Finished reading "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by African-American writer James Baldwin. Published in 1953, it is Baldwin's first novel and it's semi-autobiographical. It focuses on the 14th birthday of a black boy in Harlem. His father, who is actually his step father unknowing to him, gives him a brutal belting on his special day. His step father is sexton of a small church whose worshipers are African American.
This novel is set in Jim Crow USA, a period of racial segregation and intense persecution of blacks by white people. All the characters in the story are affected negatively in that environment. But they maintain strong Christian faith and hope for betterment.