What Did James Baldwin Think About Hollywood?

James Baldwin is one of my favorite authors. The beginning of One Night in LA was actually a play and my final writing assignment in an African American Literature class I took while working on my MFA as a Distinguished Dean’s Fellow at the University of California ( I can hear James Brown sing, “La di da:”). ONILA was my way of honoring him and his book, No Name in the Street, in which the Washington Post article below says that “Baldwin recounts the Harlem that shaped his early consciousness and the later murders of his friends Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, along with his stay in Europe and in Hollywood and his return to the American South to confront a violent America.”

The article also discusses the Netflix Documentary I Am Not Your Negro, which I loved, and what James Baldwin thought of Hollywood. Samuel Jackson, my Chattanooga Home Boy, narrates I Am Not Your Negro, which was everything for me. My Mom taught Samuel in Junior High school.

I often wonder what James Baldwin would think of the “Negroes” in Hollywood in 2024:)! Hmm. this would make a great play, but do I dare write it from my outside/in position:). Nooooooo, although it’s clear “What’s Going On” from where I sit! And sit:)!

Click Here for the Washington Post article and make sure you watch I Am Not Your Negro on Netflix.

XO,

MeMe