:14:24,114
<i>contained the truth
concerning a terror</i>

203
00:14:24,281 --> 00:14:26,534
<i>by which I hoped
never to be engulfed.</i>

204
00:14:28,035 --> 00:14:32,540
<i>Yet, I had no reservations
at all concerning the terror</i>

205
00:14:32,706 --> 00:14:34,667
<i>of the Black janitor
in</i> They Won't Forget.

206
00:14:34,833 --> 00:14:36,418
Give me police!

207
00:14:37,044 --> 00:14:38,420
Give me police!

208
00:14:38,587 --> 00:14:41,715
Give me...
Give me police!

209
00:14:41,966 --> 00:14:43,634
<i>I think that it was
a black actor</i>

210
00:14:43,801 --> 00:14:46,637
<i>named Clinton Rosemond
who played this part,</i>

211
00:14:47,555 --> 00:14:49,723
<i>and he looked
a little like my father.</i>

212
00:14:49,890 --> 00:14:51,642
I didn't do it. I didn't do it!

213
00:14:51,809 --> 00:14:53,769
I didn't do it! I didn't do it!

214
00:14:53,936 --> 00:14:55,854
<i>He is terrified
because a young white girl</i>

215
00:14:56,021 --> 00:14:59,149
<i>in this small Southern town
has been raped and murdered,</i>

216
00:14:59,316 --> 00:15:01,735
<i>and her body has been found
upon the premises</i>

217
00:15:01,902 --> 00:15:03,195
<i>of which he is the janitor.</i>

218
00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:05,030
Good morning, Tump.

219
00:15:06,323 --> 00:15:08,158
<i>The role
of the janitor is small,</i>

220
00:15:09,285 --> 00:15:12,705
<i>yet the man's face
bangs in my memory until today.</i>

221
00:15:12,913 --> 00:15:15,207
- I have done nothing.
- Nobody says you have, Tom.

222
00:15:15,416 --> 00:15:16,417
But they might.

223
00:15:16,584 --> 00:15:19,962
<i>The film's
icy brutality both scared me...</i>

224
00:15:20,129 --> 00:15:21,046
What for?

225
00:15:21,213 --> 00:15:22,631
<i>...and strengthened me.</i>

226
00:15:43,694 --> 00:15:46,405
<i>Because Uncle Tom
refuses to take vengeance</i>

227
00:15:46,614 --> 00:15:50,075
<i>in his own hands,
he was not a hero for me.</i>

228
00:15:52,995 --> 00:15:55,664
<i>Heroes, as far as I could see,
where white,</i>

229
00:15:55,831 --> 00:15:58,125
<i>and not merely
because of the movies,</i>

230
00:15:58,334 --> 00:16:00,544
<i>but because of the land
in which I lived,</i>

231
00:16:00,711 --> 00:16:03,422
<i>of which movies
were simply a reflection.</i>

232
00:16:04,340 --> 00:16:07,551
<i>I despised
and feared those heroes</i>

233
00:16:07,718 --> 00:16:10,554
<i>because they did take vengeance
into their own hands.</i>

234
00:16:11,096 --> 00:16:13,223
<i>They thought vengeance
was theirs to take.</i>

235
00:16:14,099 --> 00:16:16,644
<i>And, yes, I understood that:</i>

236
00:16:17,770 --> 00:16:20,522
<i>my countrymen were my enemy.</i>

237
00:16:32,201 --> 00:16:35,996
<i>I suspect that all these stories
are designed to reassure us</i>

238
00:16:36,163 --> 00:16:37,748
<i>that no crime was committed.</i>

239
00:16:38,749 --> 00:16:41,293
<i>We've made a legend
out of a massacre.</i>

240
00:16:45,422 --> 00:16:48,258
<i>Leaving aside
all the physical facts</i>

241
00:16:48,425 --> 00:16:49,593
<i>which one can quote.</i>

242
00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:52,763
Leaving aside rape or murder.

243
00:16:52,930 --> 00:16:56,517
Leaving aside the bloody catalog
of oppression,

244
00:16:56,934 --> 00:16:59,937
which we are, in one way,
too familiar with already,

245
00:17:00,521 --> 00:17:02,439
what this does
to the subjugated

246
00:17:02,815 --> 00:17:05,025
<i>is to destroy
his sense of reality.</i>

247
00:17:05,776 --> 00:17:08,696
<i>This means, in the case
of an American negro,</i>

248
00:17:09,029 --> 00:17:10,406
<i>born in that
glittering republic,</i>

249
00:17:11,365 --> 00:17:12,950
and in the moment you are born,

250
00:17:13,492 --> 00:17:16,870
since you don't know any better,
every stick and stone

251
00:17:17,037 --> 00:17:18,831
and every face is white,

252
00:17:19,623 --> 00:17:21,875
<i>and since you have not yet
seen a mirror,</i>

253
00:17:22,042 --> 00:17:23,502
<i>you suppose that you are too.</i>

254
00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:28,257
<i>It comes as a great shock
around the age of five,</i>

255
00:17:28,382 --> 00:17:29,842
<i>or six, or seven,</i>

256
00:17:29,967 --> 00:17:32,344
to discover that Gary Cooper
killing off the Indians,

257
00:17:32,511 --> 00:17:34,638
when you were
rooting for Gary Cooper,

258
00:17:35,889 --> 00:17:38,225
that the Indians were you.

259
00:17:38,434 --> 00:17:41,812
<i>It comes as a great shock
to discover the country,</i>

260
00:17:41,979 --> 00:17:43,480
<i>which is your birthplace,</i>

261
00:17:43,856 --> 00:17:46,734
<i>and to which you owe
your life and your identity,</i>

262
00:17:47,276 --> 00:17:50,028
<i>has not, in its whole system
of reality,</i>

263
00:17:50,404 --> 00:17:52,573
<i>evolved any place for you.</i>

264
00:18:06,670 --> 00:18:08,839
<i>I know how to do it,
technically.</i>

265
00:18:09,006 --> 00:18:11,467
<i>It is a matter of research
and journeys.</i>

266
00:18:11,842 --> 00:18:15,512
<i>And with you or without you,
I will do it anyway.</i>

267
00:18:17,181 --> 00:18:20,017
<i>I begin in September,
when I go on the road.</i>

268
00:18:20,726 --> 00:18:23,645
<i>"The road" means
my return to the South.</i>

269
00:18:24,354 --> 00:18:27,566
<i>It means briefly, for example,
seeing Myrlie Evers,</i>

270
00:18:27,733 --> 00:18:28,859
<i>and the children.</i>

271
00:18:29,067 --> 00:18:31,528
<i>Those children
who are children no longer.</i>

272
00:18:33,071 --> 00:18:36,784
<i>It means going back to Atlanta,
to Selma, to Birmingham.</i>

273
00:18:39,161 --> 00:18:41,163
<i>It means seeing
Coretta Scott King,</i>

274
00:18:41,330 --> 00:18:42,623
<i>and Martin's children.</i>

275
00:18:43,415 --> 00:18:44,833
<i>I know that Martin's daughter,</i>

276
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,962
<i>whose name I don't remember,
and Malcolm's oldest daughter,</i>

277
00:18:49,129 --> 00:18:52,007
<i>whose name is Attalah
are both in the theatre,</i>

278
00:18:52,257 --> 00:18:53,967
<i>and apparently are friends.</i>

279
00:18:55,093 --> 00:18:58,472
<i>It means seeing Betty Shabazz,
Malcolm's widow,</i>

280
00:18:58,639 --> 00:19:00,224
<i>and the five younger children.</i>

281
00:19:00,933 --> 00:19:03,644
<i>It means exposing myself
as one of the witnesses</i>

282
00:19:03,811 --> 00:19:06,563
<i>to the lives and deaths
of their famous fathers.</i>

283
00:19:07,022 --> 00:19:10,317
<i>And it means much,
much more than that.</i>

284
00:19:10,692 --> 00:19:14,404
<i>"A clod of witnesses,"
as old St. Paul once put it.</i>

285
00:19:26,208 --> 00:19:28,919
<i>I saw Malcolm before I met him.</i>

286
00:19:30,295 --> 00:19:32,756
<i>I was giving a lecture
somewhere in New York.</i>

287
00:19:33,215 --> 00:19:35,843
<i>Malcolm was sitting
in the first row of the hall,</i>

288
00:19:36,009 --> 00:19:39,847
<i>bending forward at such an angle
that his long arms</i>

289
00:19:40,013 --> 00:19:42,766
<i>nearly caressed the ankles
of his long legs,</i>

290
00:19:43,016 --> 00:19:44,434
<i>staring up at me.</i>

291
00:19:45,686 --> 00:19:47,271
<i>I very nearly panicked.</i>

292
00:19:47,896 --> 00:19:51,483
<i>I knew Malcolm only by legend,
and this legend,</i>

293
00:19:51,650 --> 00:19:53,527
<i>since I was a Harlem street boy,</i>

294
00:19:53,735 --> 00:19:56,572
<i>I was sufficiently astute
to distrust.</i>

295
00:19:58,198 --> 00:20:01,577
<i>Malcolm might be the torch
that white people claim he was,</i>

296
00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:03,537
<i>though, in general,</i>

297
00:20:04,079 --> 00:20:06,498
<i>white America's evaluations
of these matters</i>

298
00:20:06,665 --> 00:20:09,334
<i>would be laughable
and even pathetic</i>

299
00:20:10,002 --> 00:20:13,463
<i>did not these evaluations
have such wicked results.</i>

300
00:20:14,631 --> 00:20:15,757
<i>On the other hand,</i>

301
00:20:15,924 --> 00:20:18,427
<i>Malcolm had no reason
to trust me either.</i>

302
00:20:19,261 --> 00:20:21,722
<i>And so I stumbled
through my lecture,</i>

303
00:20:22,639 --> 00:20:25,976
<i>with Malcolm never
taking his eyes from my face.</i>

304
00:20:26,143 --> 00:20:30,272
<i>♪ Don't know why ♪</i>

305
00:20:30,772 --> 00:20:33,942
<i>♪ There's no sun up in the sky ♪</i>

306
00:20:34,109 --> 00:20:36,737
<i>♪ Stormy weather ♪</i>

307
00:20:37,279 --> 00:20:43,035
<i>♪ Since my man and I
ain't together ♪</i>

308
00:20:44,620 --> 00:20:50,292
<i>♪ Keeps rainin' all the time ♪</i>

309
00:20:54,838 --> 00:20:57,424
<i>As a member
of the NAACP,</i>

310
00:20:57,591 --> 00:21:00,719
<i>Medgar was investigating
the murder of a black man,</i>

311
00:21:00,886 --> 00:21:02,804
<i>which had occurred
months before,</i>

312
00:21:03,430 --> 00:21:05,390
<i>had shown me letters
from black people</i>

313
00:21:05,557 --> 00:21:06,808
<i>asking him to do this,</i>

314
00:21:07,142 --> 00:21:09,144
<i>and he had asked me
to come with him.</i>

315
00:21:09,603 --> 00:21:10,604
<i>♪ Raise up! ♪</i>

316
00:21:10,771 --> 00:21:14,232
<i>♪ Get yourself together,
And drive that funky soul ♪</i>

317
00:21:14,399 --> 00:21:15,692
<i>I was terribly frightened,</i>

318
00:21:16,401 --> 00:21:19,488
<i>but perhaps that fieldtrip
will help us define</i>

319
00:21:19,655 --> 00:21:22,032
<i>what I mean by the word
"witness".</i>

320
00:21:24,451 --> 00:21:27,454
<i>I was to discover that the line
which separates a witness</i>

321
00:21:27,621 --> 00:21:30,832
<i>from an actor
is a very thin line indeed.</i>

322
00:21:31,541 --> 00:21:34,419
<i>Nevertheless, the line is real.</i>

323
00:21:36,088 --> 00:21:38,507
<i>I was not, for example,
a Black Muslim,</i>

324
00:21:38,882 --> 00:21:41,259
<i>in the same way,
though for different reasons,</i>

325
00:21:41,426 --> 00:21:43,428
<i>that I never became
a Black Panther.</i>

326
00:21:44,137 --> 00:21:47,391
<i>Because I did not believe that
all white people were devils,</i>

327
00:21:47,975 --> 00:21:51,269
<i>and I did not want young
black people to believe that.</i>

328
00:21:52,437 --> 00:21:55,607
<i>I was not a member of any
Christian congregation because</i>

329
00:21:55,774 --> 00:21:58,068
<i>I knew that they had not heard</i>

330
00:21:58,235 --> 00:22:00,112
<i>and did not live
by the commandment,</i>

331
00:22:00,487 --> 00:22:03,031
<i>"Love one another
as I love you."</i>

332
00:22:03,991 --> 00:22:07,327
<i>And I was not a member
of the NAACP</i>

333
00:22:07,953 --> 00:22:09,997
<i>because in the North,
where I grew up,</i>

334
00:22:10,580 --> 00:22:16,003
<i>the NAACP was fatally entangled
with black class distinctions,</i>

335
00:22:16,795 --> 00:22:18,463
<i>or illusions of the same,</i>

336
00:22:19,214 --> 00:22:22,217
<i>which repelled
a shoe-shine boy like me.</i>

337
00:22:25,303 --> 00:22:28,306
<i>I did not have to deal with the
criminal state of Mississippi,</i>

338
00:22:28,473 --> 00:22:31,309
<i>hour by hour and day by day,</i>

339
00:22:32,019 --> 00:22:33,937
<i>to say nothing
of night after night.</i>

340
00:22:34,771 --> 00:22:38,316
<i>I did not have to sweat
cold sweat after decisions</i>

341
00:22:38,483 --> 00:22:40,736
<i>involving hundreds
of thousands of lives.</i>

342
00:22:41,987 --> 00:22:44,322
<i>I was not responsible
for raising money,</i>

343
00:22:44,948 --> 00:22:46,700
<i>or deciding how to use it.</i>

344
00:22:47,367 --> 00:22:49,703
<i>I was not responsible
for strategy</i>

345
00:22:49,870 --> 00:22:51,955
<i>controlling prayer-meetings,
marches,</i>

346
00:22:52,122 --> 00:22:54,791
<i>petitions,
voting registration drives.</i>

347
00:22:55,500 --> 00:22:58,170
<i>I saw the Sheriffs,
the Deputies,</i>

348
00:22:58,420 --> 00:23:01,048
<i>the Storm Troopers,
more or less in passing.</i>

349
00:23:02,132 --> 00:23:03,925
<i>I was never in town to stay.</i>

350
00:23:05,177 --> 00:23:07,888
<i>This was sometimes
hard on my morale,</i>

351
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,266
<i>but I had to accept,
as time wore on,</i>

352
00:23:12,225 --> 00:23:14,978
<i>that part of my responsibility,
as a witness,</i>

353
00:23:15,270 --> 00:23:18,690
<i>was to move as largely
and as freely as possible.</i>

354
00:23:19,483 --> 00:23:22,569
<i>To write the story,
and to get it out.</i>

355
00:24:06,571 --> 00:24:08,824
We should all be concerned
with but one goal,

356
00:24:08,990 --> 00:24:10,242
the eradication of crime.

357
00:24:10,992 --> 00:24:13,787
The Federal Bureau of
Investigation is as close to you

358
00:24:13,954 --> 00:24:15,539
as your nearest telephone.

359
00:24:15,705 --> 00:24:17,165
It seeks to be your protector

360
00:24:17,332 --> 00:24:18,959
in all matters
within its jurisdiction.

361
00:24:19,126 --> 00:24:20,252
It belongs to you.

362
00:25:18,018 --> 00:25:20,979
<i>White people
are astounded by Birmingham.</i>

363
00:25:21,813 --> 00:25:23,190
<i>Black people aren't.</i>

364
00:25:25,650 --> 00:25:29,029
<i>White people are endlessly
demanding to be reassured</i>

365
00:25:29,196 --> 00:25:31,531
<i>that Birmingham
is really on Mars.</i>

366
00:25:35,410 --> 00:25:39,831
<i>They don't want to believe,
still less to act on the belief,</i>

367
00:25:40,832 --> 00:25:42,709
<i>that what is happening
in Birmingham</i>

368
00:25:43,418 --> 00:25:45,754
<i>is happening
all over the country.</i>

369
00:25:50,258 --> 00:25:52,844
<i>They don't want to realize
that there is not one step,</i>

370
00:25:53,011 --> 00:25:55,305
<i>morally or actually,</i>

371
00:25:55,764 --> 00:25:58,016
<i>between Birmingham
and Los Angeles.</i>

372
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:19,663
Move on, move on!

373
00:26:43,270 --> 00:26:44,896
We've invited three men,

374
00:26:45,105 --> 00:26:47,315
on the forefront
of The Negro Struggle,

375
00:26:48,149 --> 00:26:49,776
to sit down and talk with us

376
00:26:49,943 --> 00:26:51,820
in front
of the television camera.

377
00:26:51,987 --> 00:26:55,532
<i>Each of these men, through
his actions and his words,</i>

378
00:26:56,157 --> 00:26:58,451
<i>but with vastly different
manner and means,</i>

379
00:26:58,952 --> 00:27:02,289
is a spokesman for some segment
of the Negro people today.

380
00:27:03,081 --> 00:27:04,958
Black people in this country
have been the victims

381
00:27:05,125 --> 00:27:08,169
of violence at the hands
of the white man for 400 years.

382
00:27:08,336 --> 00:27:11,423
And following the ignorant
negro preachers,

383
00:27:11,589 --> 00:27:14,384
we have thought that it was
Godlike to turn the other cheek

384
00:27:14,551 --> 00:27:16,052
to the brute
that was brutalizing us.

385
00:27:16,219 --> 00:27:19,472
Malcolm X, one of the most
articulate exponents

386
00:27:19,681 --> 00:27:21,975
of the Black Muslim philosophy,

387
00:27:22,475 --> 00:27:25,603
has said of your movement
and your philosophy

388
00:27:25,770 --> 00:27:29,607
that it plays into the hands
of the white oppressors,

389
00:27:29,774 --> 00:27:34,446
that they are happy
to hear you talk about

390
00:27:34,738 --> 00:27:39,117
love for the oppressor,
because this disarms the Negro

391
00:27:39,284 --> 00:27:43,288
and fits into the stereotype
of the Negro as a meek,

392
00:27:43,955 --> 00:27:46,249
turning the other cheek
sort of creature.

393
00:27:46,416 --> 00:27:50,378
Would you care to comment
on Mr. X's beliefs?

394
00:27:50,587 --> 00:27:54,883
Well, I don't think of love
as...

395
00:27:55,050 --> 00:27:57,844
in this context,
as emotional bosh,

396
00:27:58,678 --> 00:28:01,848
but I think of love
as something strong

397
00:28:02,057 --> 00:28:07,020
and that organizes itself
into powerful direct action.

398
00:28:07,479 --> 00:28:10,899
This is what I've tried to teach
in the struggle in the South.

399
00:28:11,066 --> 00:28:14,694
We are not engaged in a struggle

400
00:28:14,861 --> 00:28:17,113
that means we sit down
and do nothing.

401
00:28:18,239 --> 00:28:20,575
There is a great deal
of difference between

402
00:28:20,742 --> 00:28:24,746
non-resistance to evil
and non-violent resistance.

403
00:28:24,913 --> 00:28:28,124
Martin Luther King is just a
20th century or modern Uncle Tom

404
00:28:28,291 --> 00:28:29,626
or a religious Uncle Tom,

405
00:28:29,793 --> 00:28:31,378
who is doing
the same thing today

406
00:28:31,544 --> 00:28:34,047
to keep Negroes defenseless
in the face of attack

407
00:28:34,214 --> 00:28:35,632
that Uncle Tom did
on the plantation

408
00:28:35,799 --> 00:28:37,342
to keep those Negroes
defenseless

409
00:28:37,509 --> 00:28:40,011
in the face of the attacks
of the Klan in that day.

410
00:28:40,512 --> 00:28:45,934
I think, though,
that we can be sure

411
00:28:46,101 --> 00:28:47,769
that the vast majority
of Negroes

412
00:28:47,936 --> 00:28:50,021
who engage in
the demonstrations,

413
00:28:50,188 --> 00:28:54,567
and who understand
the non-violent philosophy,

414
00:28:55,026 --> 00:28:57,028
will be able to face dogs

415
00:28:57,195 --> 00:29:00,073
and all of the other brutal
methods that are used

416
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:01,908
without retaliating
with violence,

417
00:29:02,075 --> 00:29:03,493
because they understand

418
00:29:03,660 --> 00:29:07,539
that one of the first principles
of non-violence

419
00:29:07,872 --> 00:29:11,084
is a willingness
to be the recipient of violence,

420
00:29:11,251 --> 00:29:14,796
while never inflicting violence
upon another.

421
00:29:18,383 --> 00:29:20,885
<i>As concerns Malcolm and Martin,</i>

422
00:29:21,261 --> 00:29:23,930
<i>I watched two men,
coming from unimaginably</i>

423
00:29:24,097 --> 00:29:27,559
<i>different backgrounds,
whose positions, originally,</i>

424
00:29:27,725 --> 00:29:29,018
<i>were poles apart,</i>

425
00:29:29,185 --> 00:29:31,855
<i>driven closer
and closer together.</i>

426
00:29:34,190 --> 00:29:37,485
<i>By the time each died,
their positions had become,</i>

427
00:29:37,652 --> 00:29:39,946
<i>virtually, the same position.</i>

428
00:29:41,448 --> 00:29:42,991
<i>It can be said, indeed,</i>

429
00:29:43,158 --> 00:29:45,368
<i>that Martin picked up
Malcolm's burden,</i>

430
00:29:45,743 --> 00:29:49,247
<i>articulated the vision
which Malcolm had begun to see,</i>

431
00:29:49,414 --> 00:29:51,374
<i>and for which he paid
with his life,</i>

432
00:29:51,833 --> 00:29:53,918
<i>and that Malcolm
was one of the people</i>

433
00:29:54,127 --> 00:29:55,753
<i>Martin saw on the mountain-top.</i>

434
00:29:57,464 --> 00:29:59,799
<i>Medgar was too young
to have seen this happen,</i>

435
00:29:59,966 --> 00:30:03,136
<i>though he hoped for it, and
would not have been surprised.</i>

436
00:30:04,179 --> 00:30:05,930
<i>But Medgar was murdered first.</i>

437
00:30:08,266 --> 00:30:11,561
<i>I was older than Medgar,
Malcolm and Martin.</i>

438
00:30:12,020 --> 00:30:15,690
<i>I was raised to believe that
the eldest was supposed to be</i>

439
00:30:15,857 --> 00:30:18,985
<i>a model for the younger,
and was, of course,</i>

440
00:30:19,152 --> 00:30:20,737
<i>expected to die first.</i>

441
00:30:22,030 --> 00:30:24,365
<i>Not one of these three
lived to be forty.</i>

442
00:30:26,367 --> 00:30:29,579
<i>Two, four, six eight,
we don't want to integrate!</i>

443
00:30:29,746 --> 00:30:32,707
<i>Two, four, six eight,
we don't want to integrate!</i>

444
00:30:41,966 --> 00:30:45,762
<i>We want King! We want King!
We want King!</i>

445
00:30:59,150 --> 00:31:01,444
We need an organization
that no one downtown loves.

446
00:31:01,986 --> 00:31:04,822
We need one that's ready
and willing to take action,

447
00:31:05,740 --> 00:31:08,993
any kind of action,
by any means necessary.

448
00:31:12,997 --> 00:31:14,165
When Malcolm talks,

449
00:31:14,332 --> 00:31:16,042
or one of the Muslim
ministers talk,

450
00:31:16,209 --> 00:31:20,129
they articulate for all
the Negro people who hear them,

451
00:31:20,713 --> 00:31:25,093
who listen to them,
they articulate their suffering.

452
00:31:26,219 --> 00:31:28,763
The suffering which has been
in this country so long denied.

453
00:31:29,556 --> 00:31:32,600
That's Malcolm's great authority
over any of his audiences.

454
00:31:32,934 --> 00:31:34,602
He corroborates their reality.

455
00:31:35,228 --> 00:31:38,189
He tells them that
they really exist, you know.

456
00:31:42,944 --> 00:31:44,779
Get back. Get back!

457
00:31:46,030 --> 00:31:47,907
<i>I am!</i>

458
00:31:48,157 --> 00:31:49,909
<i>I am!</i>

459
00:32:03,881 --> 00:32:06,259
There are days,
this is one of them...

460
00:32:09,053 --> 00:32:10,430
...when you wonder...

461
00:32:12,807 --> 00:32:14,225
...what your role is
in this country

462
00:32:14,392 --> 00:32:15,935
and what your future is in it.

463
00:32:17,061 --> 00:32:18,980
How precisely
are you going to reconcile...

464
00:32:21,733 --> 00:32:24,652
...yourself
to your situation here,

465
00:32:25,153 --> 00:32:28,615
and how you are going
to communicate...

466
00:32:30,575 --> 00:32:34,495
...to the vast,
heedless, unthinking...

467
00:32:36,331 --> 00:32:38,666
...cruel white majority

468
00:32:39,334 --> 00:32:40,543
that you are here.

469
00:32:41,961 --> 00:32:44,922
I'm terrified
at the moral apathy,

470
00:32:45,089 --> 00:32:46,633
the death of the heart,

471
00:32:47,467 --> 00:32:49,218
which is happening
in my country.

472
00:32:49,886 --> 00:32:54,432
These people have deluded
themselves for so long

473
00:32:54,891 --> 00:32:56,809
that they really don't think
I'm human.

474
00:32:57,810 --> 00:33:00,605
I base this on their conduct,
not on what they say.

475
00:33:01,230 --> 00:33:03,941
And this means that they
have become, in themselves...

476
00:33:05,652 --> 00:33:07,403
...moral monsters.

477
00:33:43,064 --> 00:33:45,566
Most of the white Americans
I've ever encountered,

478
00:33:45,733 --> 00:33:48,277
really, you know, had
a Negro friend or a Negro maid

479
00:33:48,444 --> 00:33:51,364
or somebody in high school,
but they never, you know,

480
00:33:51,531 --> 00:33:54,075
or rarely, after school was over
or whatever,

481
00:33:54,242 --> 00:33:55,827
came to my kitchen, you know.

482
00:33:55,993 --> 00:33:59,622
We were segregated
from the schoolhouse door.

483
00:33:59,789 --> 00:34:02,291
Therefore, he doesn't know,
he really does not know,

484
00:34:02,458 --> 00:34:04,085
what it was like for me
to leave my house,

485
00:34:04,252 --> 00:34:05,795
to leave the school
and go back to Harlem.

486
00:34:05,962 --> 00:34:07,422
He doesn't know
how Negroes live.

487
00:34:07,588 --> 00:34:10,216
And it comes as a great surprise
to the Kennedy brothers

488
00:34:10,383 --> 00:34:11,843
and to everybody else
in the country.

489
00:34:12,552 --> 00:34:14,679
I'm certain, again, you know,

490
00:34:14,846 --> 00:34:17,932
that again like most white
Americans I have encountered,

491
00:34:18,099 --> 00:34:19,350
they have no...

492
00:34:19,976 --> 00:34:21,728
I'm sure they have nothing
whatever against Negroes...

493
00:34:21,894 --> 00:34:23,521
That's really not the question.

494
00:34:23,730 --> 00:34:26,190
The question is really
a kind of apathy and ignorance,

495
00:34:26,524 --> 00:34:28,276
which is the price we pay
for segregation.

496
00:34:28,443 --> 00:34:29,610
That's what segregation means.

497
00:34:29,736 --> 00:34:31,571
You don't know what's happening
on the other side of the wall,

498
00:34:31,738 --> 00:34:32,864
because you don't want to know.

499
00:34:33,030 --> 00:34:34,699
<i>I was in some way,</i>

500
00:34:34,866 --> 00:34:37,952
<i>in those years,
without entirely realizing it,</i>

501
00:34:38,327 --> 00:34:41,414
<i>the great Black Hope
of the great White Father.</i>

502
00:34:42,373 --> 00:34:46,377
<i>I was not a racist,
or so I thought.</i>

503
00:34:47,170 --> 00:34:51,674
<i>Malcolm was a racist,
or so they thought.</i>

504
00:34:52,675 --> 00:34:57,096
<i>In fact, we were simply
trapped in the same situation.</i>

505
00:34:58,639 --> 00:35:00,433
Well, you tell that
to my boy tonight,

506
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,352
when you put him to sleep
on the living room couch.

507
00:35:03,770 --> 00:35:05,188
And you tell it to him
in the morning,

508
00:35:05,354 --> 00:35:06,481
when his mother goes out of here

509
00:35:06,647 --> 00:35:07,982
to take care
of somebody else's kids.

510
00:35:08,149 --> 00:35:10,735
And tell it to me, when we want
some curtains or some drapes

511
00:35:10,902 --> 00:35:13,321
and you sneak out of here and
go work in somebody's kitchen.

512
00:35:13,488 --> 00:35:15,323
All I want is to make
a future for this family.

513
00:35:15,490 --> 00:35:18,242
All I want is to be able to
stand in front of my boy

514
00:35:18,451 --> 00:35:20,870
like my father
never was able to do to me.

515
00:35:28,461 --> 00:35:31,380
<i>Lorraine Hansberry
would not be very much younger</i>

516
00:35:31,547 --> 00:35:33,716
<i>than I am now,
if she were alive.</i>

517
00:35:34,967 --> 00:35:37,386
<i>At the time of the
Bobby Kennedy meeting,</i>

518
00:35:37,553 --> 00:35:39,430
<i>she was thirty-three.</i>

519
00:35:41,349 --> 00:35:45,603
<i>That was one of the very last
times I saw her on her feet,</i>

520
00:35:46,354 --> 00:35:48,940
<i>and she died at the age
of thirty-four.</i>

521
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:52,985
<i>I miss her so much.</i>

522
00:35:55,655 --> 00:35:58,407
<i>People forget how young
everybody was.</i>

523
00:35:59,367 --> 00:36:02,620
<i>Bobby Kennedy, for another,
quite different example,</i>

524
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:04,413
<i>was thirty-eight.</i>

525
00:36:05,832 --> 00:36:07,959
<i>We wanted him
to tell his brother,</i>

526
00:36:08,125 --> 00:36:10,586
<i>the president,
to personally escort to school,</i>

527
00:36:10,753 --> 00:36:14,298
<i>on that day or the day after,
a small black girl,</i>

528
00:36:14,674 --> 00:36:17,426
<i>already scheduled
to enter Deep South School.</i>

529
00:36:17,927 --> 00:36:19,637
<i>"That way," we said,</i>

530
00:36:20,263 --> 00:36:24,058
<i>"it will be clear that
whoever spits on that child</i>

531
00:36:24,517 --> 00:36:25,768
<i>will be spitting on the nation."</i>

532
00:36:27,645 --> 00:36:29,313
<i>He didn't understand this
either.</i>

533
00:36:29,981 --> 00:36:34,402
<i>"It would be," he said,
"a meaningless moral gesture."</i>

534
00:36:36,237 --> 00:36:40,908
<i>"We would like," said Lorraine,
"from you, a moral commitment".</i>

535
00:36:42,118 --> 00:36:43,452
<i>He looked insulted,</i>

536
00:36:44,036 --> 00:36:47,164
<i>seemed to feel that
he'd been wasting his time.</i>

537
00:36:49,250 --> 00:36:52,920
<i>Well, Lorraine sat still,
watching all the while.</i>

538
00:36:56,799 --> 00:36:58,259
<i>She looked at Bobby Kennedy,</i>

539
00:36:58,467 --> 00:37:01,345
<i>who, perhaps for the first time,
looked at her.</i>

540
00:37:03,472 --> 00:37:05,308
<i>"But I am very worried,"
she said,</i>

541
00:37:05,892 --> 00:37:08,477
<i>"about the state
of the civilization</i>

542
00:37:08,644 --> 00:37:11,397
<i>which produced that photograph
of the white cop</i>

543
00:37:11,564 --> 00:37:14,901
<i>standing on that Negro woman's
neck in Birmingham."</i>

544
00:37:18,070 --> 00:37:19,322
<i>Then she smiled.</i>

545
00:37:20,323 --> 00:37:24,160
<i>And I am glad
that she was not smiling at me.</i>

546
00:37:26,370 --> 00:37:28,789
<i>"Goodbye Mr. Attorney General,"
she said,</i>

547
00:37:29,624 --> 00:37:32,335
<i>and turned
and walked out of the room.</i>

548
00:37:35,671 --> 00:37:38,633
<i>And then, we heard the thunder.</i>

549
00:37:53,522 --> 00:37:56,525
<i>...He stopped at his house
on the way to the airport</i>

550
00:37:56,692 --> 00:38:00,821
<i>so I could autograph my books
for him, his wife and children.</i>

551
00:38:02,073 --> 00:38:05,201
<i>I remember Myrlie Evers
standing outside, smiling,</i>

552
00:38:05,409 --> 00:38:06,577
<i>and we waved,</i>

553
00:38:07,161 --> 00:38:10,289
<i>and Medgar drove to the airport
and put me on the plane.</i>

554
00:38:13,334 --> 00:38:15,962
<i>Months later,
I was in Puerto Rico,</i>

555
00:38:16,337 --> 00:38:17,588
<i>working on my play.</i>

556
00:38:18,923 --> 00:38:21,634
<i>Lucien and I
had spent a day or so</i>

557
00:38:21,801 --> 00:38:23,469
<i>wandering around the island,</i>

558
00:38:24,220 --> 00:38:26,222
<i>and now we were driving home.</i>

559
00:38:32,812 --> 00:38:35,314
<i>It was a wonderful,
bright, sunny day,</i>

560
00:38:35,815 --> 00:38:39,443
<i>the top to the car was down,
we were laughing and talking,</i>

561
00:38:39,610 --> 00:38:41,153
<i>and the radio was playing.</i>

562
00:38:44,490 --> 00:38:45,908
<i>Then the music stopped...</i>

563
00:38:47,743 --> 00:38:49,996
<i>...and a voice announced
that Medgar Evers</i>

564
00:38:50,496 --> 00:38:53,457
<i>had been shot to death
in the carport of his home,</i>

565
00:38:53,874 --> 00:38:57,628
<i>and his wife and children
had seen the big man fall.</i>

566
00:38:57,795 --> 00:39:01,590
<i>♪ Medgar Evers was buried
from the bullet he caught ♪</i>

567
00:39:03,509 --> 00:39:07,304
<i>♪ They lowered him down
as a king ♪</i>

568
00:39:10,224 --> 00:39:13,310
<i>♪ But when the shadowy sun ♪</i>

569
00:39:13,477 --> 00:39:15,354
<i>♪ Sets on the one ♪</i>

570
00:39:15,521 --> 00:39:17,732
<i>♪ That fired the gun ♪</i>

571
00:39:18,232 --> 00:39:21,193
<i>♪ He'll see by his grave ♪</i>

572
00:39:21,986 --> 00:39:24,572
<i>♪ On the stone that remains ♪</i>

573
00:39:24,947 --> 00:39:27,408
<i>♪ Carved next to his name ♪</i>

574
00:39:28,075 --> 00:39:30,453
<i>♪</i>

575
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:36,542
<i>♪ Only a pawn in their game ♪</i>

576
00:39:38,836 --> 00:39:41,630
<i>The blue sky seemed
to descend like a blanket.</i>

577
00:39:42,048 --> 00:39:45,217
<i>And I couldn't say anything,
I couldn't cry.</i>

578
00:39:46,510 --> 00:39:48,429
<i>I just remembered his face,</i>

579
00:39:48,888 --> 00:39:52,058
<i>a bright, blunt, handsome face,</i>

580
00:39:52,641 --> 00:39:56,479
<i>and his weariness,
which he wore like his skin,</i>

581
00:39:56,937 --> 00:40:00,691
<i>and the way he said "ro-aad"
for road.</i>

582
00:40:03,778 --> 00:40:06,113
<i>And his telling me
how the tatters of clothes</i>

583
00:40:06,322 --> 00:40:10,951
<i>from a lynched body hung,
flapping in the tree for days,</i>

584
00:40:11,994 --> 00:40:15,748
<i>and how he had to pass that tree
every day.</i>

585
00:40:19,168 --> 00:40:20,294
<i>Medgar.</i>

586
00:40:21,378 --> 00:40:22,671
<i>Gone.</i>

587
00:40:23,339 --> 00:40:25,174
<i>♪ Baby, please don't go ♪</i>

588
00:40:26,175 --> 00:40:28,052
<i>♪ Baby, please don't go ♪</i>

589
00:40:28,928 --> 00:40:31,931
<i>♪ Baby, please don't go
Back to New Orleans ♪</i>

590
00:40:32,139 --> 00:40:35,101
<i>♪ You know I love you so
Baby, please don't go ♪</i>

591
00:40:47,988 --> 00:40:51,242
<i>In America,
I was free only in battle,</i>

592
00:40:51,826 --> 00:40:53,327
<i>never free to rest,</i>

593
00:40:54,411 --> 00:40:56,789
<i>and he who finds no way to rest</i>

594
00:40:57,039 --> 00:40:59,083
<i>cannot long survive the battle.</i>

595
00:41:12,012 --> 00:41:14,140
<i>And the young,
white revolutionary remains,</i>

596
00:41:14,306 --> 00:41:18,144
<i>in general, far more romantic
than a black one.</i>

597
00:41:21,605 --> 00:41:24,525
<i>White people have managed
to get through entire lifetimes</i>

598
00:41:24,692 --> 00:41:26,193
<i>in this euphoric state,</i>

599
00:41:27,069 --> 00:41:29,280
<i>but black people
have not been so lucky.</i>

600
00:41:30,406 --> 00:41:33,117
<i>A black man who sees the world
the way John Wayne,</i>

601
00:41:33,284 --> 00:41:34,743
<i>for example, sees it...</i>

602
00:41:35,369 --> 00:41:37,288
<i>would not be
an eccentric patriot,</i>

603
00:41:37,788 --> 00:41:39,582
<i>but a raving maniac.</i>

604
00:41:42,501 --> 00:41:46,005
<i>The truth is that this country
does not know what to do</i>

605
00:41:46,172 --> 00:41:47,673
<i>with its black population,</i>

606
00:41:48,424 --> 00:41:52,094
<i>dreaming of anything like
"The Final Solution".</i>

607
00:41:58,809 --> 00:42:00,311
<i>The Negro has never been</i>

608
00:42:01,061 --> 00:42:03,814
<i>as docile as white Americans
wanted to believe.</i>

609
00:42:05,149 --> 00:42:06,275
That was a myth.

610
00:42:06,859 --> 00:42:09,069
We were not singing
and dancing down the levee.

611
00:42:10,196 --> 00:42:11,280
We were trying to keep alive,

612
00:42:11,447 --> 00:42:13,490
we were trying to survive
a very brutal system.

613
00:42:14,450 --> 00:42:16,452
The nigger has never
been happy in his place.

614
00:42:22,291 --> 00:42:23,834
<i>One of the most
terrible things,</i>

615
00:42:24,001 --> 00:42:25,711
<i>is that,
whether I like it or not,</i>

616
00:42:25,878 --> 00:42:27,296
<i>I am an American.</i>

617
00:42:27,463 --> 00:42:31,175
<i>My school really was
the streets of New York City.</i>

618
00:42:31,342 --> 00:42:33,636
<i>My frame of reference was...</i>

619
00:42:34,053 --> 00:42:36,388
<i>George Washington
and John Wayne.</i>

620
00:42:36,555 --> 00:42:39,225
But I was a child, you know,
and when a child puts his eyes

621
00:42:39,391 --> 00:42:41,018
on the world,
he has to use what he sees.

622
00:42:41,185 --> 00:42:42,436
There's nothing else to use.

623
00:42:42,603 --> 00:42:44,605
And you are formed
by what you see,

624
00:42:44,772 --> 00:42:46,899
the choices you have to make,
and the way you discover

625
00:42:47,066 --> 00:42:48,651
what it means
to be black in New York

626
00:42:48,817 --> 00:42:50,945
<i>and then throughout
the entire country.</i>

627
00:42:54,740 --> 00:42:56,992
<i>I know how you watch,
as you grow older,</i>

628
00:42:57,243 --> 00:42:58,911
<i>and it's not a figure of speech,</i>

629
00:42:59,078 --> 00:43:00,829
<i>the corpses of your brothers
and your sisters</i>

630
00:43:01,038 --> 00:43:02,331
<i>pile up around you.</i>

631
00:43:02,873 --> 00:43:05,084
<i>And not for anything
they have done.</i>

632
00:43:06,126 --> 00:43:08,045
<i>They were too young
to have done anything.</i>

633
00:43:09,713 --> 00:43:15,469
<i>But what one does realize
is that when you try to stand up</i>

634
00:43:16,220 --> 00:43:19,848
<i>and look the world in the face
like you had a right to be here,</i>

635
00:43:21,725 --> 00:43:24,520
<i>you have attacked
the entire power structure</i>

636
00:43:24,770 --> 00:43:25,980
<i>of the western world.</i>

637
00:43:30,401 --> 00:43:32,152
Forget "The Negro Problem".

638
00:43:33,153 --> 00:43:34,822
Don't write any voting acts.

639
00:43:35,364 --> 00:43:37,324
We had that. It's called
The Fifteenth Amendment.

640
00:43:38,075 --> 00:43:40,452
During the Civil Rights Bill
of 1964,

641
00:43:41,453 --> 00:43:43,747
what you have to look at is what
is happening in this country,

642
00:43:43,914 --> 00:43:45,624
and what is really happening
is that brother

643
00:43:45,791 --> 00:43:48,460
has murdered brother,
knowing it was his brother.

644
00:43:49,628 --> 00:43:52,840
White men have lynched Negroes,
knowing them to be their sons.

645
00:43:54,174 --> 00:43:55,634
White women
have had Negroes burned,

646
00:43:55,801 --> 00:43:57,428
knowing them to be their lovers.

647
00:43:58,679 --> 00:44:00,723
It is not a racial problem.

648
00:44:01,598 --> 00:44:03,309
It's a problem of whether or not
you're willing

649
00:44:03,475 --> 00:44:06,312
to look at your life
and be responsible for it,

650
00:44:06,478 --> 00:44:08,022
and then begin to change it.

651
00:44:09,898 --> 00:44:12,443
That great western house
I come from is one house,

652
00:44:12,609 --> 00:44:14,528
and I am one of the children
of that house.

653
00:44:15,279 --> 00:44:18,115
Simply, I am the most
despised child of that house.

654
00:44:18,782 --> 00:44:21,160
And it is because
the American people are unable

655
00:44:21,785 --> 00:44:25,205
to face the fact that
I am flesh of their flesh,

656
00:44:26,123 --> 00:44:30,002
bone of their bone,
created by them.

657
00:44:30,419 --> 00:44:33,505
My blood, my father's blood,
is in that soil.

658
00:44:44,641 --> 00:44:45,976
Good afternoon, Ma'am.

659
00:44:46,310 --> 00:44:47,770
It's raining so hard,

660
00:44:47,936 --> 00:44:50,564
I brought rubbers and coat
to fetch my little girl home.

661
00:44:50,731 --> 00:44:52,524
I'm afraid
you've made some mistake.

662
00:44:52,733 --> 00:44:53,942
Ain't this the 3B?

663
00:44:54,109 --> 00:44:56,320
- Yes.
- Well, this is it.

664
00:44:56,487 --> 00:44:57,863
It can't be it.

665
00:44:58,030 --> 00:45:00,449
I have no little
colored children in my class.

666
00:45:01,033 --> 00:45:02,993
Oh, thank you.

667
00:45:07,081 --> 00:45:08,624
There's my little girl.

668
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:12,169
Peola, you may you home.

669
00:45:22,888 --> 00:45:25,057
Gee, I didn't know
she was colored.

670
00:45:25,224 --> 00:45:26,517
Neither did I.

671
00:45:27,101 --> 00:45:29,686
I hate you,
I hate you, I hate you!

672
00:45:29,895 --> 00:45:31,605
Peola! Peola!

673
00:45:43,158 --> 00:45:46,662
<i>I know very well
that my ancestors</i>

674
00:45:46,870 --> 00:45:49,289
<i>had no desire
to come to this place.</i>

675
00:45:51,792 --> 00:45:55,671
<i>But neither did the ancestors
of the people who became white,</i>

676
00:45:56,338 --> 00:45:59,508
<i>and who require of my captivity
a song.</i>

677
00:46:02,177 --> 00:46:04,096
<i>They require a song of me,</i>

678
00:46:05,305 --> 00:46:09,643
<i>less to celebrate my captivity
than to justify their own.</i>

679
00:46:26,660 --> 00:46:29,204
<i>I have always
been struck, in America,</i>

680
00:46:29,371 --> 00:46:31,915
<i>by an emotional poverty
so bottomless,</i>

681
00:46:32,082 --> 00:46:36,336
<i>and a terror of human life,
of human touch,</i>

682
00:46:37,129 --> 00:46:41,049
<i>so deep that virtually no
American appears able to achieve</i>

683
00:46:41,216 --> 00:46:43,260
<i>any viable, organic connection</i>

684
00:46:43,886 --> 00:46:47,431
<i>between his public stance
and his private life.</i>

685
00:46:52,811 --> 00:46:56,899
<i>This failure of the private life
has always had the most</i>

686
00:46:57,065 --> 00:47:00,903
<i>devastating effect
on American public conduct,</i>

687
00:47:01,528 --> 00:47:03,489
<i>and on black-white relations.</i>

688
00:47:05,908 --> 00:47:08,952
<i>If Americans
were not so terrified</i>

689
00:47:09,119 --> 00:47:10,579
<i>of their private selves,</i>

690
00:47:11,371 --> 00:47:13,457
<i>they would never have become
so dependent</i>

691
00:47:13,624 --> 00:47:16,126
<i>on what they call
"The Negro Problem".</i>

692
00:47:16,502 --> 00:47:18,962
They said it wasn't nice
to say "nigger".

693
00:47:22,257 --> 00:47:23,175
Nigger!

694
00:47:23,342 --> 00:47:25,177
Nigger! Nigger!

695
00:47:25,886 --> 00:47:29,431
Poor little nigger kids,
love the little nigger kids.

696
00:47:29,598 --> 00:47:30,933
Who loved me?

697
00:47:31,308 --> 00:47:32,643
Who loved me?

698
00:47:33,185 --> 00:47:36,104
<i>This problem,
which they invented</i>

699
00:47:36,313 --> 00:47:38,607
<i>in order to safeguard
their purity,</i>

700
00:47:39,399 --> 00:47:43,362
<i>has made of them
criminals and monsters,</i>

701
00:47:43,946 --> 00:47:45,572
<i>and it is destroying them.</i>

702
00:47:48,033 --> 00:47:53,413
<i>And this, not from anything
Blacks may or may not be doing,</i>

703
00:47:54,122 --> 00:47:55,582
<i>but because of the role</i>

704
00:47:55,749 --> 00:47:58,794
<i>of a guilty and constricted
white imagination</i>

705
00:47:59,169 --> 00:48:00,879
<i>has assigned to the Blacks.</i>

706
00:48:12,599 --> 00:48:14,351
Look man,
don't give me that look.

707
00:48:15,435 --> 00:48:17,271
You should have got
what was coming to you

708
00:48:17,604 --> 00:48:19,606
after spitting
in that guy's face.

709
00:48:21,900 --> 00:48:23,026
Why you...

710
00:48:24,653 --> 00:48:27,823
<i>It is impossible to
accept the premise of the story,</i>

711
00:48:28,448 --> 00:48:32,202
<i>a premise based on the profound
American misunderstanding</i>

712
00:48:32,369 --> 00:48:35,414
<i>of the nature of the hatred
between black and white.</i>

713
00:48:35,956 --> 00:48:37,708
That time is now.

714
00:48:39,918 --> 00:48:42,462
<i>The root of the black man's
hatred is rage,</i>

715
00:48:43,338 --> 00:48:45,382
<i>and he does not so much
hate white men</i>

716
00:48:45,549 --> 00:48:48,051
<i>as simply wants them
out of his way,</i>

717
00:48:49,011 --> 00:48:50,429
<i>and more than that,</i>

718
00:48:51,013 --> 00:48:52,472
<i>out of his children's way.</i>

719
00:48:55,267 --> 00:48:57,936
<i>The root of the white man's
hatred is terror.</i>

720
00:48:58,103 --> 00:48:59,271
I'm gonna kill you.

721
00:48:59,438 --> 00:49:01,481
<i>A bottomless
and nameless terror,</i>

722
00:49:02,065 --> 00:49:04,401
<i>which focuses
on this dread figure,</i>

723
00:49:04,651 --> 00:49:07,904
<i>an entity which lives
only in his mind.</i>

724
00:49:15,537 --> 00:49:16,663
Run!

725
00:49:16,830 --> 00:49:17,956
Come on!

726
00:49:18,123 --> 00:49:21,084
I can't make it,
I can't make it!

727
00:49:27,341 --> 00:49:29,217
<i>When Sidney
jumps off the train,</i>

728
00:49:29,468 --> 00:49:31,136
<i>the white liberal people
downtown</i>

729
00:49:31,303 --> 00:49:33,055
<i>were much relieved and joyful.</i>

730
00:49:34,014 --> 00:49:36,725
<i>But when black people
saw him jump off the train,</i>

731
00:49:37,225 --> 00:49:41,271
<i>they yelled, "Get back
on the train, you fool!"</i>

732
00:49:44,691 --> 00:49:46,485
<i>The black man
jumps off the train</i>

733
00:49:46,693 --> 00:49:48,654
<i>in order to reassure
white people,</i>

734
00:49:49,613 --> 00:49:51,907
<i>to make them know
that they are not hated,</i>

735
00:49:52,908 --> 00:49:54,993
<i>that though they have made
human errors,</i>

736
00:49:55,911 --> 00:49:58,538
<i>they done nothing
for which to be hated.</i>

737
00:50:03,001 --> 00:50:06,380
<i>♪ I'm Chiquita Banana
And I'm here to say ♪</i>

738
00:50:06,546 --> 00:50:07,839
<i>♪ I am the top banana... ♪</i>

739
00:50:08,006 --> 00:50:10,133
<i>In spite of
the fabulous myths</i>

740
00:50:10,300 --> 00:50:11,802
<i>proliferating in this country</i>

741
00:50:11,968 --> 00:50:14,429
<i>concerning the sexuality
of black people,</i>

742
00:50:15,055 --> 00:50:18,558
<i>black men are still used,
in the popular culture,</i>

743
00:50:18,892 --> 00:50:21,937
<i>as though they had
no sexual equipment at all.</i>

744
00:50:24,231 --> 00:50:27,776
<i>Sidney Poitier,
as a black artist, and a man,</i>

745
00:50:28,276 --> 00:50:30,737
<i>is also up against
the infantile,</i>

746
00:50:30,904 --> 00:50:32,989
<i>furtive sexuality
of this country.</i>

747
00:50:34,074 --> 00:50:37,285
<i>Both he and Harry Belafonte,
for example,</i>

748
00:50:37,452 --> 00:50:40,914
<i>are sex symbols,
though no one dares admit that,</i>

749
00:50:41,581 --> 00:50:45,961
<i>still less to use them as any of
the Hollywood he-men are used.</i>

750
00:50:50,048 --> 00:50:53,093
<i>Black people have been robbed
of everything in this country...</i>

751
00:50:53,260 --> 00:50:54,678
I've got something
to say to you, boy.

752
00:50:54,845 --> 00:50:58,014
<i>...and they don't want to be
robbed of their artist.</i>

753
00:50:59,015 --> 00:51:00,851
<i>Black people
particularly disliked</i>

754
00:51:01,017 --> 00:51:02,561
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,

755
00:51:02,728 --> 00:51:05,647
<i>because they felt that
Sidney was, in effect,</i>

756
00:51:05,814 --> 00:51:07,441
<i>being used against them.</i>

757
00:51:08,483 --> 00:51:10,360
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
<i>may prove,</i>

758
00:51:10,527 --> 00:51:12,946
<i>in some bizarre way,
to be a milestone,</i>

759
00:51:13,488 --> 00:51:17,242
<i>because it is really quite
impossible to go any further</i>

760
00:51:17,409 --> 00:51:19,035
<i>in that particular direction.</i>

761
00:51:19,494 --> 00:51:23,874
<i>♪ If you ever plan
to motor West... ♪</i>

762
00:51:24,958 --> 00:51:28,336
<i>The next time,
the kissing will have to start.</i>

763
00:51:35,343 --> 00:51:37,679
Well, you've got your ticket?

764
00:51:38,555 --> 00:51:39,806
Here you are.

765
00:51:42,058 --> 00:51:43,268
Thank you.

766
00:51:44,394 --> 00:51:47,105
<i>I am aware
that men do not kiss each other</i>

767
00:51:47,272 --> 00:51:51,735
<i>in American films, nor,
for the most part, in America</i>

768
00:51:52,611 --> 00:51:56,281
<i>nor do the black detective
and the white Sheriff kiss here.</i>

769
00:51:59,534 --> 00:52:01,995
You take care, you hear?

770
00:52:07,459 --> 00:52:08,585
Yeah.

771
00:52:09,795 --> 00:52:11,880
<i>But the obligatory,
fade-out-kiss,</i>

772
00:52:12,339 --> 00:52:15,550
<i>in the classic American film,
did not speak of love,</i>

773
00:52:16,176 --> 00:52:18,094
<i>and still less of sex.</i>

774
00:52:19,137 --> 00:52:21,181
<i>It spoke of reconciliation,</i>

775
00:52:22,641 --> 00:52:25,185
<i>of all things
now becoming possible.</i>

776
00:52:47,958 --> 00:52:50,710
<i>I knew a blond girl
in the village</i>

777
00:52:51,169 --> 00:52:54,381
<i>a long time ago,
and eventually,</i>

778
00:52:54,548 --> 00:52:56,758
<i>we never walked
out of the house together.</i>

779
00:53:00,345 --> 00:53:03,098
<i>She was far safer
walking the streets alone</i>

780
00:53:03,598 --> 00:53:05,225
<i>than when walking with me.</i>

781
00:53:06,434 --> 00:53:09,062
<i>A brutal and humiliating fact</i>

782
00:53:09,646 --> 00:53:12,232
<i>which thoroughly destroyed
whatever relationship</i>

783
00:53:12,399 --> 00:53:15,443
<i>this girl and I
might have been able to achieve.</i>

784
00:53:18,405 --> 00:53:20,657
<i>This happens
all the time in America,</i>

785
00:53:21,950 --> 00:53:23,827
<i>but Americans
have yet to realize</i>

786
00:53:23,994 --> 00:53:26,204
<i>what a sinister fact this is,</i>

787
00:53:26,371 --> 00:53:27,831
<i>and what it says about them.</i>

788
00:53:31,042 --> 00:53:33,628
<i>When we walked out
in the evening, then,</i>

789
00:53:34,838 --> 00:53:37,424
<i>she would leave
ahead of me, alone.</i>

790
00:53:38,550 --> 00:53:42,971
<i>I would give about five minutes,
and then I would walk out alone,</i>

791
00:53:44,514 --> 00:53:47,893
<i>taking another route, and
meet her on the subway platform.</i>

792
00:53:50,145 --> 00:53:52,022
<i>We would not
acknowledge each other.</i>

793
00:53:52,689 --> 00:53:54,774
<i>We would get into
the subway car,</i>

794
00:53:54,941 --> 00:53:58,820
<i>sitting at opposite ends of it,
and walk, separately,</i>

795
00:53:58,987 --> 00:54:01,406
<i>through the streets
of the free and the brave,</i>

796
00:54:02,032 --> 00:54:05,744
<i>to wherever we were going...
a friend's house, or the movies.</i>

797
00:54:16,796 --> 00:54:18,048
<i>All over the country,</i>

798
00:54:18,214 --> 00:54:21,176
<i>families such this
are enjoying new prosperity.</i>

799
00:54:21,593 --> 00:54:24,554
<i>They have new interests,
news standards of living,</i>

800
00:54:24,721 --> 00:54:27,724
<i>a buying power
they've never enjoyed before.</i>

801
00:54:27,891 --> 00:54:28,975
<i>There are good prospects</i>

802
00:54:29,142 --> 00:54:31,770
<i>for practically all types
of goods and services.</i>

803
00:54:32,228 --> 00:54:35,273
<i>All too often though,
they are overlooked prospects.</i>

804
00:54:35,649 --> 00:54:38,610
<i>Since 1940,
in San Francisco alone,</i>

805
00:54:38,777 --> 00:54:42,364
<i>the Negro market
has increased by 89%.</i>

806
00:54:43,406 --> 00:54:46,618
<i>Here are millions of customers
for what you have to sell.</i>

807
00:54:47,285 --> 00:54:52,290
<i>Customers with
15 billion dollars to spend</i>

808
00:54:52,874 --> 00:54:55,210
<i>Someone once said to me</i>

809
00:54:55,377 --> 00:54:59,005
<i>that the people in general
cannot bear very much reality.</i>

810
00:54:59,923 --> 00:55:02,926
<i>He meant by this
that they prefer fantasy</i>

811
00:55:03,093 --> 00:55:06,429
<i>to a truthful recreation
of their experience.</i>

812
00:55:07,847 --> 00:55:10,517
<i>People have quite enough
reality to bear,</i>

813
00:55:11,017 --> 00:55:12,978
<i>by simply getting
through their lives,</i>

814
00:55:13,353 --> 00:55:14,688
<i>raising their children,</i>

815
00:55:15,063 --> 00:55:17,065
<i>dealing with the eternal
conundrums</i>

816
00:55:17,232 --> 00:55:20,276
<i>of birth, taxes, and death.</i>

817
00:55:21,111 --> 00:55:25,156
Negroes are continuously making
progress here in this country.

818
00:55:25,323 --> 00:55:27,534
The progress in many areas
is not as fast as it should be,

819
00:55:27,701 --> 00:55:28,827
but they are making progress,

820
00:55:28,994 --> 00:55:30,412
and we will continue
to make progress.

821
00:55:30,578 --> 00:55:35,208
There's no reason that they, in
a near and foreseeable future,

822
00:55:35,375 --> 00:55:38,169
that a Negro could also be
president of the United States

823
00:55:39,546 --> 00:55:41,006
I remember, for example,

824
00:55:41,631 --> 00:55:45,093
when the ex-Attorney General,
Mr. Robert Kennedy,

825
00:55:46,845 --> 00:55:50,015
said that it was conceivable

826
00:55:50,932 --> 00:55:54,185
that in 40 years in America,
we might have a Negro president.

827
00:55:55,979 --> 00:55:59,899
And that sounded like
a very emancipated statement,

828
00:56:00,066 --> 00:56:01,526
I suppose, to white people.

829
00:56:02,694 --> 00:56:04,112
They were not in Harlem...

830
00:56:05,447 --> 00:56:07,240
...when this statement
was first heard.

831
00:56:08,783 --> 00:56:11,036
And did not hear,
and possibly will never hear,

832
00:56:11,661 --> 00:56:13,329
the laughter and the bitterness
and the scorn

833
00:56:13,496 --> 00:56:15,040
with which this statement
was greeted.

834
00:56:15,290 --> 00:56:17,459
From the point of view of the
man in the Harlem barbershop,

835
00:56:17,625 --> 00:56:19,878
Bobby Kennedy
only got here yesterday.

836
00:56:21,963 --> 00:56:24,883
And now he's already
on his way to the Presidency.

837
00:56:25,550 --> 00:56:28,720
We've been here for 400 years
and now he tells us

838
00:56:28,887 --> 00:56:32,474
that maybe in 40 years,
if you're good,

839
00:56:33,391 --> 00:56:35,435
we may let you become president.

840
00:56:37,187 --> 00:56:41,941
<i>♪ It was a dream,
Just a dream I had on my mind ♪</i>

841
00:56:46,488 --> 00:56:51,993
<i>♪ It was a dream,
Just a dream I had on my mind ♪</i>

842
00:56:56,122 --> 00:56:58,291
<i>♪ And when I woke up, baby ♪</i>

843
00:56:58,583 --> 00:57:01,377
<i>♪ Not a thing could I find ♪</i>

844
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:09,928
<i>♪ I dreamed I was an angel
And had a good time ♪</i>

845
00:57:10,595 --> 00:57:14,516
<i>♪ I dreamed I was satisfying
And nothin' to worry my mind ♪</i>

846
00:57:14,682 --> 00:57:16,559
<i>♪ But it was a dream ♪</i>

847
00:57:17,936 --> 00:57:20,855
<i>♪ Just a dream
I had on my mind ♪</i>

848
00:57:31,699 --> 00:57:33,284
<i>Let me put it this way,</i>

849
00:57:34,327 --> 00:57:36,663
<i>that from a very literal
point of view,</i>

850
00:57:38,081 --> 00:57:40,083
the harbors and the ports

851
00:57:40,333 --> 00:57:43,753
and the railroads
of the country,

852
00:57:46,506 --> 00:57:47,674
<i>the economy,</i>

853
00:57:48,508 --> 00:57:52,303
<i>especially
in the southern states,</i>

854
00:57:52,554 --> 00:57:56,141
<i>could not conceivably be
what it has become</i>

855
00:57:56,683 --> 00:57:58,518
<i>if they had not had,</i>

856
00:57:58,685 --> 00:58:01,271
<i>and do not still have,
indeed, and for so long,</i>

857
00:58:01,479 --> 00:58:03,064
<i>so many generations,</i>

858
00:58:03,231 --> 00:58:04,315
<i>cheap labor.</i>

859
00:58:49,152 --> 00:58:51,613
<i>It is a terrible thing</i>

860
00:58:51,779 --> 00:58:53,656
for an entire people

861
00:58:53,823 --> 00:58:58,077
to surrender to the notion
that one ninth of its population

862
00:58:58,244 --> 00:58:59,495
is beneath them.

863
00:59:00,163 --> 00:59:02,957
And until that moment,
until the moment comes,

864
00:59:03,875 --> 00:59:06,044
when we, the Americans,

865
00:59:06,252 --> 00:59:10,506
we, the American people,
are able to accept the fact

866
00:59:10,673 --> 00:59:12,258
that I have to accept,
for example,

867
00:59:12,425 --> 00:59:14,594
that my ancestors
are both white and black.

868
00:59:15,678 --> 00:59:19,098
That on that continent we are
trying to forge a new identity

869
00:59:19,265 --> 00:59:20,850
for which we need each other,

870
00:59:21,768 --> 00:59:24,896
and that I am not
a ward of America.

871
00:59:25,271 --> 00:59:27,815
I am not an object
of missionary charity,

872
00:59:28,733 --> 00:59:31,611
I am one of the people
who built the country.

873
00:59:32,946 --> 00:59:34,322
Until this moment,

874
00:59:34,739 --> 00:59:37,367
there is scarcely any hope
for the American Dream,

875
00:59:38,534 --> 00:59:41,579
because people who are denied
participation in it,

876
00:59:43,289 --> 00:59:45,083
by their very presence...

877
00:59:46,417 --> 00:59:47,627
...will wreck it.

878
00:59:48,419 --> 00:59:51,214
And if that happens, it is a
very grave moment for the West.

879
00:59:51,381 --> 00:59:53,675
Thank you.

880
01:00:37,302 --> 01:00:39,012
<i>We're here in the studio today</i>

881
01:00:39,178 --> 01:00:41,931
<i>with seven men who have
two things in common:</i>

882
01:00:42,932 --> 01:00:45,810
they are entertainers
and artists;

883
01:00:45,977 --> 01:00:47,729
and they've all
come to Washington.

884
01:00:47,895 --> 01:00:50,064
They are seven out of some
two hundred thousand

885
01:00:50,231 --> 01:00:52,900
American citizens
who came to the capital

886
01:00:53,109 --> 01:00:55,820
to march for freedom
and for jobs.

887
01:00:56,237 --> 01:01:01,034
Will this tremendous outburst
now lead to a course of action,

888
01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:02,368
Mr. Belafonte?

889
01:01:02,535 --> 01:01:05,997
The now that is being
spoken about is the fact that

890
01:01:06,164 --> 01:01:07,999
in a hundred years, finally,

891
01:01:08,708 --> 01:01:11,461
through whatever the causes
have been in history,

892
01:01:11,627 --> 01:01:14,505
and most of them have been
because of oppression,

893
01:01:14,714 --> 01:01:18,843
the Negro people
have strongly and fully

894
01:01:19,010 --> 01:01:20,553
taken the bit in their teeth,

895
01:01:20,720 --> 01:01:23,097
they're asking absolutely
no quarter from anyone.

896
01:01:23,264 --> 01:01:25,641
But I do say that
the bulk of the interpretation

897
01:01:25,808 --> 01:01:27,393
of whether this thing
is going to end

898
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:29,270
successfully and joyously,

899
01:01:29,437 --> 01:01:31,064
or is going to end disastrously,

900
01:01:31,230 --> 01:01:34,192
lays very heavily
with the white community,

901
01:01:34,359 --> 01:01:36,402
it lays very heavily
with the profiteers,

902
01:01:36,569 --> 01:01:39,280
it lays very heavily
with the vested interests.

903
01:01:39,447 --> 01:01:42,533
It lays very heavily
with a great middle stream

904
01:01:42,825 --> 01:01:44,077
in this country,

905
01:01:44,243 --> 01:01:47,455
of people who have refused
to commit themselves,

906
01:01:47,622 --> 01:01:49,624
or even have
the slightest knowledge

907
01:01:49,791 --> 01:01:51,876
that these things
have been going on.

908
01:02:03,471 --> 01:02:06,974
<i>I am speaking as
a member of a certain democracy</i>

909
01:02:07,141 --> 01:02:09,811
<i>in a very complex country,</i>

910
01:02:10,353 --> 01:02:13,564
<i>which insists on being
very narrow-minded.</i>

911
01:02:15,525 --> 01:02:19,112
<i>Simplicity is taken to be
a great American virtue,</i>

912
01:02:19,404 --> 01:02:21,030
<i>along with sincerity.</i>

913
01:02:22,490 --> 01:02:23,449
I am sorry.

914
01:02:23,616 --> 01:02:24,826
I am deeply sorry.

915
01:02:25,368 --> 01:02:26,411
And I am sorry.

916
01:02:26,577 --> 01:02:27,995
I'm deeply sorry about that.

917
01:02:28,162 --> 01:02:29,747
They are no excuses.

918
01:02:29,914 --> 01:02:31,165
I am solely...

919
01:02:31,332 --> 01:02:32,750
We have made
plenty of mistakes.

920
01:02:32,917 --> 01:02:34,460
For that, I apologize.

921
01:02:34,877 --> 01:02:36,421
I am very sorry.

922
01:02:36,671 --> 01:02:39,590
I'm sorry I did this to you,
but you gotta get used to it.

923
01:02:39,757 --> 01:02:41,551
It's one of those
little problems in life.

924
01:02:41,717 --> 01:02:42,718
I take full responsibility.

925
01:02:42,885 --> 01:02:44,679
I'm here today
to again apologize.

926
01:02:44,846 --> 01:02:46,848
I'll just apologize for that
to her.

927
01:02:47,014 --> 01:02:49,725
For any mistakes I've made,
I take full responsibility.

928
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:52,478
It's an honor to serve
the city of Ferguson

929
01:02:52,645 --> 01:02:54,105
and the people who live there.

930
01:02:59,068 --> 01:03:00,653
<i>One of the results of this</i>

931
01:03:01,112 --> 01:03:04,449
<i>is that immaturity
is taken to be a virtue too.</i>

932
01:03:05,366 --> 01:03:08,828
<i>So that someone like that,
let's say John Wayne,</i>

933
01:03:08,995 --> 01:03:10,913
<i>who spent most of his time
on screen</i>

934
01:03:11,080 --> 01:03:12,331
<i>admonishing Indians,</i>

935
01:03:12,915 --> 01:03:16,002
<i>was in no necessity to grow up.</i>

936
01:03:25,761 --> 01:03:29,265
<i>We were free and we decided
to treat ourselves</i>

937
01:03:29,432 --> 01:03:31,517
<i>to a really fancy,
friendly dinner.</i>

938
01:03:36,272 --> 01:03:39,275
<i>The head waiter came and said
there was a phone call for me,</i>

939
01:03:39,984 --> 01:03:42,195
<i>and my sister Gloria
rose to take it.</i>

940
01:03:46,532 --> 01:03:48,993
<i>She was very strange
when she came back.</i>

941
01:03:50,286 --> 01:03:51,662
<i>She didn't say anything,</i>

942
01:03:52,538 --> 01:03:55,249
<i>and I began to be afraid
to ask her anything.</i>

943
01:03:58,211 --> 01:04:02,381
<i>Then, nibbling at something
she obviously wasn't tasting,</i>

944
01:04:02,548 --> 01:04:06,260
<i>she said,
"Well, I've got to tell you</i>

945
01:04:06,427 --> 01:04:08,596
<i>because the press
is on its way over here.</i>

946
01:04:09,805 --> 01:04:11,849
<i>They have just killed Malcolm."</i>

947
01:04:52,181 --> 01:04:54,642
There is nothing in the evidence

948
01:04:54,892 --> 01:04:58,271
offered by the book
of the American republic,

949
01:05:00,815 --> 01:05:04,694
which allows me really to argue
with the cat who says to me,

950
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:08,990
"They needed us
to pick the cotton,

951
01:05:09,824 --> 01:05:11,534
and now they don't need us
anymore.

952
01:05:12,577 --> 01:05:14,870
<i>Now they don't need us,
they're gonna kill us all off,</i>

953
01:05:15,705 --> 01:05:17,373
<i>just like they did the Indians".</i>

954
01:05:19,083 --> 01:05:21,335
<i>And I can't say
it's a Christian nation.</i>

955
01:05:22,003 --> 01:05:23,462
<i>though your brothers
will never do that to you,</i>

956
01:05:23,629 --> 01:05:25,381
<i>because the record is
too long and too bloody.</i>

957
01:05:25,548 --> 01:05:26,757
That's all we have done.

958
01:05:29,051 --> 01:05:35,141
All your buried corpses
now begin to speak.

959
01:05:37,184 --> 01:05:39,604
I say violence is necessary.

960
01:05:40,438 --> 01:05:42,481
Violence is a part
of America's culture.

961
01:05:42,648 --> 01:05:44,734
It is as American as cherry pie.

962
01:05:44,900 --> 01:05:46,402
Black power, Brothers.

963
01:06:11,010 --> 01:06:12,386
If we were white,

964
01:06:13,721 --> 01:06:16,515
if we were Irish,
if we were Jewish,

965
01:06:16,682 --> 01:06:20,227
if we were Poles,
if we had, in fact,

966
01:06:20,394 --> 01:06:22,855
in your mind,
a frame of reference,

967
01:06:23,481 --> 01:06:24,774
our heroes would be
your heroes too.

968
01:06:24,940 --> 01:06:26,859
Nat Turner would be a hero
for you instead of a threat.

969
01:06:27,026 --> 01:06:29,320
Malcolm X might still be alive.

970
01:06:30,780 --> 01:06:33,115
Everyone is very proud
of brave little Israel,

971
01:06:33,491 --> 01:06:36,535
a state against which I have nothing,
I don't want to be misinterpreted,

972
01:06:36,702 --> 01:06:38,120
I'm not an anti-Semite.

973
01:06:38,371 --> 01:06:40,247
But, you know,
when the Israelis pick up guns,

974
01:06:40,414 --> 01:06:42,458
or the Poles, or the Irish,

975
01:06:42,625 --> 01:06:45,503
or any white man
in the world says,

976
01:06:45,670 --> 01:06:47,630
"Give me liberty,
or give me death",

977
01:06:48,506 --> 01:06:50,132
the entire white world applauds.

978
01:06:50,633 --> 01:06:53,469
When a black man says
exactly the same thing,

979
01:06:54,595 --> 01:06:55,971
word for word,

980
01:06:57,098 --> 01:06:59,975
he is judged a criminal
and treated like one

981
01:07:00,142 --> 01:07:01,852
and everything possible is done

982
01:07:02,019 --> 01:07:03,604
to make an example
of this bad nigger,

983
01:07:03,771 --> 01:07:05,731
so there won't be
any more like him.

984
01:07:07,316 --> 01:07:09,485
<i>Look out
across this land we love,</i>

985
01:07:10,111 --> 01:07:14,448
<i>look about you whatever you are,
this unending scenic beauty,</i>

986
01:07:14,865 --> 01:07:16,033
<i>and there's freedom,</i>

987
01:07:16,492 --> 01:07:18,536
<i>it's an inherent American right</i>

988
01:07:18,703 --> 01:07:21,914
<i>meaning many different things
to every single citizen.</i>

989
01:07:22,540 --> 01:07:25,459
<i>It's a leisurely afternoon
of golf along a pleasant course.</i>

990
01:07:26,419 --> 01:07:29,714
<i>It's an amusement park,
a rollercoaster ride.</i>

991
01:07:31,298 --> 01:07:32,967
<i>A day at the county fair.</i>

992
01:07:37,847 --> 01:07:39,223
<i>A day of excitement,</i>

993
01:07:39,557 --> 01:07:43,352
<i>unrestricted travel
across all our 50 states,</i>

994
01:07:43,686 --> 01:07:46,272
<i>unlimited enjoyment
of all these jewels</i>

995
01:07:46,439 --> 01:07:48,023
<i>in the continent's crown.</i>

996
01:07:49,358 --> 01:07:51,819
<i>For all of us,
there's all of America,</i>

997
01:07:51,986 --> 01:07:56,657
<i>in all of its scenic beauty,
all of its heritage of history,</i>

998
01:07:57,283 --> 01:07:59,326
<i>all of its limitless
opportunity...</i>

999
01:08:00,619 --> 01:08:04,832
We've dropped too many bombs
on Vietnam now.

1000
01:08:06,500 --> 01:08:10,087
Let us save our national honor!

1001
01:08:10,588 --> 01:08:12,256
Stop the bombing,

1002
01:08:12,465 --> 01:08:13,924
and stop the war!

1003
01:08:20,598 --> 01:08:23,601
<i>What I am
trying to say to this country,</i>

1004
01:08:23,893 --> 01:08:25,019
<i>to us,</i>

1005
01:08:25,478 --> 01:08:27,646
<i>is that we must know this.</i>

1006
01:08:28,773 --> 01:08:30,775
<i>We must realize this,</i>

1007
01:08:32,151 --> 01:08:34,487
<i>that no other country
in the world</i>

1008
01:08:34,653 --> 01:08:38,532
<i>have been so fat
and so sleek, and so safe,</i>

1009
01:08:38,699 --> 01:08:42,244
<i>and so happy,
and so irresponsible,</i>

1010
01:08:43,287 --> 01:08:44,497
<i>and so dead.</i>

1011
01:08:44,872 --> 01:08:48,584
<i>No other country can afford to
dream of a Plymouth and a wife</i>

1012
01:08:48,876 --> 01:08:50,711
<i>and a house with a fence,</i>

1013
01:08:51,212 --> 01:08:53,506
<i>and the children
growing up safely</i>

1014
01:08:53,672 --> 01:08:56,509
<i>to go to college
and to become executives,</i>

1015
01:08:56,675 --> 01:08:57,760
<i>and then to marry,</i>

1016
01:08:58,010 --> 01:09:00,554
<i>and have the Plymouth
and the house</i>

1017
01:09:00,721 --> 01:09:02,014
<i>and so forth.</i>

1018
01:09:02,598 --> 01:09:05,684
<i>A great many people
do not live this way,</i>

1019
01:09:06,352 --> 01:09:07,937
<i>and cannot imagine it,</i>

1020
01:09:08,187 --> 01:09:11,440
<i>and do not know that when
we talk about "democracy",</i>

1021
01:09:11,607 --> 01:09:12,983
<i>this is what we mean.</i>

1022
01:09:29,416 --> 01:09:31,752
<i>The industry is compelled,</i>

1023
01:09:31,919 --> 01:09:33,337
<i>given the way it is built,</i>

1024
01:09:33,546 --> 01:09:35,381
<i>to present
to the American people</i>

1025
01:09:35,548 --> 01:09:38,467
<i>a self-perpetuating fantasy
of American life.</i>

1026
01:09:39,635 --> 01:09:42,930
<i>Their concept of entertainment
is difficult to distinguish</i>

1027
01:09:43,097 --> 01:09:44,932
<i>from the use of narcotics.</i>

1028
01:09:45,099 --> 01:09:47,893
What worries you about
them having black partners?

1029
01:09:48,060 --> 01:09:50,229
Do you think people are
gonna look down on them,

1030
01:09:50,437 --> 01:09:52,648
- or judge them?
- Yes, I think people look down.

1031
01:10:00,739 --> 01:10:03,492
<i>To watch the TV screen
for any length of time</i>

1032
01:10:03,659 --> 01:10:06,412
<i>is to learn some really
frightening things</i>

1033
01:10:06,620 --> 01:10:09,123
<i>about the American
sense of reality.</i>

1034
01:10:09,999 --> 01:10:13,294
<i>We are cruelly trapped between
what we would like to be</i>

1035
01:10:13,460 --> 01:10:15,379
<i>and what we actually are.</i>

1036
01:10:15,546 --> 01:10:19,049
<i>And we cannot possibly become
what we would like to be until</i>

1037
01:10:19,216 --> 01:10:23,846
<i>we are willing to ask ourselves
just why the lives we lead</i>

1038
01:10:24,013 --> 01:10:26,473
<i>on this continent
are mainly so empty,</i>

1039
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:28,726
<i>so tame, and so ugly.</i>

1040
01:10:30,561 --> 01:10:33,856
<i>These images are designed
not to trouble,</i>

1041
01:10:34,315 --> 01:10:35,608
<i>but to reassure.</i>

1042
01:10:36,150 --> 01:10:39,737
<i>They also weaken our ability
to deal with the world as it is,</i>

1043
01:10:40,905 --> 01:10:43,240
<i>ourselves as we are.</i>

1044
01:10:46,869 --> 01:10:49,496
I would like to add someone
to our group here,

1045
01:10:49,747 --> 01:10:51,248
Professor Paul Weiss,

1046
01:10:51,415 --> 01:10:53,000
the sterling professor
of philosophy at Yale.

1047
01:11:05,888 --> 01:11:07,598
Were you able to listen
to the show backstage?

1048
01:11:07,765 --> 01:11:09,016
I heard a good deal of it,

1049
01:11:09,183 --> 01:11:11,101
but then I was behind
the whatsitmajig.

1050
01:11:11,268 --> 01:11:13,312
- Yes.
- So I heard only some of it.

1051
01:11:13,479 --> 01:11:15,356
Did you hear anything
that you disagreed with?

1052
01:11:15,522 --> 01:11:17,441
I disagreed with
a great deal of it,

1053
01:11:17,608 --> 01:11:20,402
and of course, there's
a good deal I agree with.

1054
01:11:20,694 --> 01:11:25,157
But I think he's overlooking
one very important matter,

1055
01:11:25,324 --> 01:11:26,408
I think.

1056
01:11:26,659 --> 01:11:29,620
Each one of us,
I think, is terribly alone.

1057
01:11:29,828 --> 01:11:32,414
He lives his own
individual life.

1058
01:11:32,581 --> 01:11:35,709
He has all kind of obstacles,
the way of religion or color

1059
01:11:35,876 --> 01:11:38,671
or size or shape
or lack of ability,

1060
01:11:38,921 --> 01:11:40,881
and the problem
is to become a man.

1061
01:11:41,048 --> 01:11:43,425
But what I was discussing
was not that problem, really.

1062
01:11:43,592 --> 01:11:45,886
I was discussing
the difficulties, the obstacles,

1063
01:11:46,095 --> 01:11:48,472
the very real danger of death

1064
01:11:48,681 --> 01:11:51,266
thrown up by the society
when a Negro, when a black man,

1065
01:11:51,433 --> 01:11:52,726
attempts to become a man.

1066
01:11:52,893 --> 01:11:55,688
All this emphasis
upon black man and white,

1067
01:11:55,854 --> 01:11:59,316
does emphasize
something which is here,

1068
01:11:59,483 --> 01:12:02,194
but it emphasizes,
or perhaps exaggerates it,

1069
01:12:02,361 --> 01:12:05,906
and therefore makes us
put people together in groups

1070
01:12:06,073 --> 01:12:07,533
which they ought not to be in.

1071
01:12:07,700 --> 01:12:10,119
I have more in common
with a black scholar

1072
01:12:10,285 --> 01:12:12,871
than I have with a white man
who is against scholarship.

1073
01:12:13,163 --> 01:12:15,624
And you have more in common
with a white author

1074
01:12:15,791 --> 01:12:18,002
than you have with someone
who is against all literature.

1075
01:12:18,168 --> 01:12:20,629
So why must we always
concentrate on color,

1076
01:12:20,796 --> 01:12:22,006
or religion, or this?

1077
01:12:22,172 --> 01:12:24,049
There are other ways
of connecting men.

1078
01:12:24,216 --> 01:12:25,384
I'll tell you this.

1079
01:12:25,592 --> 01:12:28,053
When I left this country
in 1948,

1080
01:12:28,220 --> 01:12:29,847
I left this country
for one reason only,

1081
01:12:30,014 --> 01:12:31,557
one reason...
I didn't care where I went.

1082
01:12:31,724 --> 01:12:34,143
I might've gone to Hong Kong,
I might have gone to Timbuktu.

1083
01:12:34,309 --> 01:12:36,186
I ended up in Paris,
on the streets of Paris,

1084
01:12:36,353 --> 01:12:38,272
with 40 dollars in my pocket
and the theory

1085
01:12:38,439 --> 01:12:40,858
that nothing worse
could happen to me there

1086
01:12:41,025 --> 01:12:42,651
than had already happened
to me here.

1087
01:12:42,860 --> 01:12:45,070
You talk about making it
as a writer by yourself,

1088
01:12:45,237 --> 01:12:47,156
you have to be able then
to turn up all the antennae

1089
01:12:47,322 --> 01:12:48,490
by which you live,

1090
01:12:48,657 --> 01:12:50,284
because once you turn your back
on this society,

1091
01:12:50,451 --> 01:12:51,785
you may die.

1092
01:12:52,578 --> 01:12:53,954
You may die.

1093
01:12:54,121 --> 01:12:55,914
And it's very hard
to sit at a typewriter,

1094
01:12:56,081 --> 01:12:57,207
and concentrate on that,

1095
01:12:57,374 --> 01:12:59,293
if you are afraid
of the world around you.

1096
01:12:59,585 --> 01:13:01,962
The years I lived in Paris
did one thing for me:

1097
01:13:02,504 --> 01:13:04,923
they released me from
that particular social terror,

1098
01:13:05,090 --> 01:13:07,509
which was not the paranoia
of my own mind,

1099
01:13:07,676 --> 01:13:10,512
but a real social danger visible
in the face of every cop,

1100
01:13:10,679 --> 01:13:13,807
<i>every boss, everybody.</i>

1101
01:13:18,187 --> 01:13:20,981
I don't know what most white
people in this country feel.

1102
01:13:21,148 --> 01:13:22,816
But I can only include
what they feel

1103
01:13:22,983 --> 01:13:24,568
from that state
of their institutions.

1104
01:13:24,818 --> 01:13:27,112
I don't know if white Christians
hate Negroes or not,

1105
01:13:27,279 --> 01:13:29,364
but I know we have a
Christian church which is white

1106
01:13:29,531 --> 01:13:31,200
and a Christian church
which is black.

1107
01:13:31,366 --> 01:13:32,826
I know,
as Malcolm X once put it,

1108
01:13:32,993 --> 01:13:34,828
the most segregated hour
in American life

1109
01:13:34,995 --> 01:13:36,330
is high noon on Sunday.

1110
01:13:36,497 --> 01:13:38,499
That says a great deal for me
about a Christian nation.

1111
01:13:38,665 --> 01:13:41,210
It means I can't afford to trust
most white Christians

1112
01:13:41,376 --> 01:13:43,504
and I certainly cannot trust
the Christian church.

1113
01:13:43,670 --> 01:13:46,173
I don't know whether the
labor unions and their bosses

1114
01:13:46,340 --> 01:13:48,342
really hate me.
That doesn't matter,

1115
01:13:48,509 --> 01:13:49,968
but I know
I'm not in their unions.

1116
01:13:50,135 --> 01:13:51,386
I don't know
if the Real Estate Lobby

1117
01:13:51,553 --> 01:13:52,930
has anything against
black people,

1118
01:13:53,097 --> 01:13:55,849
but I know the Real Estate Lobby
is keeping me in the ghetto.

1119
01:13:56,016 --> 01:13:58,852
I don't know if the board of
education hates black people,

1120
01:13:59,019 --> 01:14:01,355
but I know the textbooks
they give my children to read,

1121
01:14:01,522 --> 01:14:03,232
and the schools
that we have to go to.

1122
01:14:03,398 --> 01:14:04,942
Now, this is the evidence.

1123
01:14:05,150 --> 01:14:06,902
You want me to make
an act of faith,

1124
01:14:07,236 --> 01:14:09,655
risking myself,
my wife, my woman,

1125
01:14:09,822 --> 01:14:11,156
my sister, my children,

1126
01:14:11,323 --> 01:14:14,284
on some idealism
which you assure me

1127
01:14:14,451 --> 01:14:16,495
exists in America,
which I have never seen.

1128
01:14:16,662 --> 01:14:18,080
Hold on a second.

1129
01:14:23,585 --> 01:14:25,671
<i>All of the Western nations</i>

1130
01:14:26,088 --> 01:14:27,756
<i>have been caught in a lie,</i>

1131
01:14:28,882 --> 01:14:31,343
<i>the lie of their pretended
humanism.</i>

1132
01:14:32,928 --> 01:14:37,182
<i>This means that their history
has no moral justification,</i>

1133
01:14:37,975 --> 01:14:40,936
<i>and that the West
has no moral authority.</i>

1134
01:14:47,109 --> 01:14:48,694
<i>"Vile as I am,"</i>

1135
01:14:49,278 --> 01:14:52,531
<i>states one of the characters
in Dostoevsky's</i> The Idiot,

1136
01:14:53,157 --> 01:14:56,952
<i>"I don't believe in the wagons
that bring bread to humanity.</i>

1137
01:14:57,828 --> 01:15:00,956
<i>For the wagons
that bring bread to humanity,</i>

1138
01:15:01,290 --> 01:15:04,918
<i>may coldly exclude
a considerable part of humanity</i>

1139
01:15:05,085 --> 01:15:06,920
<i>from enjoying what is brought."</i>

1140
01:15:10,007 --> 01:15:12,801
<i>For a very long time,
America prospered.</i>

1141
01:15:13,135 --> 01:15:16,722
<i>This prosperity cost millions
of people their lives.</i>

1142
01:15:17,431 --> 01:15:21,810
<i>Now, not even the people who are
the most spectacular recipients</i>

1143
01:15:21,977 --> 01:15:24,271
<i>of the benefits
of this prosperity</i>

1144
01:15:24,813 --> 01:15:27,357
<i>are able to endure
these benefits.</i>

1145
01:15:28,025 --> 01:15:31,195
<i>They can neither understand
them nor do without them.</i>

1146
01:15:32,279 --> 01:15:36,825
<i>Above all, they cannot imagine
the price paid by their victims,</i>

1147
01:15:36,992 --> 01:15:39,536
<i>or subjects,
for this way of life,</i>

1148
01:15:40,078 --> 01:15:42,623
<i>and so they cannot afford
to know why</i>

1149
01:15:42,789 --> 01:15:44,249
<i>the victims are revolting.</i>

1150
01:15:49,004 --> 01:15:50,297
Down!

1151
01:15:50,923 --> 01:15:53,508
- On the ground!
- Get on the ground, now!

1152
01:15:56,970 --> 01:15:57,930
Damn, man!

1153
01:16:02,100 --> 01:16:04,102
<i>This is the formula</i>

1154
01:16:04,436 --> 01:16:07,231
<i>for a nation
or a kingdom decline.</i>

1155
01:16:09,316 --> 01:16:12,444
<i>For no kingdom can
maintain itself by force alone.</i>

1156
01:16:13,278 --> 01:16:17,783
<i>Force does not work the way its
advocates think in fact it does.</i>

1157
01:16:20,494 --> 01:16:21,912
<i>It does not, for example,</i>

1158
01:16:22,079 --> 01:16:25,249
<i>reveal to the victim
the strength of the adversary.</i>

1159
01:16:31,380 --> 01:16:34,716
<i>On the contrary,
it reveals the weakness,</i>

1160
01:16:35,050 --> 01:16:37,636
<i>even the panic
of the adversary.</i>

1161
01:16:40,138 --> 01:16:43,850
<i>And this revelation
invests the victim with passion.</i>

1162
01:16:55,696 --> 01:16:57,614
<i>There is a day in Palm Springs</i>

1163
01:16:57,781 --> 01:17:01,576
<i>that I will remember forever,
a bright day.</i>

1164
01:17:03,495 --> 01:17:06,415
<i>I was based in Hollywood,
working on the screen version</i>

1165
01:17:06,581 --> 01:17:08,625
<i>of the autobiography
of Malcolm X.</i>

1166
01:17:10,002 --> 01:17:12,170
<i>This was a difficult assignment,</i>

1167
01:17:13,171 --> 01:17:15,424
<i>since I had known Malcolm,
after all,</i>

1168
01:17:16,300 --> 01:17:18,010
<i>crossed swords with him,</i>

1169
01:17:19,011 --> 01:17:20,178
<i>worked with him,</i>

1170
01:17:20,887 --> 01:17:23,056
<i>and held him
in that great esteem</i>

1171
01:17:23,223 --> 01:17:25,600
<i>which is not
easily distinguishable,</i>

1172
01:17:25,767 --> 01:17:27,269
<i>if it is distinguishable,</i>

1173
01:17:27,894 --> 01:17:28,979
<i>from love.</i>

1174
01:17:31,732 --> 01:17:33,567
<i>Billy Dee Williams
had come to town</i>

1175
01:17:33,734 --> 01:17:35,319
<i>and he was
staying at the house.</i>

1176
01:17:36,028 --> 01:17:38,655
<i>I very much wanted Billy Dee
for the role of Malcolm.</i>

1177
01:17:41,992 --> 01:17:43,702
<i>The phone had been
brought out to the pool,</i>

1178
01:17:43,869 --> 01:17:45,162
<i>and now it rang.</i>

1179
01:17:46,288 --> 01:17:47,539
<i>And I picked up.</i>

1180
01:17:48,999 --> 01:17:50,625
<i>The record player
was still playing.</i>

1181
01:17:54,838 --> 01:17:58,884
<i>"He's not dead yet,
but it's a head wound."</i>

1182
01:18:02,220 --> 01:18:05,098
I have some very sad news
for all of you,

1183
01:18:05,682 --> 01:18:09,603
and I think sad news
for all our fellow citizens

1184
01:18:10,729 --> 01:18:13,774
and people who love peace
all over the world.

1185
01:18:14,649 --> 01:18:17,235
And that is that
Martin Luther King

1186
01:18:17,611 --> 01:18:18,904
<i>was shot and was killed tonight.</i>

1187
01:18:27,204 --> 01:18:29,790
<i>I hardly remember
the rest of the evening at all.</i>

1188
01:18:31,875 --> 01:18:33,543
<i>I remember weeping, briefly,</i>

1189
01:18:34,044 --> 01:18:37,214
<i>more in helpless rage
than in sorrow,</i>

1190
01:18:38,131 --> 01:18:40,175
<i>and Billy trying to comfort me.</i>

1191
01:18:41,843 --> 01:18:44,346
<i>But I really don't remember
that evening at all.</i>

1192
01:18:45,764 --> 01:18:50,268
<i>♪ Mother dear,
May I go downtown ♪</i>

1193
01:18:50,435 --> 01:18:54,314
<i>♪ Instead of out to play, ♪</i>

1194
01:18:54,940 --> 01:18:59,861
<i>♪ And march the streets
of Birmingham ♪</i>

1195
01:19:00,028 --> 01:19:03,740
<i>♪ In a Freedom March today? ♪</i>

1196
01:19:05,492 --> 01:19:09,704
<i>♪ But Mother,
I won't be alone ♪</i>

1197
01:19:10,163 --> 01:19:14,668
<i>♪ Other children
will go with me, ♪</i>

1198
01:19:15,210 --> 01:19:20,090
<i>♪ And march the streets
of Birmingham ♪</i>

1199
01:19:20,507 --> 01:19:23,927
<i>♪ To make my country free ♪</i>

1200
01:19:26,847 --> 01:19:28,515
<i>The church was packed.</i>

1201
01:19:29,182 --> 01:19:32,018
<i>In the pew before me
sat Marlon Brando,</i>

1202
01:19:32,519 --> 01:19:34,438
<i>Sammy Davis, Eartha Kitt.</i>

1203
01:19:35,188 --> 01:19:36,690
<i>Sidney Poitier nearby.</i>

1204
01:19:38,108 --> 01:19:41,278
<i>I saw Harry Belafonte
sitting next to Coretta King.</i>

1205
01:19:43,321 --> 01:19:44,823
<i>I have a childhood
hand over thing</i>

1206
01:19:44,990 --> 01:19:46,616
<i>about not weeping in public.</i>

1207
01:19:47,033 --> 01:19:51,663
<i>And I was concentrating
on holding myself together.</i>

1208
01:19:52,956 --> 01:19:55,125
<i>I did not want to weep
for Martin.</i>

1209
01:19:56,293 --> 01:19:57,836
<i>Tears seemed futile.</i>

1210
01:19:58,962 --> 01:20:01,965
<i>But I may also have been afraid,</i>

1211
01:20:02,549 --> 01:20:04,968
<i>and I could not have
been the only one,</i>

1212
01:20:05,469 --> 01:20:10,474
<i>that if I began to weep,
I would not be able to stop.</i>

1213
01:20:12,642 --> 01:20:14,936
<i>I started to cry,
and I stumbled.</i>

1214
01:20:16,271 --> 01:20:17,689
<i>Sammy grabbed my arm.</i>

1215
01:20:21,610 --> 01:20:24,279
<i>The story of the Negro
in America</i>

1216
01:20:24,571 --> 01:20:26,740
<i>is the story of America.</i>

1217
01:20:27,824 --> 01:20:29,826
<i>It is not a pretty story.</i>

1218
01:20:33,038 --> 01:20:34,289
<i>What can we do?</i>

1219
01:20:37,000 --> 01:20:38,835
<i>Well, I am tired.</i>

1220
01:20:39,503 --> 01:20:41,296
<i>I don't know how
it will come about,</i>

1221
01:20:42,631 --> 01:20:44,799
<i>I know that no matter
how it comes about,</i>

1222
01:20:44,966 --> 01:20:47,219
<i>it will be bloody,
it will be hard.</i>

1223
01:20:48,887 --> 01:20:51,515
<i>I still believe that we can do
with this country</i>

1224
01:20:51,681 --> 01:20:54,100
<i>something that
has not been done before.</i>

1225
01:20:55,143 --> 01:20:58,230
<i>We are misled here
because we think of numbers.</i>

1226
01:20:59,814 --> 01:21:02,817
<i>You don't need numbers,
you need passion.</i>

1227
01:21:03,818 --> 01:21:06,029
<i>And this is proven
by the history of the world.</i>

1228
01:21:07,948 --> 01:21:10,033
<i>The tragedy is that
most of the people</i>

1229
01:21:10,200 --> 01:21:12,953
<i>who say they care about it
do not care.</i>

1230
01:21:13,245 --> 01:21:16,623
<i>What they care about is
their safety and their profits.</i>

1231
01:21:17,415 --> 01:21:19,793
<i>♪ When I was laying in jail ♪</i>

1232
01:21:20,001 --> 01:21:24,506
<i>♪ With my back turned
to the wall ♪</i>

1233
01:21:30,554 --> 01:21:32,389
<i>♪ When I was laying in jail ♪</i>

1234
01:21:32,556 --> 01:21:36,893
<i>♪ With my back turned
to the wall ♪</i>

1235
01:21:42,023 --> 01:21:44,442
<i>♪ I just laid down
and dreamed I could... ♪</i>

1236
01:21:46,444 --> 01:21:47,946
<i>The American way of life</i>

1237
01:21:48,113 --> 01:21:50,323
<i>has failed
to make people happier,</i>

1238
01:21:50,532 --> 01:21:51,992
<i>or make them better.</i>

1239
01:21:52,701 --> 01:21:56,288
<i>We do not want to admit this,
and we do not admit it.</i>

1240
01:21:57,289 --> 01:21:58,665
<i>We persist in believing</i>

1241
01:21:58,832 --> 01:22:01,209
<i>that the empty and criminal
among our children</i>

1242
01:22:01,376 --> 01:22:05,213
<i>are the result of some
miscalculation in the formula</i>

1243
01:22:05,380 --> 01:22:06,756
<i>that can be corrected.</i>

1244
01:22:07,299 --> 01:22:09,968
<i>That the bottomless
and aimless hostility</i>

1245
01:22:10,135 --> 01:22:13,179
<i>which makes our cities among
the most dangerous in the world</i>

1246
01:22:13,680 --> 01:22:17,392
<i>is created and felt
by a handful of aberrants,</i>

1247
01:22:18,310 --> 01:22:21,354
<i>that the lack, yawning
everywhere in this country,</i>

1248
01:22:21,521 --> 01:22:24,983
<i>of passionate conviction,
of personal authority,</i>

1249
01:22:25,150 --> 01:22:29,070
<i>proves only our rather appealing
tendency to be gregarious</i>

1250
01:22:29,237 --> 01:22:30,363
<i>and democratic.</i>

1251
01:22:32,115 --> 01:22:34,576
<i>To look around
the United States today,</i>

1252
01:22:35,243 --> 01:22:37,954
<i>is enough to make
prophets and angels weep.</i>

1253
01:22:39,414 --> 01:22:41,374
<i>This is not the land
of the free.</i>

1254
01:22:41,750 --> 01:22:45,045
<i>It is only very unwillingly
and sporadically...</i>

1255
01:22:46,254 --> 01:22:47,756
<i>...the home of the brave.</i>

1256
01:23:03,605 --> 01:23:06,900
<i>I sometimes feel it
to be an absolute miracle</i>

1257
01:23:07,609 --> 01:23:11,237
<i>that the entire black population
of the United States of America</i>

1258
01:23:11,404 --> 01:23:14,908
<i>has not long ago
succumbed to raging paranoia.</i>

1259
01:23:16,076 --> 01:23:17,744
<i>People finally say to you,</i>

1260
01:23:17,911 --> 01:23:20,497
<i>in an attempt to dismiss
the social reality,</i>

1261
01:23:21,748 --> 01:23:23,375
<i>"But you're so bitter!"</i>

1262
01:23:29,506 --> 01:23:33,343
<i>Well, I may
or may not be bitter,</i>

1263
01:23:33,968 --> 01:23:38,515
<i>but if I were, I would have
good reasons for it.</i>

1264
01:23:39,099 --> 01:23:43,269
<i>Chief among them that American
blindness, or cowardice,</i>

1265
01:23:43,436 --> 01:23:47,148
<i>which allow us to pretend
that life presents no reasons</i>

1266
01:23:47,315 --> 01:23:48,400
<i>for being bitter.</i>

1267
01:24:13,383 --> 01:24:16,678
<i>In this country,
for a dangerously long time,</i>

1268
01:24:17,554 --> 01:24:19,764
<i>there have been
two levels of experience.</i>

1269
01:24:20,890 --> 01:24:22,559
<i>One, to put it cruelly,</i>

1270
01:24:22,726 --> 01:24:26,813
<i>can be summed up in the images
of Gary Cooper and Doris Day,</i>

1271
01:24:26,980 --> 01:24:29,566
<i>two of the most grotesque
appeals to innocence</i>

1272
01:24:29,733 --> 01:24:31,401
<i>the world has ever seen.</i>

1273
01:24:32,152 --> 01:24:36,197
<i>And the other,
subterranean, indispensable,</i>

1274
01:24:36,781 --> 01:24:39,701
<i>and denied,
can be summed up, let us say,</i>

1275
01:24:40,160 --> 01:24:43,371
<i>in the tone and in the face
of Ray Charles.</i>

1276
01:24:43,663 --> 01:24:45,999
<i>♪ Hey mama,
Don't you treat me wrong ♪</i>

1277
01:24:46,166 --> 01:24:48,626
<i>♪ Come and love your daddy
All night long ♪</i>

1278
01:24:52,380 --> 01:24:55,592
<i>♪ I know it's all right now
Hey, hey ♪</i>

1279
01:24:58,845 --> 01:25:00,764
<i>♪ When you see me in misery ♪</i>

1280
01:25:01,598 --> 01:25:03,349
<i>♪ Come on baby, see about me ♪</i>

1281
01:25:03,516 --> 01:25:06,352
<i>There has never been
any genuine confrontation</i>

1282
01:25:06,519 --> 01:25:08,730
<i>between these two levels
of experience.</i>

1283
01:25:11,900 --> 01:25:15,570
<i>♪ Should I be bad ♪</i>

1284
01:25:16,738 --> 01:25:18,615
<i>♪ Or nice? ♪</i>

1285
01:25:21,159 --> 01:25:24,287
<i>♪ Should I surrender? ♪</i>

1286
01:25:25,872 --> 01:25:30,502
<i>♪ His pleading words
so tenderly ♪</i>

1287
01:25:32,128 --> 01:25:36,174
<i>♪ Entreat me ♪</i>

1288
01:25:37,550 --> 01:25:42,180
<i>♪ Is this the night that love ♪</i>

1289
01:25:42,847 --> 01:25:47,644
<i>♪ Finally defeats me? ♪</i>

1290
01:25:47,852 --> 01:25:52,649
<i>You cannot lynch me
and keep me in ghettos</i>

1291
01:25:53,566 --> 01:25:56,569
<i>without becoming
something monstrous yourselves.</i>

1292
01:25:58,154 --> 01:26:02,116
<i>And furthermore, you give me
a terrifying advantage.</i>

1293
01:26:03,243 --> 01:26:04,828
<i>You never had to look at me.</i>

1294
01:26:06,454 --> 01:26:07,831
<i>I had to look at you.</i>

1295
01:26:09,332 --> 01:26:13,461
<i>I know more about you
than you know about me.</i>

1296
01:26:15,046 --> 01:26:17,966
<i>Not everything that is faced
can be changed,</i>

1297
01:26:19,551 --> 01:26:23,471
<i>but nothing can be changed
until it is faced.</i>

1298
01:26:32,272 --> 01:26:33,898
<i>History is not the past.</i>

1299
01:26:35,149 --> 01:26:36,484
<i>It is the present.</i>

1300
01:26:37,694 --> 01:26:39,654
<i>We carry our history with us.</i>

1301
01:26:40,738 --> 01:26:43,157
<i>We are our history.</i>

1302
01:26:44,868 --> 01:26:48,997
<i>If we pretend otherwise,
we literally are criminals.</i>

1303
01:26:53,334 --> 01:26:54,836
<i>I attest to this.</i>

1304
01:26:56,129 --> 01:26:58,256
<i>The world is not white.</i>

1305
01:26:59,757 --> 01:27:01,634
<i>It never was white,</i>

1306
01:27:02,844 --> 01:27:04,637
<i>cannot be white.</i>

1307
01:27:05,889 --> 01:27:08,892
<i>White is a metaphor for power,</i>

1308
01:27:10,894 --> 01:27:15,231
<i>and that is simply a way of
describing Chase Manhattan Bank.</i>

1309
01:28:05,073 --> 01:28:06,824
I can't be a pessimist,

1310
01:28:08,326 --> 01:28:09,619
because I'm alive.

1311
01:28:10,954 --> 01:28:13,748
To be a pessimist means
you have agreed that human life

1312
01:28:13,915 --> 01:28:17,669
is an academic matter,
so I'm forced to be an optimist.

1313
01:28:17,835 --> 01:28:19,671
I am forced to believe
that we can survive

1314
01:28:19,837 --> 01:28:21,339
whatever we must survive.

1315
01:28:22,548 --> 01:28:23,549
But...

1316
01:28:27,887 --> 01:28:29,347
...the Negro in this country...

1317
01:28:32,558 --> 01:28:34,352
...the future of the Negro
in this country...

1318
01:28:36,187 --> 01:28:38,022
...is precisely as bright

1319
01:28:38,189 --> 01:28:40,191
or as dark as the future
of the country.

1320
01:28:42,193 --> 01:28:45,405
It is entirely up to
the American people

1321
01:28:46,239 --> 01:28:47,448
and not representatives.

1322
01:28:47,615 --> 01:28:49,867
It is entirely up to
the American people

1323
01:28:51,035 --> 01:28:55,748
whether or not they are going
to face and deal with

1324
01:28:55,915 --> 01:28:58,918
and embrace the stranger
they have maligned so long.

1325
01:28:59,502 --> 01:29:02,088
What white people have to do
is try to find out,

1326
01:29:02,255 --> 01:29:05,216
in their own hearts,
why it was necessary

1327
01:29:05,383 --> 01:29:07,051
to have a "nigger"
in the first place,

1328
01:29:07,427 --> 01:29:09,721
because I'm not a nigger,
I'm a man.

1329
01:29:10,346 --> 01:29:12,807
But if you think I'm a nigger,
it means you need him.

1330
01:29:13,099 --> 01:29:14,517
The question you've got to
ask yourself,

1331
01:29:14,684 --> 01:29:17,270
the white population of this
country has got to ask itself,

1332
01:29:17,687 --> 01:29:19,731
North and South,
because it's one country,

1333
01:29:19,897 --> 01:29:21,065
and for the Negro,

1334
01:29:21,232 --> 01:29:22,984
there is no difference between
the North and the South...

1335
01:29:23,151 --> 01:29:26,654
it's just a difference
in the way they castrate you,

1336
01:29:27,321 --> 01:29:31,868
but the fact of the castration
is the American fact.

1337
01:29:33,036 --> 01:29:36,122
If I'm not the nigger here
and you invented him,

1338
01:29:36,289 --> 01:29:37,707
you the white people
invented him,

1339
01:29:38,458 --> 01:29:40,001
then you've got to find out why.

1340
01:29:42,253 --> 01:29:43,671
And the future of the country
depends on that,

1341
01:29:43,838 --> 01:29:45,840
whether or not it's able
to ask that question.