"I Am Not Your Negro " – Worksheet

Exercise: The Essay Film "I Am Not Your Negro"

Subjects: German, English from Senior Classes

a) Watch the first 17 minutes of the film Zum externen Inhalt: I Am Not Your Negro (öffnet im neuen Tab). Write down the cinematic devices with which director Raoul Peck works to make this essay film. Discuss the effect of these cinematic devices.

b) Summarize how James Baldwin remembers his early experiences of the movies.

c) Watch the sequence again. Analyze the portrayal of African-American people in the movie excerpts shown. Bearing this in mind, interpret the sentence: “I understood that: my countrymen were my enemy.”

d) Carry out research into James Baldwin’s biography and his importance as a director and essayist. Use the article Zum Inhalt: At the Movies with James Baldwin as a starting point for your research.

e) Now watch the Zum externen Inhalt: full film (öffnet im neuen Tab). Write down key words and the names of important characters. Then compare your results and complete your lists if necessary.

f) Conduct research into the biographies of key figures such as Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, jr., Malcolm X and Trayvon Martin, along with the significance of places such as Selma and Ferguson.

g) The British newspaper Zum externen Inhalt: The Guardian (öffnet im neuen Tab) described "I Am Not Your Negro" as “one of the best films about the US civil rights movement.”

Form small groups and design a poster that will make the significance of "I Am Not Your Negro" clear to fellow students who are not familiar with the film. In the process, make use of the results of Exercises a), d), e) and f). Make the poster.

h) Present the results of your work by means of a gallery walk.