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When people think of the civil rights movement, important names come
to mind: Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, people who are celebrated nationally and globally, as important figures in an important time. An activist mentioned less frequently is the brilliant James Baldwin, who was filmed in the 80s for a documentary called (I Heard It Through The Grapevine) which has now been restored and will be screened at the Main Public Library on Feb. 2nd.
Film is released
I Heard It Through The Grapevine, originally released in 1982, was produced by documentarians Pat Hartley and Dick Fontaine. The film follows Baldwin as he revisists locations throughout the American South and talks with community organizers and friends who he worked with to promote civil rights. Thanks to the Harvard Film Institute, the film was restored in 2023, had a limited theatrical run before being broadcast on PBS, and will get an upcoming screening in Toledo, thanks to Bowling Green State University.
BGSU is helping to put on this screening as Baldwin has a connection to the school: “1980 was the year he received an honorary doctorate from BGSU after he taught there as a Visiting Writer and Distinguished Professor of Ethnic Studies” according to Dr. Rachel Ann Walsh, the Interim Director of International Studies at BGSU, who will be hosting the upcoming screening.
Dr. Walsh previously has screened the film in Bowling Green but, knowing the
impact a film like this could make on a community, she wanted to bring the documentary to Toledo’s wider audience. inHer introduction to the film was “in Columbus in the summer of 2024, as was part of a Baldwin centennial celebration. When I saw it, I thought, I need to bring this film to the BGSU and Toledo communities.”
A love letter to ?
Walsh also says “Baldwin was right,” due to how closely the ideas he expounds on in the film are being proven correct daily. Dr. Walsh noted that as Baldwin visited with many prominent civil rights figures from his past, “over
and over again they point out how the history of their work is being erased and/or sanitized, and how the socioeconomic injustices that they fought to address are intensifying, particularly in terms of housing and policing. The film is at once a very Baldwinian critique of the nation’s failure to adequately address its problems and a love letter to Black activists and educators.”
The main focus of the screening is to get Baldwin’s words out to those that have never heard them. As Dr. Walsh explained, “for those who have not yet read Baldwin’s writings, I hope that it inspires them to seek out his work.
Baldwin’s life and enduring influence are difficult to distill into a two or three- sentence summary, but he was one of the most influential public intellectuals and writers of the twentieth century. “
Screening at the McMaster Center at the Main Public LibraryDowntownToledo , 325 Michigan St. Wednesday, Feb. 4th, 5:30 More information at events.toledolibrary.org
