Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son

This essay is bookended by a discussion on The Complexities of Identity.  When Baldwin left the United States, he sought the opportunity to develop his identity as a writer—one that was independent of his race or status as an American. However, he discovered that his arrival on European soil solidified his identity as an American. Everywhere he went, he felt galvanized as both an American and a Black man. For Baldwin, these identities were not mutually exclusive.

Visiting the South gave Baldwin a new sense of what those identities mean and how they interact with one another. The writer was struck by the familiarity of the Southern landscape and social order. His first day in the South reminded him that he was in no position to look down on Southern life; the problems of the North were just as prevalent, if only more hidden, as the problems in the deep American South. Baldwin’s visit caused him to revisit The Importance of Self-Examination and Self-Knowledge and to understand that his identity as an American could not be separated from the situation in the South. At the end of the essay, Baldwin recognizes that the South is the visible manifestation of the problems of the North: “I did not say what I was thinking, that our troubles were the same trouble and that, unless we were very swift and honest, what is happening in the South today will be happening in the North tomorrow” (97).

The honesty Baldwin refers to is presented at the end of a conversation with a principal of a recently desegregated Southern school. Baldwin notes the way the principal contradicts himself repeatedly during the interview. Like many white people at the time, the principal was interested in equality so long as it did not interfere with his relatively happy and unbothered life. The principal failed to notice how his messages opposed one another or how his own actions might be contributing to the racial strife his students faced.

For example, the principal could not understand why Black families would want to send their students to a predominantly white school. He suggests that the education students receive in segregated schools is entirely equal which, as G.’s testimony asserts, was often not the case. White Colonialism and Racism rely on ignorance to perpetuate racist standards. The principal’s failure to examine the reality of the South’s educational system helps him to sit comfortably with his own choices.