Black Like Me

Content Warning: This section of the study guide contains detailed discussions of racism. The source material includes outdated and offensive racial terms and slurs, which are reproduced in this guide only via quotations.

John Howard Griffin was born in 1920 and died in 1980. During his youth, he served in World War II and was honored for his bravery—a trait he carried through with him to his project in the South. Griffin became blind after being struck by a bomb in the South Pacific and did not regain his sight until 10 years later. He first visited New Orleans while he was blind, and returning to it with the ability to see was an inspiring experience for Griffin: “Every view was magical, whether it was a deserted, lamplit street corner or the neon hubbub of Royal Street” (11). Griffin decided to darken his skin and attempt to live as a Black man in the South after studying sociology and determining that something must be done to create understanding between Black and white people: “The Negro. The South. These are details. The real story is the universal one of men who destroy the souls and bodies of other men (and in the process destroy themselves) for reasons neither really understands” (5). Griffin’s narrative highlights both his compassion and his work ethic, as well as his desire to expose the true extent of the effects of segregation. Since Griffin’s opinions and actions stood in direct opposition to prevailing, racist attitudes of the time, his decision to undertake this experiment presented risks to his life. He risked his life again when he published his experiences.

While living in the South with dark skin, Griffin experiences discrimination and racism, which almost immediately affect his self-perception and his attitude toward white people, and makes him feel isolated and helpless. He quickly understands why someone who has endured a lifetime of such treatment might be inclined to give up, so when he encounters joy or hope among the Black people he meets, he finds it shocking and inspiring. Griffin believes that there is no logic to segregation laws and that they were only designed to make white people feel comfortable and to drive Black people out of the South. Through his multi-state journey, Griffin witnesses multiple real-life examples of this theory, particularly the needless distinction between Black and white restrooms and cafes that serves only to inconvenience Black patrons. When Griffin is threatened or treated as inferior, he does not fight back, unwilling to risk a serious conflict and not wanting to draw undue attention to himself. Through the people he meets and the sheer lack of justice he witnesses, Griffin’s own identity begins to change. He feels a sense of shame and a distance from his former self. Additionally, Griffin’s opinion of white people in the South changes, as he once viewed them as inherently decent and kind but now understands not only the indecency, but also the inhumanity of racism: “You feel lost, sick at heart before such unmasked hatred […] because it shows humans in such an inhuman light. You see […] something so obscene the very obscenity of it (rather than its threat) terrifies you” (53). By the time his skin returns to its natural color, he feels like someone else and undeserving of the privileges that he once took for granted. Griffin thus decides to publish his story to share it with the world, and it continues to be an important contribution to the body of literature surrounding civil rights and race relations.