Hart has written literary essays, books on the study of language, and a soon-to-be-published biography of Richard Wright. In this essay, Hart examines Baldwin's portrayal of Malcolm X's search for a father figure in the screenplay.

Despite the fact that James Baldwin stated that he felt it was his duty to write the screenplay One Day, When I Was Lost: A Scenario as a writer and not an interpreter of Malcolm X's life, when the screenplay is compared to Alex Haley's Autobiography of Malcolm X (from which it was adapted), it is easy to point out incidents of Baldwin's use of poetic license. For this reason, this essay will examine Baldwin's screenplay not as a biography of Malcolm X but as a work of dramatic fiction, a work of Baldwin's creative intelligence.

Shortly after the opening moments of his screenplay, Baldwin develops a flashback to a scene...