Baldwin paints a vivid recollection of his time growing up with a paranoid father who was dying of tuberculosis, and his initial experience with Jim Crow style segregation. Prior to his father 's death, Baldwin was befriended by a white teacher whom his father disapproved of. Later he worked in New Jersey and was often turned down in segregated places -- Baldwin recalls a time he hurled a cup half full of water at a waitress in a diner only to realize his actions could have dire consequences. He goes on to say that blacks participating in military service in the South often got abused. Finally, he recounts his father 's death which occurred just before his mother gave birth to one of his sisters; his father 's funeral was on his 19th birthday and the Harlem Riot of 1943. This essay is an attempt to do away with the hatred and despair he feels towards his father.
what takes place on the narrator's 19th birthday notes of a native son
his father 's funeral