Tribute to James Baldwin

Sean Rocha directed this celebration of the writer James Baldwin for a sold-out audience of 1,100 at the Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York.  The event was sponsored by the writers group PEN American Center, in collaboration with the New Yorker magazine and the Schomburg Center, and included presentations by novelists Chinua Achebe, Russell Banks and John Edgar Wideman, critic Hilton Als, poet Amiri Baraka, scholar Eleanor Traylor, and biographers Arnold Rampersad and David Leeming, as well as readings by poet and performer Carl Hancock Rux, photographs by Sedat Pakay, and an archival recording of James Baldwin singing “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.”

Click on any of those links to read a transcript of their presentations on the PEN website.