WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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In San Francisco state, we realized that unique
local 16 millimeter news, film and documentaries

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produced in the Bay Area during typically
the social upheaval and change in the 1960's,

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which were nationally important, were being
either destroyed by local T.V.

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Stations.

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Don't want to neglect it because they have
neither the budget nor perhaps the interest

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to do the preservation work with them.

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We're trying to find the way of digitizing
the material in a sustainable fashion, and

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after a few experiments, we realized the only
way to do this was to digitize the material

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in house.

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This was the point when we applied for an
LSTA grant through the California State Library.

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And once we secured the grant, then we started
to re-master the collection and make it available

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online.

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One of our most popular films is a 1963 documentary
made by which is the local P.B.S.

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Station, it’s called 'Take This Hammer'.

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The writer James Baldwin was invited to come
to San Francisco to, as it were looked behind

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the cosmopolitan image of San Francisco at
that time, and to see whether or not racism

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was as embedded in San Francisco as it was
in the deep- south.

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And we managed to get in touch with the original
director who is still alive Richard Avedon.

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And we now have an additional add-on project
to the original, just digitized film and video.

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We interviewed him about the making of ‘Take
This Hammer’.

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So the film ends with a five minute monologue
by James Baldwin giving us his personal impressions

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of racism at that time in America.

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He is very dapper.

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He is wearing a bandana.

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He talks with a cigarette in his hand and
he seems very relaxed even though he's talking

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about a very serious subject.

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We learn from the interview with Richard which
will be straitened online soon that the crush

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around James Baldwin got so great towards
the end of the production that he couldn't

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go anywhere without 100's of people showing
up in cars and just having it in.

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And on this particular day, Richard called
his wife and he said that come and take James

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Baldwin back to my place for dinner.

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So James Baldwin was in their house and very
shortly they were surrounded by 100's of people

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who apparently eventually did get in.

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His wife as the and Richard tells it lot better
than I do, took James Baldwin upstairs, run

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him a bubble bath, put James Baldwin in the
bubble bath with a bottle of Johnny Walker's

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scotch and told him to relax.

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And after this he came down the stairs beautifully
quaffed and refreshed and sat down in a chair

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and gave them these 45 minute monologue which
they used in the film.

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Now, the contents of the monologue are important
because it's his reflection on racism.

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But getting that story, it makes it easier
for people to relate to the material itself.

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And with material with is two or even three
generations removed from modern day audiences

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especially children, I think it is important
to try and give them a frame of reference

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to give them a context from which they perhaps
can relate to the material which is the most

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important thing.
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