Black Like Me (Paperback)

~ (Author, Afterword), Robert Bonazzi (Author), (Author), Robert Bonazzi (Author) "For years the idea had haunted me, and that night it returned more insistently than ever..." (more)
Key Phrases: black male child, hate stare, New Orleans, Martin Luther King, Dick Gregory (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Griffin's (The Devil Rides Outside) mid-century classic on race brilliantly withstands both the test of time and translation to audio format. Concerned by the lack of communication between the races and wondering what "adjustments and discriminations" he would face as a Negro in the Deep South, the late author, a journalist and self-described "specialist in race issues," left behind his privileged life as a Southern white man to step into the body of a stranger. In 1959, Griffin headed to New Orleans, darkened his skin and immersed himself in black society, then traveled to several states until he could no longer stand the racism, segregation and degrading living conditions. Griffin imparts the hopelessness and despair he felt while executing his social experiment, and professional narrator Childs renders this recounting even more immediate and emotional with his heartfelt delivery and skillful use of accents. The CD package includes an epilogue on social progress, written in 1976 by the author, making it suitable for both the classroom and for personal enlightenment.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up-John Howard Griffin's groundbreaking and controversial novel about his experiences as a white man who transforms himself with the aid of medication and dye in order to experience firsthand the life of a black man living in the Deep South in the late 1950s is a mesmerizing tale of the ultimate sociological experiment. Ray Childs' narration is both straightforward and deeply satisfying. A skilled reader, he incorporates different dialects to help listeners distinguish among the various characters. His ability to convey a full spectrum of emotions, including exhilaration, bone deep sadness, and gut wrenching fear is riveting. Equally fascinating is Childs' description of how Griffin's unheard of approach to studying racial discrimination changed his personal life and ignited a storm of argument and discussion around the nation. This recording deserves a place in every public library collection.
Cindy Lombardo, Tuscarawas County Public Library, New Philadelphia, OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Signet; 35th anniversary edition (November 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451192036
• ISBN-13: 978-0451192035
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (167 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #24,297 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

116 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unforgettable look at the worst of the Deep South, May 7, 2000

By	Mike Christie (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As I write this review I have my old copy of Black Like Me in front of me. It's a Panther paperback, printed in 1964, bought by my parents, and found by my sister and myself on their shelves a few years later. I can still remember the shock when I read this, at the age of perhaps eleven, at realizing just how inhuman people could be because of something as seemingly trivial as skin colour.

Griffin spent a little over a month--parts of November and December, 1959--with his skin artificially darkened by medication. In that time he traveled through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, finding out at first hand what it is like to be treated as a second-class citizen--or, as he says, as a tenth-class citizen. Everyone now know the story of the big injustices, the lynchings, the civil rights cases, and for most people those are now just another page in the history text book. Griffin's experiences take the daily evils of racism and thrust them in your face, just as they were thrust in his--the rudeness of the clerk when he tried to pay for a train ticket with a big bill; the difficulty he had in finding someone who would cash a traveler's check for a Negro; the bus-driver who wouldn't let any blacks off the bus to use the restrooms; the white man who followed him at night and threatened to mug him.

I've heard people worry that this is the white experience of racism: that whites can read this book and feel good because a white person felt the pain too. I'm white, so I don't know that I can judge that argument completely impartially, but I can tell you that this book profoundly shaped my views on racism, and that any book that can do what this book did for me is a book that is good to have around.

One more thing. I've said a lot about how powerful, and how influential the book is. I should add that it is also a gripping story. Though Griffin only spends a month with dark skin, by the time you finish the book it feels like an eternity.

A wonderful read, and a truly amazing story.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Most Important Landmark Works in History, October 9, 2001

By	mwreview "mwreview" (Northern California, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

John Howard Griffin offered one of the most important contributions to the Civil Rights movement when his work Black Like Me was published in 1960. Griffin approached his study on race relations in the South by asking a very poignant question: "If a white man became a Negro in the Deep South, what adjustments would he have to make?." To answer this question, Griffin shaved his head and had his skin temporarily darkened by medical treatments and stain in order to travel through parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia as a black man.

Griffin had a deep understanding of discrimination even before he began this ambitious project. As a medic in the French Resistance Army, Griffin helped evacuate Austrian Jews away from the advancing Nazis. During the Second World War, Griffin lost his sight and was forced to live with this disability for over ten years. By 1959, Griffin was a published author and a specialist on race relations. Despite such credentials Griffin "really knew nothing of the Negro's real problem." Only by becoming black did Griffin understand what it was like to live as a second class citizen in "the land of the free."
As a black man, Griffin described the variations and similarities of race relations in different areas of the South. Although some states were more "enlightened" than others, blatant acts of racism were found almost everywhere Griffin went.

In Alabama, where Martin Luther King first introduced passive resistance, Griffin endured the hate stares from whites and observed that even graduates from Tuskegee Institute would not be allowed to climb the social ladder in the South because, "whites cannot lose to a traditionally servant class." Finally, while traveling to the otherwise enlightened city of Atlanta, the simple act of a bus driver saying "Watch your step" as his passengers filed out was only reserved for whites.

Even more interesting than these experiences was the way in which Griffin was allowed to converse with blacks and whites on racial matters. Understandably, blacks were highly suspicious of whites and were often inclined to play "the stereo-typed role of the 'good Negro'" when around whites to survive in white southern society. As a "black" man, Griffin enjoyed a rare glimpse of how blacks really regarded segregation beyond the white propaganda. He also discovered the ways in which blacks assisted and supported each other against the perils of racism. In other cases, Griffin observed blacks who were ashamed of their race and who would denounce other blacks for their darker skin or shabby clothes. As a "black" man, Griffin also saw a side of whites that would otherwise be hidden if he had met them as a fellow white man. His experiences with whites while hitchhiking through Mississippi are particularly intriguing.

Despite his experiences, Griffin was surprisingly fair in his analysis. While the reader may despise the hate-filled whites in his story, Griffin did not stoop to the racist's level by denying them their humanity. Instead, Griffin made it a point to see the whites in other roles-as a parent, grandparent, church leader, and loyal neighbor. He also realized that whites who may have been sympathetic towards their African American neighbors, were pressured by southern society to continue segregation. In his epilogue, Griffin was even critical of fellow white freedom fighters who often failed to consult with black community leaders on the race issue.

Griffin's work was a landmark for his time, but weaknesses in his study were present. Griffin visited the larger cities of the South; however, a comparison of race relations between the major cities and the countryside may have created a more complete study as would a visit to other states in the South. A better explanation was needed regarding Griffin's practice of alternating his role as a black man and a white man by scrubbing the stain off his skin. At first, the reader may assume that the author could no longer handle the discrimination and longed to enter the South as a first class citizen again. Later, Griffin maintained that he was studying how the reactions of blacks and whites reversed themselves as he changed his skin color. Both reasons are valid; however, if a need to be white again was the primary explanation than an important point was made: An educated and worldly white man could barely survive in six weeks what a black person must endure every moment of his life.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To walk in another man's mocassins, May 25, 2004

By	Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

It is said one cannot understand or empathize with someone else unless "you walk a mile in their mocassins." John Howard Griffin did just that, darkened his skin and took a walk into the Deep South to see how it would feel to be a member of a despised minority during 1959, the height of the Jim Crow years, when water fountains and rest rooms were separate for the races, when a black man or woman couldn't eat in a restaurant or get a hotel room. (It is said Bessie Smith, the great blues singer, died after a car accident because she couldn't be treated at a nearby hospital, for whites only.)

The book is of course dated, but it is unique in that it is a viewpoint that is undeniably credible. Here is a white guy, saying: "It happened to me, just because my skin was dark. Believe it." He suffers the indignity of finding everyday tasks that become almost insurmountable--to find a restroom, a bus seat, a park bench, someplace to eat, to be left alone with out fear of harrassment. And it's this harrassment and outright fear that changes Griffin to the point he had to finally abandon his project. He was changed by it.

The question I have is what would someone who chose Griffin's experiment find today? While Jim Crow is gone, the cultures still have a gulf between them. And since today, you won't see the "whites only" sign on drinking fountains that I saw as a child traveling in the Deep South, you should be sure to read this to get perspective on our history and culture. This is a brave book.