The future of the Negro in this country is precisely as bright or as dark as the future of the country.— James Baldwin

In the final years of his life, James Baldwin began writing Remember This House, a personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his closest friends—Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Now, more than 30 years later, a new documentary picks up those letters and unfinished manuscripts to explore how race became the defining struggle of American society.

I Am Not Your Negro , an Academy Award-nominated film by Raoul Peck, is an up-to-the-minute examination of race in America. Using Baldwin's original words and a spellbinding flood of archival material, the film is a journey into the black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights Movement to the present of Black Lives Matter. Baldwin's legacy makes one thing clear: the piercing endurance of racism—and the very definition of what America stands for—remains as relevant as ever.

On the eve of its theatrical release, New America NYC presented a screening of I Am Not Your Negro and a conversation on how we can better face—and change—the racial divide in America.

PARTICIPANTS

Hébert Peck @IAmNotYourNegro
Producer, I Am Not Your Negro

Nikole Hannah-Jones @nhannahjones
Staff Writer, The New York Times Magazine
Emerson Fellow, New America

Aisha Karefa-Smart @afroculinista
Author and niece of James Baldwin

Jamil Smith @JamilSmith
Senior National Correspondent, MTV News