James Baldwin’s “Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation”, immediately manifests a sense of distress and somewhat of a sense of urgency, a sort of plea to his nephew. He begins by stating that he has “begun this letter five times and torn it up five times” (7), clearly showing how uneasy it is for him to get his emotions in order and to write this letter. By writing this piece in the format of a letter, Baldwin allows himself a lot of breadth to be expressive, without having to abide by the structures of a formal doctrine or statement for example. The fact that Baldwin wrote this piece to his nephew makes it all the more personal, sentimental, and poignant (familial relationships are weighted much more strongly than relationships between two strangers). However, I do believe that this format was a disguise/tool for a much larger goal, as I’ll explain shortly.

Though it is directed to his nephew, I feel that Baldwin is making a statement for a much larger audience, whites and blacks included. He hopes to shed light and awareness about the racial discrimination that not only his nephew faces, but also the discrimination faced by the black people of that time. His nephew is just an instrument (or writing method) of showing this larger image: not only is his nephew affected by this racial discrimination, but so is the larger black race as a whole. Though he makes many nephew-specific statements, meaning that a lot of what he says is directed to his nephew, most of them can be applied to all blacks of that time in general. We see this, for example, when he underlines and delineates the “qualifications” of who may be affected by this discrimination. He says “You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason” (9). Anyone who is black (at that time) may be subject to the same kind of limited future that Baldwin speaks of.

I believe that Baldwin had a much larger goal in writing this piece. Though it may seem like Baldwin spoke specifically about his nephew’s case of racial discrimination, the reality is is that he wants to see change for everyone. He accomplishes this strategically by formatting it in a way (letter format) that would really tap into the emotive sides of any reader.