Journey To America By James Baldwin Sparknotes

Karen Bautista

Mr. Johnson

AP Lang

5 March 2023

James Baldwin Study

PRÉCIS FOR “AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES” (Rough Draft due 2/23/23 @ 11:59PM)

James Baldwin, popularly known for writing about cultural issues from his personal experience, wrote essays, novels, plays, and poems; his writing “Autobiographical Notes” (1955) reveals his personal experience growing up in America and the difficulties he faced being an African American and a novelist: “I had written about the Spanish revolution won some sort of prize… I remember the story was censored by the lady editor” (Baldwin 3). Baldwin adds that the problem with African American writers is that their hardships are widely written about: “the bookshelves groan under the weight of information, and

Analyzing Baldwin’s retelling of his brother David’s story, there is no resentment or hostility in his wording, it was unexpected for the quartet to be treated like canvassers but they were not perplexed by the situation and rather just acted along, which supported Baldwin expressing African American being accustomed to that treatment finally explaining, “if the Negro vote is so easily bought and sold, it is because it has been treated with so little respect” (Baldwin 77). African Americans do not enjoy this treatment but have grown a habit to foresee it and not being surprised by it; David’s story shared that the quartet was upset about not being able to play at their promised locations but regardless continued canvassing for the Progressive Party who strictly only paid for their essentials; “The quartet, meanwhile, had gotten together six dollars doing odd jobs, which was enough, perhaps, for three of them to eat on the road” (Balwin 86). Although Baldwin and the Melodeers laugh about the trip to Atlanta, understanding now the relationship between both politicians and African Americans, it is clear they just got accustomed to the

Baldwin recounts his father’s death as it was the birthdate of his father’s youngest child and his birthday; however his father and him hardly had any relationship to which he now regrets, he shares how he now understands his father: “I had had the time to become aware of the meaning of all my father’s bitter warning, had discovered the secret if his proudly pursed lips and rigid carriage: I had discovered the weight if white people in the world” (Baldwin 90). Baldwin develops this idea by describing his estranged relationship with his father and contributing his conflicting attitude to his growing paranoia using an instance where he warned him about his kind white teacher and friends: “Some of them could be nice, he admitted, but none of them were to be trusted and most of them were not even nice” (Baldwin 94). He implies his fathers death to be a result of the restrictions and limitations African Americans faced and how stereotypes dictated the way they were perceived which made Baldwin’s father paranoid;