Elijah Muhammad
- Religious leader
Depicts
The break between Muhammad and Malcolm X is what the script has to dramatise; Baldwin knew the material first-hand from the evening recounted in The Fire Next Time.
One Day When I Was Lost
The Malcolm X film Columbia Pictures hired James Baldwin to write and never made. He published the screenplay as a book instead.
- 1972
- 288
About James Baldwin
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeA film script, published as a book. Columbia Pictures brought Baldwin to Los Angeles in 1968 to adapt The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the 1965 book Malcolm X dictated to Alex Haley. The studio paired Baldwin with the screenwriter Arnold Perl, the script went through revisions Baldwin did not want, and he walked away. He printed his own version: Michael Joseph published it in London in 1972 and Dial Press in New York in 1973. No film was made from it in his lifetime.
The story, in more detail
It is written as a scenario rather than a treatment or a novel — numbered scenes, camera directions, dialogue. Baldwin follows Malcolm X from a Lansing childhood and his father's death through the Harlem hustling years, prison, the Nation of Islam, the break with Elijah Muhammad, Mecca, and the assassination at the Audubon Ballroom in February 1965.[1]
Baldwin had met Malcolm X and had debated him publicly. He also knew the material of the last section from his own reporting: The Fire Next Time, published two years before the assassination, contains his account of an evening at Elijah Muhammad's house.[1]
Arnold Perl died in 1971. The Baldwin and Perl draft survived, and when Spike Lee made Malcolm X in 1992 it was the basis he started from. The credited writers on that film are Arnold Perl and Spike Lee; Baldwin's estate asked for his name to be taken off.[1]
Baldwin wrote about the Hollywood years afterwards in The Devil Finds Work, which is the account of what the studio wanted and what he thought it was for.[1]
Themes and analysis
Learning behind the walls
In Mikko Tuhkanen's reading, Luther's prison advice turns time from something Malcolm endures into something he can deliberately use. That distinction gives the study pictured here a wider significance: education involves reorganizing a life, not simply collecting information. Yet the screenplay does not make discipline an uncomplicated answer. Its recurring watches connect self-command with other people's demands, and Malcolm later challenges the wealth his work has brought Luther. Learning becomes a beginning from which he can also question the person who first guided him.
A different kind of fellowship
Fellowship here can be read as a change in what Malcolm has time to notice. Tuhkanen connects the screenplay's overseas turn to the distance needed to reconsider assumptions formed in America. Betty recognizes that leaving has made a different view possible. The movement is therefore not simply from one fixed conviction to another: it creates room for reflection. Read beside that argument, the imagined gathering suggests an encounter that interrupts a ready-made division of people, allowing attention to precede judgment.
Why we recommend it
It is the version that lost
Most people know Malcolm X on film through Spike Lee. This is the script that came first and did not get made, by a writer who had argued with the man in person.
Baldwin in a form he never used again
No narrator, no essayist's voice, no paragraphs. Just scenes and dialogue, which makes it the fastest thing in his bibliography to read.
It pairs with The Devil Finds Work
That book is Baldwin explaining what happened in Hollywood. This is the object the argument is about.
What this book explores
Real people in this book
Malcolm X
- Activist
- Religious leader
- Author
Depicts
The scenario follows Malcolm X from a Lansing childhood through Harlem, prison, the Nation of Islam, Mecca, and the assassination at the Audubon Ballroom.
Timeline
1965
Malcolm X is assassinated in February; The Autobiography of Malcolm X, dictated to Alex Haley, is published later that year.
1968
Columbia Pictures hires Baldwin to adapt it and pairs him with the screenwriter Arnold Perl.
1972
Michael Joseph publishes the scenario in London after Baldwin leaves the project. Perl had died the year before.
1973
Dial Press publishes the American edition.
1992
Spike Lee's Malcolm X, built on the Baldwin and Perl draft, credits Perl and Lee. Baldwin's estate asks that his name be removed.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Michael Joseph
- 1972
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- The Dial Press
- 1973
- Paperback
- Vintage International
- 2007
- 9780307275943
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
The Devil Finds Work
Where Baldwin writes about the Hollywood years and this commission directly.
Read our take
No Name in the Street
The book from the same year, which covers the assassinations of the 1960s as he lived through them.
Read our take
The Fire Next Time
Contains his account of meeting Elijah Muhammad, the break the script has to dramatise.
Read our takeOne Day When I Was Lost: frequently asked questions
What is One Day When I Was Lost?
It is a film script by James Baldwin, adapting The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Columbia Pictures commissioned it in 1968 and never made the film. Baldwin published the screenplay as a book in 1972, and it is printed as a screenplay — numbered scenes, camera directions, dialogue.
Was the film ever made?
Not from this script. Spike Lee's Malcolm X came out in 1992 and used the draft Baldwin had written with Arnold Perl as its starting point, but the film went through further rewriting. Perl and Lee are the credited writers, and Baldwin's estate asked that his name be taken off.
Who was Arnold Perl?
A screenwriter Columbia assigned to work alongside Baldwin on the adaptation. His changes were among the reasons Baldwin abandoned the project. Perl died in 1971, a year before the scenario was published.
Did Baldwin know Malcolm X?
Yes. They met and debated publicly, and Baldwin wrote about the Nation of Islam from close range — The Fire Next Time, published in 1963, describes an evening he spent at Elijah Muhammad's house in Chicago.
Where does the title come from?
A gospel refrain: "One day when I was lost, He died upon the cross." Baldwin, who preached as a teenager, took most of his titles from scripture or from spirituals.
Is it worth reading if you don't read screenplays?
It is 288 pages of scenes and dialogue and goes quickly, but it was written to be filmed rather than read. If you want Baldwin on this period in his own voice, The Devil Finds Work is the book.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document One Day When I Was Lost, its publication, and its place in literary history.
2James Baldwin papers, 1936–1992 (Sc MG 936), finding aid
ArchiveSchomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public LibraryUsed forUsed for archival and bibliographic context surrounding One Day When I Was Lost within Baldwin's papers and career.
3Chicago Public Library — James Baldwin Biography
WebsiteUsed forUsed for independent biographical and publication context for One Day When I Was Lost.
4Baldwin in France
WebsiteNational Museum of African American History and CultureUsed forUsed to connect One Day When I Was Lost to Baldwin's transatlantic life and intellectual development.
5Baldwin, James Arthur
WebsiteThe Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford UniversityUsed forUsed to verify James Baldwin's bibliography and place One Day When I Was Lost within the broader chronology of James Baldwin's career.
6Watching Time: James Baldwin and Malcolm X
WebsiteJames Baldwin Review, volume 2, pp. 97–125, 2016Used forAttributed critical readings, pp. 103–107 and 114.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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