In November of 1971, fifteen months after his remarkable conversation with Margaret Meadabout race and identity, James Baldwin sat down with another extraordinary woman, the poet Nikki Giovanni, for another conversation of astonishing timeliness today. The event was hosted by the PBS television series SOUL! and took place in London. Baldwin was forty-six and Giovanni only twenty-eight. For hours of absolute presence, intellectual communion, and occasional respectful rebuttal, they explored justice, freedom, morality, and what it means to be an empowered human being. The transcript was eventually published as A Dialogue

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