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Fifth Avenue Uptown Summary

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James Baldwin “Fifth Avenue, Uptown” (rpt, in Santi V. Buscemi and Charlotte Smith, 75 Readings Plus, 10th ed. [New York: McGraw Hill 2013] (49-52) tells a story about Harlem, a neighborhood he once lived and a neighborhood he watched experience a rollercoaster-ride. His story shows his deep connection with the neighborhood because he has the ability to share every detail about the place he once lived. It creates a very vivid image of a bittersweet experience for him. At first Baldwin shows a guanine connection with his city. Baldwin describes his neighborhood as a friendly place, he made it seem as if it was best place to live. Baldwin describes the people on his block as family “All along the street there are people who watched me grow up, people who grew …show more content…

They felt segregated because they live in a completely different world and they were only noticed because they did the work the white man wouldn’t. some had plans of establishing a separate economy while others went along with the flow of working and coming back to the projects. “they struggle to instill in their children some private sense of honor or dignity which will help the child survive” (51) it was important to some not to crumble under the suffering of their situation but to strive and make a better path for their children. “they must struggle, stolidly, incessantly, to keep this sense alive in themselves, in spite of the insults, the indifference, and the cruelty they are certain to encounter in their working day” (51) despite all the struggles these people had to endure, some of them kept strong because that’s the only thing they had to make their life worthwhile. Harlem is still full hard working people that still do the work of the white man. Hard has travelled down from those who instilled it into the cities

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