Black Like Me

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451234219 ISBN 13: 9780451234216

Publisher: Berkley, 2010

THE HISTORY-MAKING CLASSIC ABOUT CROSSING THE COLOR LINE IN AMERICA'S SEGREGATED SOUTH

“One of the deepest, most penetrating documents yet set down on the racial question.”—Atlanta Journal & Constitution
 
In the Deep South of the 1950’s, a color line was etched in blood across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross that line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man.
 
What happened to John Howard Griffin—from the outside and within himself—as he made his way through the segregated Deep South is recorded in this searing work of nonfiction. His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity every American must read.
 
With an Epilogue by the author
and an Afterword by Robert Bonazzi

About the Author:

John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) is known internationally as the author of two novels, Nuni and The Devil Rides Outside, five books and monographs on racism in addition to Black Like Me, a biography of Thomas Merton, three collections of photography, a volume of journals, two historical works on Texas, a musicological study, and The John Howard Reader. Born in Dallas, Texas, and educated in France, he served in the U.S. Air Force in the South Pacific, where an injury he received during a Japanese bombardment eventually resulted in the complete loss of his sight. In the 1950's he converted to Catholicism, married, and raised a family. In 1957, (after ten years of blindness) he miraculously regained his sight.

From AudioFile:

In the late 1950s John Howard Griffin, a white man, artificially darkened his skin and took up the impossible task of masquerading as a black man in the Deep South. The book he wrote about his firsthand experience of racism galvanized America and ultimately led to death threats against him and his family. Delivering this compelling and incisive piece of investigative reporting, Ray Childs voices the thoughts of the blacks and whites Griffin encounters and becomes close to, or reviled by. Only the coldest of hearts could be unaffected by this story, told with dignity and warmth, conviction and steadfast honesty. Audiobooks like this can help heal wounds and open minds about racism, an issue our nation still struggles with. D.J.B. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine