JAYFORCE

The world does it to you long enough and effectively enough… You begin to do it to yourself. You become a collaborator, an accomplice of your own murderers…

Just reading the title, you must know that the convo here is about to get deep-deep-DEEPER in depth. Even the context of this clip is deep. Nikki Giovanni, at this point in her life, is interviewing an idol of hers (James Baldwin). And before the talk really gets started, her idol declares that he is PROUD of her… that he needs and depends on her.

If only we strived to live to make our forerunners proud; for them to be able to truly pass the baton to us and trust that the race will continue to be well run… WHEW!! #Chills #NoChill #BlackHistoryMonth

Original video from SOUL! and then shoutfactorytv. All rights and love to Soul! and shoutfactorytv for broadcasting this. Taped in London, November 1971.

Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni, Jr. (born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Giovanni gained initial fame in the late 1960s as one of the foremost authors of the Black Arts Movement. Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement of the period, her early work provides a strong, militant African-American perspective, leading one writer to dub her the “Poet of the Black Revolution.”

James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American novelist and social critic. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century America. Some of Baldwin’s essays are book-length, including The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976). An unfinished manuscript, Remember This House, was expanded and adapted for cinema as the Academy Award-nominated documentary film I Am Not Your Negro.

Baldwin’s novels and plays fictionalize fundamental personal questions and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures thwarting the equitable integration of not only African Americans, but also gay and bisexual men, while depicting some internalized obstacles to such individuals’ quests for acceptance. Such dynamics are prominent in Baldwin’s second novel, Giovanni’s Room, written in 1956, well before the gay liberation movement.

Soul! or SOUL! (1967–1971 or 1967–1973) was a pioneering performance/variety television program in the late 1960s and early 1970s produced by New York City PBS affiliate, WNET. It showcased African American music, dance, and literature.

Ellis Haizlip was born on September 17, 1929 (to January 25, 1991). He was a pioneering broadcaster, television host, theater and television producer, and cultural activist. Often host of Soul!

– thepostarchive

– @ojones1

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