The James Baldwin documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” opens this weekend at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center. Directed by Haitian-born Raoul Peck, it illumines the remarkably powerful thinking about American racism of the famous essayist, novelist, playwright, poet, and activist.

For those unfamiliar with this mid-20th century thinker, author, and speaker, he is best known for his nonfiction books, “Notes of a Native Son” and “The Fire Next Time,” and his novels “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and “Giovanni’s Room.” Born in Harlem in 1924, he grew up an ardent fan of Hollywood movies, and has described how he watched John Wayne cowboy movies, shocked to eventually realize he was an outsider like the Indians slaughtered in the films. Nevertheless, a white teacher inspired him not to hate whites, despite the discrimination he and other blacks experienced.

The film is not “about” James Baldwin so much as it serves as his own document, and he is appropriately credited as its writer. It is based primarily on “Remember This House,” a never-completed memoir on Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcom X, begun in 1979. Baldwin was friends with all three, and planned to examine race in American society through their lives and assassinations. The title of “I Am Not Your Negro” expresses Baldwin’s belief that use of the term “Negro” by whites acts as a derogatory form of exclusion, when he — and by extension all blacks — is as much an American as any white person. Using Samuel L. Jackson as Baldwin’s voice, director Peck combines his writings and letters with images that illustrate Baldwin’s ideas and act as a dialogue with them. Baldwin’s prophetic work about race in America is as relevant today as when it was written in the Fifties and Sixties — particularly in the current political climate.

Like Baldwin’s ideas, the Oscar-nominated “I Am Not Your Negro” is a challenging and complex film, with such a wealth of ideas that it merits numerous viewings. The director doesn’t use talking-head interviews with friends, family members, and experts, common in most documentaries. As well as footage from the civil rights movement in the Fifties and Sixties, he includes images from the more recent Ferguson, Mo., protests after the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown, and the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., by a vigilante. Clips from many movies — including “Pillow Talk” with Doris Day, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” with Sidney Poitier, and “In the Heat of the Night” with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger — illustrate the complacent ways whites present themselves and stereotype blacks in popular culture.

Escaping from the discrimination rife at the time, Baldwin moved to France in 1948, returning in 1957 after learning about a young black girl surrounded by hostile whites as she entered her integrated school. He decided it was time to take part in the civil rights movement. Eloquent in both his writing and speeches, Baldwin refused to be defined by whites.

One flaw of “I Am Not Your Negro” is its neglect of Baldwin’s gay sexuality. He did not hide his sexual orientation, and he became one of the first American authors to write about aspects of the issue, including in his novels “Giovanni’s Room” and “Another Country.”

After years of neglect, Baldwin and his work have found renewed interest. Former President Barak Obama quoted him in a speech last September; the annual James Baldwin Review began publication in 2015; and 2014 was declared the Year of James Baldwin by the Columbia School of Arts, Harlem Stage, and New York Live Arts. He serves as the preeminent voice of African Americans as part of American culture and society.

For information and tickets for this and other Film Center films, see mvfilmsociety.com.