“Black Like Me”: 60+ years later
by Roslyn Mickens and Natalie Rozzell
John Howard Griffin, born in 1920, was an author and journalist from Texas. He attended a boarding school outside of the United States during his teenage years. In France and far from what he knew in the Southern U.S., he ate and socialized with black students for the first time. It was then, he realized he “...simply accepted the ‘customs’ of my region, which said that black people could not eat in the same room with us. It had never occurred to me to question it”, Griffin once wrote. Forward to the year 1959, he became curious about what it felt like to live as a Black man. He wanted to expose the differences in how Blacks and whites lived in America, especially in the Deep South. After discussing the idea with his editor, he decided to go ahead with the project and document his experiences. “How else except by becoming a Negro could a white man hope to learn the truth?” he wrote.
Griffin consulted his doctor to help him change the color of his skin to appear as if he were a Black man. He endured UV exposure and took medications while taking constant blood tests to assure the pills would not be too detrimental to his body. With a simple buzz cut hairstyle, shaved arms and hands, and careful not to change his voice or name, Griffin attempted to present himself as authentically as he could - as a Black man.
For a period of about a month or so, Griffin traveled to multiple cities in the South and intermingled with Black people. He noted the poverty and harsh conditions Blacks lived in, as well as the racism they experienced daily. Griffin personally was discriminated against multiple times for being a ‘Negro’ while trying to ride on buses, when trying to obtain employment, and for simply existing in areas where he was not wanted or allowed as a Black man. Whites would call him racial epithets, threaten him, and even ask inappropriate questions about Negro sex lives, for example. Moving weekly between the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and others, he mentioned that the outward hatred and “death glares” he would receive from whites were most daunting. Even though Griffin expected occasional poor treatment, he admits that he was not prepared for the disappointment, stress, and anguish that he felt in just the span of a few weeks as a ‘Negro’. After a few weeks, he could not take it anymore. Griffin ceased taking the skin-darkening medication and then re-assimilated back into the white areas of Montgomery, AL while making his way back home.
After Griffin released the book in 1961, many Southern whites were outraged. So much so that the author fled with his family to Mexico to keep safe against those who did not like how whites were portrayed in the book. The book ended up selling over 10 million copies and changed the way America saw itself and how the world saw the United States as well. As with today, many people back then chose to stay ignorant of the facts and history of how whites treated Blacks in this country. The spotlights Griffin shone on white behavior, America’s laws, and how Black people lived in the South in a pre-Civil Rights era evoked severe hate from other whites. The Klu Klux Klan even beat Griffin to within an inch of his life because of this exposé.
And now sixty-one years have passed since John Howard Griffin’s book “Black Like Me” was published. What has changed since then? The expectation of deferring to whites is not required as it was in the past, however the residue of old social norms and new ‘Jim Crow’ laws are still affecting Blacks in the South. Between the active movement to strip Blacks and others of their voting rights to injustice and police brutality, some Black people still find it difficult to achieve their full rights citizenship in the deep South and across the country. Black people cannot scrub the color from their skin, join the dominant society, and enjoy the privileges that come with being white like John Howard Griffin did. All we can do is continue to fight and advocate for our collective interests and needs. The teaching and documenting of our true history is one way to force America to acknowledge the mistakes of the past and begin the healing process. Once Americans acknowledge the history and accomplishments of Freedmen, we can be on the pathway for a better future. In parallel, passing a comprehensive federal reparations plan is also key. Economic equality starting with the closing of the racial wealth disparity is imperative to bringing Freedmen up and out of the remnants of Jim Crow and slavery in this country. In this non-fiction, intriguing racial transformation story, Griffin documents amazing discoveries about himself and both the Black and white communities. This book is sure to captivate the reader, as it flips perspectives and provides insight into how Jim Crow was and is a force to be reckoned with and should never be repeated or forgotten. The book gives Griffin the air of a full grown newborn as he learns the norms versus the racist stereotypes he learned as a White man. Hopefully it will encourage the reader to grow as well.
The best way to read this book would be either via audiobooks on Audible or a free public library app like Libby or Overdrive.
