STRANGER IN THE VILLAGE

by James Baldwin

(1924-1987)

"From all available evidence no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came. I was told before arriving that I would probably be a "sight" for the village; I took this to mean that people of my complexion were rarely seen in Switzerland, and also that city people are always something of a "sight" outside of the city. It did not occur to me-possibly because I am an American-that there could be people anywhere who had never seen a Negro....

....This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again."

Stranger in the Village

Notes of a Native Son

review of Notes of a Native Son

"The American image of the Negro lives also in the Negro’s heart;
and when he has surrendered to this image life has no other possible reality."

“Many Thousands Gone”