Peck relates how he first read Baldwin as a teenager, along with writers Aimé Césaire, Jacques Stephen Alexis, and Richard Wright. He says these writers gave him a sense of context in his own life as an immigrant from Haiti, site of the world’s first successful slave revolution in 1804. The Haitian Revolution has historically been erased, however, and Peck writes, that “the dominant story was not the true story” (ix). This context was also important to Peck when his family moved to Brooklyn, where he believed in “the myth of a single and unique America” (x).

Peck recounts meeting Gloria Baldwin Karefa-Smart, James Baldwin’s younger sister, while doing research for the film project. Four years into considering the project, Gloria gave Raoul a packet of letters called “Notes Toward Remembering This House”—Baldwin’s unfinished book. Peck thanks her and acknowledges the project would be impossible without her generosity.

Peck discusses how he approached the project. He used Baldwin’s notes, letters, manuscripts, speeches, and books to create a draft of the unfinished book. He acknowledges this process sometimes entailed combining multiple drafts of Baldwin’s writing and correcting minor errors and typos, but he says he did his best to preserve Baldwin's work.