Racism In James Baldwin's Notes Of A Native Son

James Baldwin is an activist and writer that was born and raised in Harlem that stood for equality within the black community. Baldwin is the grandson of a former slave and was the oldest of nine children where he grew up in poverty. At the age of fourteen, he discovered his passion for writing and reading by his hobby was going to libraries. As year He published his first book in 1955 known as Notes of a Native Son. The novel Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin displays a collection of essays of where he critiques racism and examines the culture of Blacks in White America. In addition, James Baldwin adds in his perspective and personal experiences when dealing with racism. The book is divided into three parts. Part one consists of three
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This also gives the audience an understanding of his past with the relationship of father between the time he was alive and past.The novel then continues to start off with part one. In part one, James Baldwin touches on his first essay with title “Everybody’s Protest Novel”. Baldwin examines Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s as he describes it as “cornerstone of American social protest fiction”. Baldwin describes this novel (Uncle Tom’s Cabin) as it describes the life of the slaves and the daily life on a plantation. The infliction that slaves suffered. But Mrs. Stowe never mentions why did white owner did this to slaves and continue to do this as a brutal.(PG 14) Baldwin points out that Mrs.Stowe only mentions three other slaves, but leaves out other slaves from that the endured suffering from the plantation. This makes the audience questions what else happened to others and as if she is hiding other things during the time of enslavement (16). In addition, she viewed whites as pure but African American as Blacks were evil (17). James Baldwin questioned that was Christianity created racial aggression with from a stand a point of white (18). On Page 21…. Discusses that Blacks begged to clean their sins as to becoming whitened and
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He begins to bring in his personal experiences as he faces racism within America with the intro into part two. The title of, “The Harlem Ghetto” depicts Harlem of being claustrophobic and being an expensive place to live at. Baldwin switches his topic of the location of Harlem towards Negro leaders. James Baldwin describes Negro leaders as they try to help their communities, but they do not attack the bigger issues within the Black communities. Baldwin then acknowledges that they majority of leaders cannot make it into congress due to racism. He also tackles on the newspaper such as Amsterdam that is located in the black community such as seeing that it only shows rape, murder, and other types of violence. The next title “Journey to Atlanta”, goes more into depth as James Baldwin explains how the Progressive Party is not welcome in the community of Harlem. However, Baldwin describes the reason why Blacks hate politicians due to “they have been best trained to expect nothing from them; more than other Americans, they are always aware of the enormous gap between election promises and their daily lives (73).” Moreover, Baldwin transitions to jazz band located in Harlem called The Melodeers who were invited by the Progressive Party to sing in the south, Atlanta. As arriving in Atlanta, they have found that the politicians were using the group of jazz singers as a method to win non-white