James Baldwin in “I Am Not Your Negro.” (Bob Adelman/Magnolia Pictures via Associated Press)

There are a lot of powerful things about “I Am Not Your Negro,” Raoul Peck’s Academy Award-nominated documentary, which opens this weekend. The movie juxtaposes the pages Baldwin wrote for a never-finished project about Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X called “Remember This House” with footage and photographs from the civil rights movement and the beating of Rodney King as well as scenes from the contemporary struggle for criminal-justice reform. Without diminishing the political clarity of these juxtapositions, the element of “I Am Not Your Negro” that struck me most strongly was the way the movie presents Baldwin as a cultural critic and analyst.    Continue reading →