Read the excerpt from Notes of a Native Son. A few hours after my father's funeral, while he lay in state in the undertaker's chapel, a race riot broke out in Harlem. On the morning of the 3rd of August, we drove my father to the graveyard through a wilderness of smashed plate glass. Baldwin describes a personal event taking place amid a race riot to symbolize his detachment from the racial prejudice existing in society. o emphasize his amazement with the events taking place around him. symbolize the destructive impact racial prejudice has on individual lives. o emphasize the contrast between his father's experiences and his own.