From the library of DeWitt Clinton High School, guests examined racism in America and the rise of the civil rights movement through the life and writings of social critic James Baldwin. Dr. Kelley is an authority on the history of the civil rights movement. Dr. Leeming, a close personal friend of James Baldwin, published James Baldwin: A Biography in 1994. Dr. Washington talked about the social and political forces that shaped Baldwin and other black writers in his book The Ideologies of African American Literature.
During the period between 1955 and 1965, individuals and civil rights organizations challenged segregation and discrimination with a variety of activities, including protest marches, boycotts, and refusal to abide by segregation laws. Baldwin was continually conscious of the hypocrisies and injustices in the world around him and, as a writer, made his readers aware of the state of American race relations.