James Baldwin's No Name In The Street

James Baldwin was one of the most prolific African American writers of the 1960s and 1970s. With Baldwin being a “racial integrationist,” many of his works maintain a strong focus on themes of cultural identity and racial equality (Birmingham). In his autobiographical No Name in the Street (1972), Baldwin describes identitarian differences which serve to separate African Americans from everybody else. Part of what makes No Name in the Street noteworthy is the fact that it is nonfiction, narrated by Baldwin himself. Instead of simply taking the perspective of a sympathizer unaffected by racial hardship, Baldwin places himself in the context of his own existence, exposing and analyzing a potpourri of events that serve to define the lives of African

Baldwin describes his friend as being
“just another post-office worker… He could not afford to have suits in his closet which he didn’t wear, he couldn’t afford to throw suits away… And I was astounded that my friend would defend this particular racist folly… for his job at the post office” (13-19).
In describing his friend’s current life situation, with respect to both finances and work, Baldwin provides insight on his friend’s inclination to try to live a peaceful life. This sort of life brings little to no political involvement, but Baldwin seems to stress the idea that this inherently does nothing to improve any African American’s situation. Baldwin’s friend is not advocating the “racist folly,” per se, but in accepting it, he is implicitly supporting it. Baldwin uses pathos in demonstrating that his friend is accepting the system out of fear for losing his job and consequentially ending up in a worse, more difficult situation. At first glance, it would almost seem that his friend is trapped and has no way of improving his life. It is more than just this though. Baldwin’s friend does not even show any motivation to strive for racial equality. He has, in a sense, submitted to the system and is content with

Baldwin notes that they lead poverty-stricken, bare bones lives. With “four or five or six to a room, and they slept in shifts, they were treated like dirt, and they scraped such sustenance as they could off the filthy, unyielding Paris stones… they were not at home in Paris, no more at home than I” (24). Clearly, the racism and unfair treatment towards blacks are present in both France and the United States. The key difference though, Baldwin emphasizes, is personal willpower. He writes, “One day they were going home, and they knew exactly where home was. They, thus, held something within them which they would never surrender to France. But on my side of the ocean, or so it seemed to me then, we had surrendered everything, or had had everything taken away, and there was no place for us to go: we were home” (24). Les