James Baldwin Research Paper

Throughout the entire essay, Baldwin’s rage seems to keep building up, specifically in the paragraphs where Baldwin is shown extreme prejudice. This is especially obvious when he walks into a diner with a friend to grab a bite to eat. The man at the counter rudely asks them what they want. Baldwin replies stridently that they want a hamburger and coffee. With this the man simply states that they do not serve Negroes. After a few more mocking comments Baldwin and his friend leave the diner. Baldwin simply went into another restaurant and sat down until the waitress came over (70). He describes his rage towards whites as he describes the waitress. He states, “I hated her for her white face, and for her great astounded, frightened eyes. I felt that if she found a black man so frightening I would make her fright worth-while” (71). The waitress, almost sounding apologetic, told him that Negroes were not served at this restaurant. This statement made Baldwin feel “colder and more murderous than ever” (71). He wanted to wrap his hands around her neck, and choke her. After realizing that she would never come close enough to do this Baldwin throws a water mug towards her head. The shattering of the mug snaps Baldwin out of his trance, and he sprints for the door (71-2). All of his pent up anger exploded.

Baldwin uses the experiences he faced in New Jersey and the personal relationship with his father to show ethos throughout his essay. At one point in his essay, Baldwin finds himself in New Jersey where segregation still exist. “I learned in New Jersey…one was never looked at but was simply at the mercy of the reflexes the color of one’s skin caused in other people” (68). Here Baldwin expresses how circumstances in New Jersey were like at the time, but also portrays the way people were viewed based on the color of their skin. Baldwin later goes on to mention the year he spent in New Jersey, was the year in which “[he] first contracted some dread, chronic disease” (70). This “disease” Baldwin contracted is not an actual disease, but more of a way in which he begins to feel and see the world around him differently. The disease Baldwin is referring to throughout his entire essay is bitterness. Living in New Jersey caused Baldwin to gain the sense of bitterness that his father had lived with during his life. Baldwin’s bitterness comes from the way he was specifically treated in New Jersey and how he allowed that feeling to affect his behaviors. Baldwin specifically mentions the moment in New Jersey where the white waitress approaches him at the restaurant stating, “We don’t serve Negroes here” (71). At this point we begin to see Baldwin as he acts out in violence by stating, “I wanted her to come close enough for me to get her neck

Baldwin, however, describes his father as being a very black-like “African tribal chieftain” (64) who was proud of his heritage despite the chains it locked upon him. He is shown to be one with good intentions, but one who never achieved the positive outcome intended. His ultimate downfall was his paranoia such that “the disease of his mind allowed the disease of his body to destroy him” (66). Baldwin relates the story of a white teacher with good intentions and his father’s objection to her involvement in their lives because of his lack of trust for any white woman. His father’s paranoia even extended to Baldwin’s white high school friends. These friends, although they could be kind, “would do anything to keep a Negro down” (68), and they believed that the “best thing to do was to have as little to do with them as possible” (68). Thus, Baldwin leaves the reader with the image of his father as an unreasonable man who struggled to blockade white America from his life and the lives of his children to the greatest extent of his power. Baldwin then turns his story to focus on his own experience in the world his father loathed and on his realization that he was very much like his father.

James Baldwin, an African American author, grew up in Harlem, New York. Baldwin had no one to share his love for literature with. Baldwin’s father was opposed of him following the literature career path James Baldwin however, did receive support from the mayor and his English teacher. Baldwin abandoned his parents home at the age of 17, to settle into

James Baldwin grew up in the slums of Harlem within a family dynamic that was less than ideal) Struggling to reconcile his adolescent feelings of inferiority, placed on him by his stepfather, Baldwin also dealt with the bigotry and hatred that existed between white and black Americans. Trudier Harris writes of Baldwin's adolescence by saying, "He had to find a way of reconciling bitter memories and hatred with the need to move forward into a healthy and hate-free future" (3). Baldwin managed to find solace, in part, within the realm of creative writing, and his excellent abilities helped him to gain entrance into the prestigious DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. David Leeming, in his biography of James Baldwin, explains that DeWitt Clinton had been the previous learning center of such notable names as Burt Lancaster, Paddy Chayefsky and Neil Simon (26). Baldwin's admission was certainly a personal coup and revealed an upward momentum in his own scholastic life that would be the basis for his astonishing success. His scholarly pursuits did not end with his graduation, but continued on with him to the streets of Paris, where as a

Some background information I found on James Baldwin was that he was born on 1924 and he died in the year 1987, James Baldwin was born in the Harlem district of New York City. James Baldwin the moved to Greenwich Village in New York. James Baldwin also met other authors, one of them was the author Richard Wright.

Robert Baldwin, lawyer, politician, workplace holder (b at royal house [Toronto] twelve could 1804; d at Yorkville [Toronto] nine Dec 1858). The eldest son of William Warren Baldwin was referred to as to the bar in 1825. Temperamentally and intellectually not like his precocious father, the shy, self-examining Henry M. Robert entered politics in 1829 as a Reformer, winning a seat within the Assembly during a by-election. Defeated the subsequent year he retired to personal life. Melancholic, withdrawn, tortured by doubts and demons, his life and happiness turned around his family and most importantly his spouse (they were married in 1827). Her death on eleven Jan 1836 shattered him showing emotion and will justify the severe depressive sickness that troubled him in later years. Despite his grief and a profound aversion for public life, he was motivated to just accept workplace as AN government council member the subsequent month by his Christian sense of duty.

James Baldwin was, in his own words, “Born in the church.” (Tackach) His step-father was a Pentecostal preacher, and at the age of 14 Baldwin became a junior Minister. However, he left the church at age seventeen after becoming disillusioned with Christianity. Baldwin was gay, and though homosexuality was heavily frowned upon by society as a whole at that time, the church was absolutely against it. “Baldwin’s youth was a time of great confusion, he admits, in no small part because of his Church’s teachings about sexuality” (Joseph).

Located in the Central San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County, Baldwin Park, California is home to the first In-N-Out burger stand. The fast food chain isn't the only thing to put Baldwin Park on the map. Try a walk through Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens and experience 120 acres of lush landscapes. The 626 Night Market in Baldwin Park is one of the largest Asian-themed markets in the United States and the city also boasts its own Drive in theater.

James Baldwin was a significant African American author who wrote novels, stories, essays and contributed a great deal to Black Literature and Art. He went through many trials in his lifetime, from dealing with issues regarding his family to questioning his identity being a black man when racism is at an all-time high, homosexual and also religious skepticism. Baldwin knew himself but he always had problems figuring out his identity. All of his novels that will be mentioned are all examples of him trying to work through the new odds of that identity. His novel “Go Tell It On a Mountain” paints a vivid picture of his life and his views about religion and family life in the black community. While “Sonny’s Blues” tells a story of brotherly love,

Style, language, structure, and technique all contribute to the understanding of any piece of literature. James Baldwin’s memoir, a type of autobiography recounts the emotional details of his father’s funeral. The overall theme shows how people may behave in a reckless manner in a lifetime, but a poison will take over and kill people. The theme also gives examples of how many people suffer while neighbors remain clueless and should not judge. Baldwin’s style and language, contribute to the understanding of the text because the adjectives capture the attention of the readers, and the long sentences reveal the tone and mood of the narrative.

Furthermore, Baldwin eventually started attending school at P.S. 24 (Public School 24) where he already felt stagnate about the teachers. Baldwin also attended Frederick Douglass Junior High where he met Countee Cullen, a French poet, who taught at the school. James Baldwin grew up in a religious family and at a young he found religion as a refuge. “Baldwin retreated into Christianity at the age of 14 and became a youth minister at the Fireside Pentecostal Assembly” (Bader 9). Factors from his emotional, physical, and sexual caused him to find that refuge. James Baldwin eventually attended De Witt Clinton High School, which started to get rid of his religious tendencies.

In Baldwin’s early life, he had to work hard and support his family. Born on August 2, 1924 in Harlem, New York, James Baldwin was born as the oldest child out of eight siblings (“About the Author”). All of his siblings were step brothers and sisters (Tackach). Baldwin helped raise his siblings for his mother, Emma Berdis Jones and his stepfather, David Baldwin. James did not know his biological father because his mother would not say anything related about his father. David Baldwin was a very harsh and religious stepfather to James (“About the Author”). His stepfather would verbally abuse him and call James an ugly child (“James Baldwin”). Even though his home life was not so good, James had a good education and attended Frederick Douglass Junior High School for the first two years of high school (Tackach). Then, he attended DeWitt Clinton High School in Bronx, New York for the next two years (“James Baldwin”). During his years of high school, he became a preacher at church from the ages of fourteen to eighteen (“About the

Mr. Baldwin tells his nephew how he is born into a land where African Americans are not treated equal, which ultimately will create obstacles for him in his future. He will need to work harder to thrive than any white man will have to for the same goals. “I know what the world has done to my brother… which I accuse my country and my countrymen and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, …destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not

Due to the town’s inaccessibility, a person with black skin had never set foot in this remote village before, so Baldwin became a spectacle of the town. The longer Baldwin stayed in the village, the more familiar the people became with him. However, in his eyes, Baldwin still felt like a “stranger.” This is evident