Raoul Peck Fights for Justice With His Movies
Notes from America with Kai Wright
WNYC Studios
4.4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 1 January 2024
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Raoul Peck became known for his filmmaking and fight for racial justice with the released of his Academy Award-nominated film I Am Not Your Negro which attempts to complete James Baldwin's unfinished book about the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Medgar Evers. It was followed by another documentary series, Exterminate All the Brutes. In his latest film, Silver Dollar Road, Peck completes his trilogy about the economic injustice Black people face worldwide.Silver Dollar Road closes the circle with a look at a modern-day family’s fight to keep the land they purchased soon after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Guest host, and Notes From America Executive Producer, André Robert Lee sits down with Raoul to discuss how he came across the story in his latest film, and why he feels compelled to make these movies today.
Plus, we hear how Assata Shakur Became one of America’s most wanted in 1973 when state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike pulled over her and two members of the Black Liberation Army. Tragically, guns were fired, people were killed, and in the aftermath, a political standoff between Shakur and state law enforcement began.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | How would you define freedom? |
| 0:03.0 | How do I define freedom? |
| 0:05.0 | To be able to be in my own body in any space at any time. |
| 0:09.0 | An extension of my ancestors, like what they didn't have for freedom I do wholeheartedly I multiply it to honor them |
| 0:17.2 | oh my gosh that's heavy as feeling like your obligation is to your own happiness and well-being. |
| 0:25.0 | As the ability to do what you want to do, but not in a way that would hurt somebody else. |
| 0:32.1 | For me, to dance, as to be said... in a way that would hurt somebody else for me to do |
| 0:33.2 | as to be accepted for who you truly are |
| 0:36.4 | and no one saying anything about it. |
| 0:38.5 | As a soul that is free from suffering, |
| 0:41.4 | as no limitations put upon a person, as being able to speak without permission. |
| 0:47.0 | It shouldn't be, can I? |
| 0:48.7 | It is what it is. |
| 0:49.7 | I woke up. I'm free. It's notes from America. I'm Kyi Wright. Welcome to the show. Raoul Peck has led quite the life. |
| 1:17.2 | He's been a global citizen from the Congo to Germany to the US. |
| 1:21.7 | He served as Minister of Culture for Haiti, which is his home country, and he has |
| 1:26.9 | made several films that challenge viewers to face hard truths about our societies. |
| 1:33.5 | In 2017, his documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, was nominated for an Academy Award. |
| 1:39.1 | The film is a lyrical journey into the mind of James Baldwin, and a book that Baldwin pitched to his editor but never actually wrote. |
| 1:47.0 | The film won widespread acclaim, but Raoul Peck sees it as part of a suite of documentary work in which he's exploring how injustice and |
| 1:58.0 | Frankly just cruelty in American history live in the present tense of people's lives. |
| 2:04.0 | This past fall, Peck released his latest film in that Loose collection, |
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