Black Like Me

2 Pages 473 Words

Black Like Me

John Howard Griffin, the author and main character of Black Like Me, is a middle-aged white man living in Mansfield, Texas in 1959. Griffin decides to take a radical step: he decides to undergo medical treatment to change the color of his skin and temporarily become a black man. After securing the support of his wife and of George Levitan, the editor of a black oriented magazine called Sepia which will fund Griffin's experience in return for an article about it, Griffin sets out for New Orleans to begin his life as a black man. He finds a person in the black community, he is a shoe shiner named Sterling Williams. Eventually, Griffin looks in the mirror and sees a black man looking back. He briefly panics, feeling that he has lost his identity, and then he sets out to go into the black community.
Griffin expects to find prejudice, segragation, and hardship, but he is shocked at the extent of it. Everywhere he goes he experiences difficulties and insults. He is often called a very strong word used in the south “nigger”. It is impossible for him to find a job, or even a restroom that blacks are allowed to use. After several horrendous days in New Orleans, Griffin decides to travel into the Deep South of Mississippi and Alabama. These states are known to be worse than New Orleans. In Mississippi, he is disheartened and exhausted, so he calls a white friend named P.D. East. East is a newspaperman who is opposed to racism. He spends a day with East, during the time they discuss the way racial prejudice has been incorporated into the South's legal code by bigoted writers and politicians. Eventually, a rejuvenated Griffin leaves for a long hitchhiking trip throughout Alabama and Mississippi.
Griffin, was again depressed and weary of life as a black man. He stops taking his medication and lightens his skin back to his normal color. He begins alternating back and forth between races, visiting a place first as a black...