Summary

“Notes of a Native Son” is a reflection Baldwin wrote on his relationship with his own father he wrote 12 years after his father’s death in 1943. Baldwin’s father died on the same day that his last child was born. The day of his funeral was not only Baldwin’s 19th birthday, but the day of a violent race riot in Harlem.

Baldwin did not know his father well because his father was not the sort of person to know anyone well. Baldwin describes his father’s inability to connect with others, especially his children. Though his father’s bitterness had been inexplicable to Baldwin throughout his childhood, by the time his father died, Baldwin had been living on his own for a year and had learned first-hand about the racism that had embittered his father.

His father had nine...