Each line of narration in Raoul Peck’s stunning documentary film I Am Not Your Negro is taken directly from James Baldwin’s writings, letters, and interviews, or from video clips featuring him. The film’s starting point is the most famous book Baldwin never wrote: in his final years, he had begun work on a book about his three assassinated friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. His deeply personal notes for the project have never been published before. Peck’s film uses them to jump through time, juxtaposing Baldwin’s private words with his public statements, in a blazing examination of the tragic history of race in America.
This edition of the script contains twenty-seven black-and-white images from the film.