Archive of Beyond Black and White

During Black History Month we share a letter written by James Baldwin, one of the foremost novelists and public intellectuals of the 20^th century. In 1970 Baldwin wrote an open letter to the then imprisoned Communist Party activist Angela Davis expressing his solidarity, and reflecting on racism and Black radicalism in America. This letter, reproduced below, also features in If They Come in the Morning…, a collection of classic writings on race edited by Angela Davis.

In late 1966, Stokely Carmichael was arrested during a Mississippi rally in the aftermath of the Selma campaign. On his release, he advocated Black Power, representing a break with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Strongly influenced by the work of Frantz Fanon and his landmark book Wretched of the Earth, along with others such as Malcolm X, Carmichael led SNCC to become more radical. He resigned as chairman in May 1967 and became more closely aligned with the Black Panther Party. To celebrate the anniversary of his birth, we publish the text of his speech delivered at the University of California at Berkeley expounding on his aims forty-nine years ago in October 1966.