Notes of a Native Son Lesson Plan

What strikes you as important or unusual about Baldwin’s use of pronouns in “Many Thousands Gone”? What is the effect of these pronouns on you as a modern reader? How do you think these pronouns would have affected readers when this essay was first published, and why?

Students will note that Baldwin uses we/us/our pronouns to refer to adherents to and insider members of dominant American culture—most often white people—while he uses they/them/their pronouns to refer to "Negroes." Students may speculate on why Baldwin structures the essay this way. Is he attempting to make his message more directly accessible and immediate to white readers? Does he consider himself a...