James Baldwin said, “Your suffering is your bridge…” This is a tiny clip of a conversation between a then 47-year-old James Baldwin and a then 28-year-old Nikki Giovanni on a PBS produced show about Black life called SOUL! Ellis Haizlip produced it; and this conversation was shot in London in 1971. Baldwin and Giovanni’s full conversation is nearly an hour long and is available on YouTube. This segment is about using one’s suffering as empathy.