In that documentary, filmed in 1960's, the same questions were asked that are often asked today. William Buckley asks Baldwin, "Why are negros so upset ? You are on TV commercials, movie leads, you hold positions in government. Isn't racism in the past."
That was before I was born. But in my lifetime the Tuskegee medical experiments were still being performed on black men. I witnessed a landlord ask my parents to pretend they were taking an apartment so that the blacks in the waiting area could be told it is no longer available. I had a young detective in Chicago privately disclose to me that as a cop he would just followed black people (if there were more than one in the car because the odds one of them might have a warrant would be higher) in his cop car until they committed a traffic violation. He used racial profiling so effectively that he became one of youngest detectives of all time.
In my college years the US government was selling highly addictive and destructive drugs in African American neighborhoods as a covert way to raise funds. But when that story broke it was pushed off the headlines because the Monica Lewinsky scandal was more important. The reporter who broke the story was so disheartened he killed himself.
And in just the past years we have seen too many snuff films and needless deaths.
Yet I still personally encounter people who claim African Americans haven't experienced racism in 100 years. And what are they complaining about, "they seem to be in most commercials these days and hold high positions in government, so racism must be in the past". Because why bother learning what the Black Lives Matter movement stood for when you can just snark "all lives matter". But if you were snark "Pro-life ? You mean you are a vegetarian ?", some of those same people would be so annoyed they would burn down an abortion clinic. But black people burning something, that anger they can't understand.
Will the U.S. ever come to terms with our racist past ? Will our future grandchildren be ruminating on these issues simply because many people keep casually dismissing the suffering of others.
As a side note, I am conflicted if general interest stories like this should be on HN as they are too emotionally charged.