Notes of a Native Son

“Stranger in the Village” was first published in Harper’s Magazine in October 1953. Baldwin spends time in a small, remote village up in the Swiss mountains. He was invited there by the son of a woman who owns a chalet in the village; and he has come there to write. The essay recounts some of his experiences with the villagers, whose reactions to having a Black man in their village for the first time range from benevolent curiosity to malevolent diffidence. The innocent Swiss children salute him with cries of Neger! Neger! as he walks along the streets. Baldwin acknowledges that, while this was shocking and unpleasant at first, he came to feel that this racism was different from what he was used to in America. The genuine wonder with which the Swiss villagers regarded him was not intended to be unkind—but it did connote that he was not human to them.

Baldwin discusses the local Catholic church custom of “buying” African natives for the purpose of converting them to Christianity. The church collects donations throughout the year for their missionaries in Africa, and during the annual carnival, village children dress in blackface to solicit donations from the villagers. This spurs Baldwin to consider what it must have been like for the African villagers to encounter the White missionaries for the first time.