A Home Run!

John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me was an incredible look into southern culture in the late 1950s. John bravely dyed his skin from white to black in an experiment to find out if racism against blacks was truly occurring in our country - and it certainly was!

Having heard consistently that men were no longer being judged by the color of their skin, but by their merits, Griffin endeavored to see if his experience and qualifications as a writer would give him a leg up both in the black community and when interacting with whites. Other than his skin color, Griffin didn't change any other aspect of himself. He didn't change the way he spoke and he told the truth about his profession, life and history when asked. However, as you can imagine, most whites did not care to look past the color of his skin and treated him with such disdain and disrespect that he feared for his life on countless occasions.

What Griffin went through as a black man for several months was only a taste of what blacks were going through then, and probably what some have continued to experience to this day. He was followed and verbally abused on the streets, denied the use of public facilities and water, and forced to sit at the back of the bus. And while some of this didn't surprise me, (I guess some of those childhood history lessons stuck with me!) I was completely shocked by what the white men who gave him rides while he was hitchhiking dared to ask and discuss. Not only were they curious about the sexuality of black people, but they were proud of forcing themselves on potential female black employees who wouldn't dare refuse them - "Not if they want to eat -- or feed their kids...if they don't put out, they don't get the job."

Outside of the hatred and mistrust Griffin felt from white people, the camaraderie and support he felt from his fellow blacks was incredible. The sense of community among perfect strangers seemed to be the largest source of positive energy for Griffin throughout his experience. He was shown hospitality and generosity by a man who took him in, despite the fact that he could barely feed his wife and six children in their small, two-room shanty. A porter at the bus station pointed him toward a room where he could sit to wait for the bus. And then, he met a man on the bus who pointed toward contacts to help him with a safe place to stay.

I truly enjoyed this book, despite the sick feeling I got in my stomach at times. John Howard Griffin was able to expose the existing racism from a perspective that no one else had ever attempted before. And from his experiment, he went on to try to help communities and our country as a whole, work through the horrible mindset that so many had. I highly recommend Black Like Me.