All of Harlem, indeed, seemed to be infected by waiting. I had never before known it to be so violently still. Racial tensions throughout this country were exacerbated during the early years of the war, partly because the labor market brought together hundreds of thousands of ill-prepared people and partly because Negro soldiers, regardless of where they were born, received their military training in the south.
Took place partly during the harlem renaissance
Racism was Baldwin's central theme;
apparently this essay was written during segregation/discrimination time
And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true.
Write whatever is in your heart, disregarding the physical appearance of ones color, see what's there to offer mentally and emotionally.
So will my page be colored that I write? Being me, it will not be white. But it will be a part of you, instructor. You are white— yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. That’s American. Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that’s true! As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me— although you’re older—and white— and somewhat more free.
Even though the author is colored, and the reader is possibly caucasian, and they want no parts of each other, at the time period of this, he's offering that they at least learn something influential from each other.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races.
Even though he seems to act and like the same things as other people, preferably white, do, he is still not seen the same simply for his skin color, making him different.
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
He's trying to describe his emotions as simple as possible. Is it that simple? No, it is not, for a colored man during such discriminatory times, even during the Harlem renaissance.
I am the only colored student in my class.
Goes to show the possible discrimination probably going on at this time
I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
He's a colored man during the Harlem Renaissance, and even through such a creative and artistic time and growth for colored people, discrimination was still going on, so he wonders if things are as simple as they seem to the public, that its simply just being a "young colored man"