Baldwin–Buckley debate

On February 18, 1965, James Baldwin argued at the Cambridge Union in England for the motion that the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro, with William F. Buckley Jr. opposing. Baldwin's speech is the reason to listen: a novelist's account of what it does to a Black child to grow up inside a country's story, summed up in the boy who cheers Gary Cooper shooting Indians and then realizes the Indians are him. The students voted overwhelmingly for Baldwin's side; accounts give the count as 540 to 160 or 544 to 164. The BBC filmed the speeches by both men in full, so each can be heard at length and judged on his own terms, which makes it a rare chance to hear the case argued against an opponent.