I Am Not Your Negro

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing an unavoidable endeavor he was about to embark on: the writing of his last book, Remember This House. The book would be an account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his friends — Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and Malcolm X. Their murders permanently traumatized an entire generation. James Baldwin was never able to go beyond 30 pages before he died.

The manuscript, Notes toward Remember This House, was entrusted to Raoul Peck by the executor of The James Baldwin Estate. Raoul Peck reclaims James Baldwin’s quest and will lead us along the complex political road of these three “memorable” lives, using only Baldwin’s own words.

By confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassinations of these three men we uncover a larger narrative of America’s historical and current denial and irrational relationship with race.

This “history of violence” (that Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and Malcolm X paid with their lives), the created image of what it means to be Black and the long simplified narrative that Hollywood recounts as a story between “good” and “evil” or “right and wrong,” reflects our current racial precariousness.