DEBATE: BALDWIN VS. BUCKLEY Comes to Wilton’s Music Hall
This is a verbatim staging of the 1965 James Baldwin vs William F. Buckley Jr. debate
By: Stephi Wild Dec. 08, 2025
A verbatim staging of the 1965 James Baldwin vs William F. Buckley Jr. debate, “Is The American Dream At The Expense Of The American Negro?”, will return to the London stage following UK and US tours. Broadcast live on the BBC from The Cambridge Union Society, the debate between Baldwin — an African American writer, activist, and leading literary voice of the civil rights movement — and William F. Buckley Jr., America’s most prominent conservative intellectual, became one of the most influential debates in race relations in America. Two deeply opposed thinkers confronted one another with passion and conviction, but also within the discipline of civility, reason, and public discourse. Their exchange, recreated in Debate: Balwin Vs Buckley, laid bare the deep divisions at the heart of American democracy that continue to shape present day.
Debate: Balwin Vs Buckley is presented by the Brooklyn-based arts organisation the american vicarious, following UK and US tours, and a London premiere at Stone Nest in 2023. In January 2026, the company will present the London premiere of Our America Queen at Bridewell Theatre, examining the real-life historical figure Kate Chase, the most influential woman in 19thcentury politics. Earlier this year, the company premiered the genre-defying Fight for America! at Stone Nest, a large-scale participatory art installation and tactical tabletop wargame exploring the events of January 6, 2021.
Writer and director Christopher McElroen said, ““We started work on Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley in 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and we’ve toured it continuously ever since — the questions it raises refuse to age, even now, sixty years on. Returning to London, following its premiere here in 2023, we’re reminded that the dynamics Baldwin confronted — the politics of othering and the struggle over who is fully recognized in a society — remain as relevant in the UK as they are in the US. That is why the debate remains timely. And why, sadly, it remains necessary.”
The debate took place when Baldwin was visiting the UK to promote his third novel and requested to address to the chamber at Cambridge Union Society. He agreed to take part in a debate, and Buckley was invited from where he was holidaying in Europe. Over the course of the evening, the proposition was debated by the two men alongside student members of the society, then voted on with Baldwin winning by a landslide 544 to 164. The debate was broadcast live over the BBC and rebroadcast on stations across America. It occurred at an important time for the civil rights movement, just three days before the assassination of Malcolm X.
Founded in 2018, the american vicarious is a Brooklyn-based non-profit arts organisation led by Artistic Director Christopher McElroen and Producing Director Erica Laird. They collaborate with artists, designers, writers, and communities to create work that is both socially urgent and artistically rigorous. Their productions have reached audiences in over 20 cities across 12 countries — in theaters, galleries, and public spaces — each time reshaping the relationship between art and audience. The name the american vicarious reflects both their subject and their method: to stand in another’s place, to witness, and to reflect America back to itself — fractured, resilient, contradictory, and unfinished.
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