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The Rockpile | Introduction

James Baldwin's ‘‘The Rockpile’’ was first published in 1965 in the author's first and only short-story collection, Going to Meet the Man. Critics believe that it may have been written much earlier, when Baldwin was working on his 1953 novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain. The short story draws on the same pool of characters from the novel, and the main incident in ‘‘The Rockpile’’ is similar to a scene from the novel. In ‘‘The Rockpile,’’ which takes place in Depression-era Harlem, John, the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Grimes, is unable to stop his brother, Roy, from getting into a fight on a rockpile with some other African-American boys. Roy gets hurt, and John gets blamed by his stepfather, although Elizabeth faces her husband and sticks up for John. When the story was first published in the 1960s, America was in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, in which Baldwin was an active participant. The story addresses the issue of violence between African-American men, the violence inherent in African-American families, and the power of religion in Depression-era Harlem. Most critics consider Baldwin's short stories inferior to his novels, which are in turn considered inferior to his essays. Baldwin's short stories contain many of the same themes he explores in other works and offer a portrait of the artist at various stages of his writing development. A current copy of the story can be found in the paperback version of Going to Meet the Man, which was published by Vintage Books in 1995.

The Rockpile Summary

"The Rockpile'' begins with a description of the natural rock formation that gives the story its title. The rockpile is located across the street from the apartment of John Grimes and his African-American family. John's half-brother, Roy, plays there sometimes and watches as other African-American boys fight on the rockpile . Elizabeth, John's and Roy's mother, has forbidden them to go near the rockpile, which does not bother John, who is afraid of it. John and Roy have a habit of sitting on their fire escape every Saturday and watching the church-members, whom they consider redeemed, and the others, whom they consider sinners, walk along the street. The neighborhood in which they live is filled with dangers, including the Harlem River, where a boy drowned once.

One Saturday, John and Roy are sitting on the fire... » Complete The Rockpile Summary