Member-only story
Who Speaks for the Negro? James Baldwin
An Interview with Robert Penn Warren
This Black History Month, we’re going deeper than the typical rehash of firsts and significant achievements throughout Black history. Robert Penn Warren conducted a series of interviews, which were also captured on audiotape. You can contextualize Black thought leaders by seeing their words and hearing their voices. We begin with James Baldwin, who defines “revolution” and its necessary aims. The link below will take you to the audio segments. The entire text follows.
James Baldwin | Who Speaks for the Negro?
TAPE 1
These digitized texts are based upon typed transcripts created in 1964. Errors in the original transcripts have not been corrected. To ensure accuracy, researchers should consult the audio recordings available on this site. Time stamps are included in the retyped transcripts to aid in this process.]
[00:00:00] Mr. WARREN: This is the first tape of a conversation with James Baldwin, April 27. In what sense, Mr. Baldwin, do you think the revolution is a revolution. How would you (cough) previous concepts of revolutions?
Mr. BALDWIN: Well, that’s a tough one to answer. I’m not always sure that the word revolution is the right word. I myself use it, but I don’t know of any…
