Take This Hammer is a 1964 American documentary film produced and directed by KQED (TV)'s Richard O. Moore for National Educational Television in 1963.
It features KQED's mobile film unit following author and activist James Baldwin in the spring of 1963, as he is driven around San Francisco to meet with members of the local African American community.
He is escorted by Youth For Service's executive director Orville Luster and trying to establish: "The real situation of Negroes in the city, as opposed to the image San Francisco would like to present."
A 16mm film print featuring Moore's original edit (59 minutes long) was identified in the KQED Film Collection at the San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive in June 2013 which contained 15 minutes of extra footage, mostly featuring scenes of African American youth speaking with Baldwin about their lives and the police, on the streets of San Francisco.
[4] On February 5, 2014, there was a free public screening of Take this Hammer (the director's cut) at the Bayview Opera House on Third Street in San Francisco, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the film's first television broadcast.
[6] In March and April 2014 sound editor John Nutt digitally restored the film's optical soundtrack, to improve the audio quality for long term preservation.