Black Like Me
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Black Like Me is a non-fiction book written by caucasian journalist John Howard Griffin about his experiences passing as a black man in the segregated South in 1959. To effect the ruse, Griffin underwent skin treatments to darken his skin. Griffin was transformed by the change in skin tone to the point that people he met as a white man did not recognize him.
•John Howard Griffin (1920-1980). •White writer. •Born in Dallas, Texas, on June 16, 1920. •Completed studies in French and literature at the University of Poitiers, •Studied medicine at the École de Médecine. •Beginning at age nineteen, he worked as a medic in the French Resistance army. •He served thirty-nine months in the United States Army Air Corps in the South Seas. He was decorated for bravery and was disabled in the fighting during World War II. •He lost his sight from 1946 until 1957. During his twelve years of blindness he wrote five novels (three unpublished) and began a journal in 1950 that had reached twenty volumes at the time of his death. ----------------------------------------------------------------- •Griffin's books include The Devil Rides Outside (1952) + •Nuni (1956) + •Land of the High Sky (1959) + •The Church and the Black Man (1969) + •A Time to be Human (1977) + •He wrote several books on Thomas Merton ----------------------------------------------------------------- •Because 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 the racial situations and pass legislature.
•He was middle aged and living in Mansfield, Texas at the time of publication in 1960. •Since communication between the white and African American races did not exist, neither race really knew what it was like for the other. Due to this, Griffin felt the only way to know the truth was to become a black man and travel through the South. His trip was financed by the internationally distributed Negro magazine Sepia in exchange for the right to print excerpts from the finished product. After three weeks in the Deep South as a black man •John Howard 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 reaction of those he knew prior his experonce the book was published and released.