Black Like Me

Black Like Me is also a 1987 book by Jocelyn Emama Maximé.

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Black Like Me is a non-fiction book written by the white journalist John Howard Griffin about his experiences traveling as a black man in the segregated South in 1959. To effect the ruse, Griffin shaved his head and underwent skin treatments to darken his skin. Griffin was transformed by the change in skin tone so thoroughly that people he met as a white man did not recognize him during the time he spent as a black man, and vice versa. Griffin switched back and forth between races and skin tones more than once during his time in the South, sometimes while staying in the same area of a given town, in order to make direct comparisons of his racial experiences.

Related Topics:
White - Journalist - John Howard Griffin - Black - Segregated - South - 1959

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Because communication between the white and black races was particularly strained at the time of the book's writing, neither race really knew what life was like for the other. Griffin felt that the only way for a white man to know what blacks experienced was to become a black man and then travel through the South. His trip was financed by the internationally distributed magazine Sepia in exchange for the right to print excerpts from the finished product. After six weeks in the Deep South as a black man, Griffin produced a 188-page journal covering his transition into the black race, his travels and experiences in the South, the shift back into white society, and the reactions of those he knew prior to his experience. The journal was eventually published and released as a book.

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After the publication of Black Like Me, Griffin was personally vilified, hanged in effigy in his hometown, and threatened with death for the rest of his life. Griffin's courageous act and the book it generated earned him international respect as a human rights activist. After publication, he became a leading advocate in the Civil Rights Movement and did much to promote awareness of racial situations.

Related Topics:
Effigy - Human rights - Activist - Civil Rights Movement

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