Join us for a live broadcast (on KPFK 90.7 FM) dedicated to the voice of the author and civil rights activist James Baldwin. Brian DeShazor, host of From the Vault radio program, will air rare recordings of Baldwin from 1963-1968, including an oration called the Artist’s Struggle for Integrity, a reading from Giovanni’s Room; Baldwin’s fiery speech after the murder of four girls in Birmingham, Alabama; and his introduction of Dr. Martin Luther King (taped in the home of Marlon Brando) weeks before King’s assassination. DeShazor is joined by two writers who’ve thought deeply about Baldwin’s work—novelist Nina Revoyr and Melvin L. Rogers, Associate Professor of Political Science and African-American Studies at UCLA—to reflect on Baldwin’s impact on literature and society.

Co-presented with Pacifica Archives