Left v. Right: Baldwin & Buckley, 1965

[Valley Oak]

James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)

Historic debate between James Baldwin v. William F. Buckley Jr. at Cambridge University on the question: "Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?"

[Mayacaman]

I watched this. Thank you, Edward for posting it. What a contrast between the speakers ! James Baldwin, I remember from my childhood – the Winter of ’54-’55 we spent in Chicago in the coldwater flat on Dorchester Avenue in Hyde Park. I remember one of the books that my mother was reading at the time, “Go Tell It On The Mountain.” She had the first edition with the dust jacket.

James Baldwin in this debate was articulate, sensitive, reasoned, compassionate, and wise in comparison to the strutting, arrogant, bombastic, chauvinist William F. Buckley, whose bizarre body language says it all. What a poseur ! Strutting and preening like an arrogant rooster.

Buckley probably expected to be given a similar standing ovation to the applause that Baldwin received. He was playing for and anticipating the approval of the folks he fully expected to be the current carriers of all the ancient racial and class prejudices of the privileged classes in Britain.

But no, the young men of Cambridge didn’t go for it. It was 1965, and they were a little more advanced than all that. I found the whole footage of this debate fascinating - the formal structure of the Debate; the faces of the earnest young men of Cambridge; the atmosphere in the Cambridge Debating Hall.

Still, I question the use of the phrase “left vs. right” to describe what went on here, Edward. So much more was at stake: race, class, white chauvinism, honor, clashing concepts of human dignity, social justice, and the notion of “progress” itself in American social relations. Left vs. Right is a binary, one-dimensional way of describing anything. There are many more categories in the mix.

James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)

Historic debate between James Baldwin v. William F. Buckley Jr. at Cambridge University on the question: "Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?"