• James Baldwin’s One Day, When I Was Lost: A
Scenario is based on Alex Haley’s The Autobiography
of Malcolm X. Read Haley’s book and
write a paper on the similarities and the differences
between these two works. What liberties
did Baldwin take? What characters did he change?
Did these changes strengthen or weaken Baldwin’s
work in your estimation?

• Baldwin worked with Columbia Pictures for a
while, in an attempt to turn One Day, When I was
Lost: A Scenario into a movie. Columbia became
impatient with him and asked Arnold Perl to
collaborate with Baldwin. The two men worked
on a script together that was later produced as the
documentary Malcolm X. Find a video copy of
this film (or substitute Spike Lee’s later film
by the same name, which was loosely based
on Baldwin’s work) and compare it to One
Day, When I Was Lost. Which did you find
more powerful? Make a presentation to your
class about the cinematographic techniques employed
in Baldwin’s work and those later used in
the documentary (or the film). Which do you
think was the most creative? Which told a better
story? Which made you empathize more with
Malcolm X?

• Research the history and development of the
Black Muslims. What was their approach to
improving the lives of African Americans? What
was their role in the Civil Rights Movement?
How did they affect African Americans? What
was their connection, if any, to Martin Luther
King, Jr.? The Black Panthers? Write a paper
about your findings.

• Baldwin wrote fiction and plays. However, it
was his nonfiction collections of essays that
earned him the reputation of a prophet. Read his
Fire Next Time (1963) in which he predicted that
American race relations were in danger of becoming
violent. Then, research the riots that
occurred throughout the late 1960s. Write a
paper about your findings. Do you think that
Baldwin correctly identified the causes of those
riots? Had people heeded his warnings, do you
think the riots could have been avoided? Conclude
with your thoughts about the future of race
relations in the United States. Have they improved?
Or do conditions continue to exist that
could cause future riots?