James Baldwin speech given in NYC post-Birmingham baptist church firebomb

Baldwin here is a forceful, precise speaker. not just a poet but an agitator, with a keen grasp of dialectic woven throughout the entire speech. Baldwin speaks about the imprisonment of segregation, both black and white trapped together, enforced by social custom and the tyranny of the southern oligarchy. He insists on examination of economy and on concrete fact, on movement. He speaks against submission and fatalism, and to think through, confront and transform the situation, evaluated as a crisis and inflection point.Born and raised in Harlem, "as long as I live I will never be able to leave Harlem," he knows the condition of housing, of the cost of food and clothing. He calls for a rent strike to "force the economic structure to deal with the problem as it is which may destroy us if we do not deal with it.""If they say it is illegal to not pay rent, we say it it immoral to charge rent for the houses in which we live.""there is not one square inch in Birmingham nor New York City where a black man can be free. If that is true for us it is true for all of you. New York isn't segregated by an act of god nor by accident. its segregated by a complex of interests who make tremendous profits off of us, by the imprisonment of 1/10th of our population."He takes liberal 'friends' to task. Liberals who admire nonviolent resistance as violence rained down upon civil rights activists, who remain admiring even as nothing changes. "Contrary to my liberal friends it is impossible for the negro to be fitted into the structure as it now exist that is not a possibility."specific to McCarthyism, the red scare and the conformity of the Eisenhower era:"it is beneath me to say I am not a communist, it is beneath the nation to raise this particular red herring the moment one begins to say things as they are.""the negros friend pretends is all the negro wants is another Cadillac, he wants to get to be another Eisenhower. Sorry but my forefathers who gutted, suffered and died for this country, I would rather slit my throat than become another blank mediocrity."Highly recommend to listen at least close of talk, at ~ 36 minutes.(https://youtu.be/1HDS4T5OU_o) via /r/communism https://ift.tt/38nN7Zu