When compared to Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin may not be the most recognizable Civil Rights activist, but he kept the flame of the Civil Rights Movement burning with his work on racial issues at the time, and eventually made him, “one of the leading voices in the Civil Rights Movement” (”James Baldwin Biography”). His essays, short stories, poems, novels, and screenplays broke all sorts of barriers on racial issues at the time. Like many other African-Americans of his time, Baldwin was racially harassed throughout most of his life, but he chose to release his frustration towards this discrimination on paper. His hatred towards this segregation of races became so great, that he left the United States and found shelter in
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Two step-brothers, Roy and John, are sitting on the fire escape on their Harlem apartment. Roy, the mischievous younger brother, is planning to go to a rockpile across the street where the neighborhood kids play. John worries that their mother may get mad, since she prohibited him from going there. As John sits on the fire escape and Roy is playing on the rockpile, John notices that Roy has been hit by a tin can and has fallen to the ground. John runs to his mother, Elizabeth, and notifies her of the situation. Elizabeth and her friend, Sister McCandless, rush over to the rockpile and bring Roy back to the apartment. The two women dress Roy’s wound and begin to interrogate John, asking John why he would let his brother run off into such a dangerous place. Sister McCandless warns John of what his father, Gabriel, will do to John when hears about what happened. As Sister McCandless is leaving, she catches Gabriel on his way home from work, and informs him of what happened. James Baldwin makes it very clear that Roy is Gabriel’s favorite child, as he begins to pamper him when Gabriel gets home. Gabriel turns to Elizabeth and begins to blame her for this mess, but later turns on John. Before Gabriel can do anything to John, Elizabeth steps in to defend the innocent child. She blames Gabriel for spoiling Gabriel and making him disobedient, and Gabriel then turns to her with a face of, “hatred so deep as to become insupportable in its lack of personality”, which ends up scaring Elizabeth (Baldwin 480). This short story by James Baldwin does not focus on racism or racial issues, it focuses on a dysfunctional family living in a lousy neighborhood. Violence in Harlem is a theme that seems to stick out, whether it be on the rockpile or at home. The violence on the rockpile seems to be very straightforward, “They fought on the rockpile. Sure footed, dangerous, and reckless,
Two step-brothers, Roy and John, are sitting on the fire escape on their Harlem apartment. Roy, the mischievous younger brother, is planning to go to a rockpile across the street where the neighborhood kids play. John worries that their mother may get mad, since she prohibited him from going there. As John sits on the fire escape and Roy is playing on the rockpile, John notices that Roy has been hit by a tin can and has fallen to the ground. John runs to his mother, Elizabeth, and notifies her of the situation. Elizabeth and her friend, Sister McCandless, rush over to the rockpile and bring Roy back to the apartment. The two women dress Roy’s wound and begin to interrogate John, asking John why he would let his brother run off into such a dangerous place. Sister McCandless warns John of what his father, Gabriel, will do to John when hears about what happened. As Sister McCandless is leaving, she catches Gabriel on his way home from work, and informs him of what happened. James Baldwin makes it very clear that Roy is Gabriel’s favorite child, as he begins to pamper him when Gabriel gets home. Gabriel turns to Elizabeth and begins to blame her for this mess, but later turns on John. Before Gabriel can do anything to John, Elizabeth steps in to defend the innocent child. She blames Gabriel for spoiling Gabriel and making him disobedient, and Gabriel then turns to her with a face of, “hatred so deep as to become insupportable in its lack of personality”, which ends up scaring Elizabeth (Baldwin 480). This short story by James Baldwin does not focus on racism or racial issues, it focuses on a dysfunctional family living in a lousy neighborhood. Violence in Harlem is a theme that seems to stick out, whether it be on the rockpile or at home. The violence on the rockpile seems to be very straightforward, “They fought on the rockpile. Sure footed, dangerous, and reckless,