Reel

Funky Soul! Opener with VO by Joe Dennis. Soul! Producer Ellis Haizlip introduces program from Soul studio in New York City, triangle sculpture in BG.

James Baldwin, smoking cigarette, talks to Nikki Giovanni about the silent trouble facing African-American society before agreeing w/ Nikki that blacks are the only true rightful heirs of America. James Baldwin says the reprecussions of the Civil War are still being felt. Mr. Baldwin says "you can't tell a black man by the color of his skin." Mr. Baldwin says "I'm being a missionary in trying to save America, but I do know that we have paid too much for it in order to abandon it." Nikki lights James' cigarette. Nikki Giovanni says "I'm only 28 & I've paid too much for it."

Nikki Giovanni says she's not interested in the U.S. Congress or the President, ideologies or movements b/c it's simply more people tryingto govern the lives of other people. James Baldwin says "I'm terrified of cultural commissars on either side of the line" & that he's "too old to be told how to write to what to write about." Nikki Giovanni says she sees the world as dumb & smart, strong & weak. James Baldwin retorts "you may have been born stupid but if you're willing to live, take your chances on living, you become very bright." Ms. Giovanni says the lack of stress placed upon the individual is killing the black power movement, but Mr. Baldwin says she can't concern herself w/ such small details. Mr. Baldwin: "After all, you know & I know that the individual does exist."

Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin smoke cigarettes, chat about false belief systems & the perpetual need to believe in something, especially among youth of the day. Nikki Giovanni says, "I see so many games being run by uncreative, stupid people." James Baldwin says, "Most people accept w/out much question the assumptions they are given." "You can't create anything unless you have been given the belief or the rage or the madness or the necessity out of yourself to do it." Mr. Baldwin says "In order to take the responsibility you have to be able to take it. It's not amystical act. Somebody's got to pay the rent." Nikki replies "We have tried to make you able to pay our rent. We have found that there are notenough jobs, there's not enough money to do that. Why can't we try it my way?"

Nikki Giovanni says that only thing that has changed since 1954 has been the black woman; James Baldwin thinks she has become more visible. Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin discuss relationships, absentee fathers within the black community. Ms. Giovanni: "You've got to fake it b/c we don t have dreams these days. How the hell can you have a dream? For what?" Mr. Baldwin says, "If I love you I can't lie to you." Ms. Giovanni says "Of course you can lie to me! And you will! What does the truth matter & why you going to be truthful to me when you lie to everybody else? You lied when you smiled at the cracker down at the job. Lie to me. Smile. Treat me the same way you treated him." Mr. Baldwin doesn't think that it's a "human possibility." "The price of the rent is my smile." Mr. Baldwin lights another cigarette. This an excellently charged segment.

Nikki Giovanni says she loves & respects her father, James Giovanni, and that marriage worked well for her parents, but she has no interest in it herself; James Baldwin laughs, smiles. Conversation changes to the topic of writing, which is only appropriate considering they're both writers. James Baldwin discusses his novel "Tell Me How Long the Train Has Been Gone." Mr. Baldwin says "Until this century the experience out of which a Lena Horne comes, for example, or an Ethel Waters, or you, white people have no idea out of what that comes from." "The reason people think it's important to be white is b/c they think it's important not to be black. People think being white means you're civilized & being black means you are not civilized." CU cigarette burning bewteen fingers of Ms. Giovanni, tilt up. "What it comes to is I am civilized in a way that Englishmen are not b/c I have had to depend on a principle that Europeans have learned to distrust."

Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin continue discussig the act of writing. Ms. Giovanni asks Mr. Baldwin if he thinks he will ever write something not involving white people; James Baldwin replies that he already is, that he's writing a novel about an Arab in France. Mr. Baldwin says "What a writer is always doing whether or not he knows it is he has to go to the source b/c he has nothing else to work from. You can't work from other people's assumptions. You have to work out of what you discover on your own. And your own assumptions come out sounding much deeper than you." "The very first thing that a writer has to face is that he cannot be told what to write." "The one thing you have to do is try to tell the truth." "I can only tell you so much about yourself as much as I can face about myself." "Your suffering does not isolate you. Your suffering is your bridge."

Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin continue discussing the act of writing. Mr. Baldwin says " A teacher who is not free to teach is not a teacher." "To teach in the situation in which black people of America find themselves to teach is a revolutionary act." "The artist is not free to do what he wants to do. The artist is free to do what he has to do." James Baldwin smiles, laughs, lights cigarette. Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin discuss Black American Literature, particularly Richard Wright & Chester Himes, and its relationship w/ the American Communist Party, including his tenous relationship w/ the Party before he left for France.

Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin discuss Black American Literature. Mr. Baldwin: "Now I can see what I owe to Richard Wright, Chester Himes, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, & Frederick Douglass, but I could not see that when I was 20. They were, on one level, more exalted victims. It takes a long time before you accept what has been given to you from your past." Mr. Baldwin says black literature is also exemplified in the careers of black musicians like Ray Charles & Arethra Franklin. Nikki Giovanni discusses the career of Chester Himes, particularly after he left the States.

FOR FULL CLIP WITH AUDIO, PLEASE CONTACT WPA. Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin discuss their profession of writing. James Baldwin: "The act of writing, the intention of it, is liberation... No tyrant in history was able to read but every single one of them burned the books. "No white critic can judge my work. I'd be a fool if I depended on that judgment." They also discuss literary criticism.

Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin discuss drugs & junkies. CU cigarette burning between James' fingers. James Baldwin says "Some of the junkies I have known-- and they are the most valuable people I have ever met b/c they know their situation." "You have to in order to live make so many difficult & dangerous choices that the one thing you really are trying to say you lose." "I lived in the ghetto & I watched it. You buy drugs in the ghetto like you buy whiskey in the deep south through the sheriff. It's part of a criminal conspiracy to destroy black people. The proof is that nobody cared when our kids were dying until it spread & white kids started dying. Then we have a drug problem."

Nikki Giovanni & James Baldwin continue discussing drugs, hype & words. Ms. Giovanni says "I don't need anybody to feel better than. I think that junkie hype, that war hype, that homosexual hype, that black hype, I don t need it." Mr. Baldwin: "People invent categories in order to feel safe. White people invented black people to give white people identity." "If you're a writer you're forced to look behind the word into the meaning of the word." "You talk to those people that can hear you & you say what you can say. What you have to do is make it possible for others to live. That's the only reason to be here."

Nikki Giovanni asks James Baldwin if he tends to be optimistic; in certain respects, he feels he is. "Pessimists are silent. They have no hope for themselves or others. Pessimists are also people who think that the human race is below their notice, that they're better than other human beings." Nikki Giovanni says "It takes up so much energy just to keep yourself happy." NG: "Love is a tremendous responsibility." JB: "It's the only one to take. There isn't any other." FO/FI to Soul producer Ellis Haizlip closing show from Soul studio in New York City, triangular sculpture in BG.