“Baldwin’s Nigger” — transcription of James Baldwin in London, 1968

(19 minutes of James Baldwin speaking at the West Indian Student Centre, London, UK, in a film by Horace Ové)

“I’ll tell you a story, if I may. Many years ago when I first came to London, I was in the British Museum, naturally, and one of the West Indians who worked there struck up a conversation with me, and wanted to know where I was from. And I told him I was from Harlem. And that answer didn’t satisfy him. And I didn’t understand what he meant. ‘I was born in Harlem, I was born in Harlem hospital,’ I said. ‘I was born in New York.’

None of these answers satisfied him and he said, ‘where was your mother born?’ And I said, ‘she was born in Maryland.’ And I could see, though I didn’t understand it, he was growing more and more disgusted with me. He was more and more impatient.

‘Where was your father born?’

“My father was born in New Orleans.”

‘Yes,” he said, ‘but man, where were you born?!?’