Caucasian author John Howard Griffin had an interesting life. This novelist spent a decade as a blind man due to injuries sustained in military service during World War II. His sight mysteriously returned to him in the late 50s.
It was shortly thereafter that Griffin conducted an experiment. He wanted to experience what it would be like to live as a black man in the deep south. He would then report his findings in a series of magazine articles which later became a book. So treatments that included dye, medication, and fifteen hours a day under a sun lamp temporarily darkened his skin. Since his hair had no curl, Griffin shaved his head.
So Griffin traveled into the bastions of racism. He walked the streets of New Orleans, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Mobile, Alabama---among other places. And this was 1959; before civil rights and desegregation.
Griffin first walked New Orleans as a white man, but returning as a black man he found a definite contrast in the treatment he received, which depended upon his skin color. Proprietors who had previously offered smiles and friendly service were now rude.
As a black man, Griffin was denied the simplest common courtesies . While some proprietors were happy to take his money, they refused him a drink of water even when the faucet was within reach. Griffin would be referred to the nearest "colored" cafe, which it always seemed was at least 12 to 14 blocks away. Griffin would sometimes put white folks to the test. Consider this excerpt:
...I stopped at a little custard stand and bought a dish of ice cream...Behind the custard stand stood an old unpainted privy leaning badly to one side. I returned to the dispensing window of the stand.
"Yes sir," the white man said congenially. "You want something else?"
"Where's the nearest rest room I could use?" I asked.
He brushed his white, brimless cook's cap back and rubbed his forefinger against his sweaty forehead. "Let's see. You can go on up there to the bridge and then down the road to the left...and just follow that road. You'll come to a little settlement--there's some stores and gas stations there."
"How far is it?" I asked, pretending to be in greater discomfort than I actually was.
"Not far--thirteen, maybe fourteen blocks."
..."Isn't there anyplace closer?" I said, determined to see if he would offer me the use of the dilapidated outhouse, which certainly no human could degrade any more than time and the elements had.
His seamed face showed the concern and sympathy of one human being for another in a predicament every man understands. "I can't think of any..." he said slowly.
I glanced around the side toward the outhouse. "A chance of me running in there for a minute?"
"Nope," he said--clipped, final soft, as though he regretted it but could never permit such a thing. "I'm sorry." He turned away.
As a black man, Griffin experienced discrimination in the work force. Although highly educated, he was offered only menial labor employment. He worked with a shoe shine man in whom he confided his mission. Griffin experienced first hand the racial slurs, the "hate stares" even from white women coming out of church, and he endured physical threats. He rode on the back of the bus. One driver refused to let him off at his stop, forcing Griffin to walk eight blocks in the dark.
Griffin witnessed the plight of the "negro" (the book's usual term) who was kept oppressed by the white racist. He knew of white men who admittedly took sexual advantage of black women, confident that they would never be punished.
After several weeks as a black man, Griffin announced his findings to the world on TV talk shows and in his series of articles. Threats of death and bodily harm put stress on his family. His parents moved to Mexico to escape harassment.
Black Like Me is a quick and easy read. A person with any sense of justice will be outraged. Having lived in the south, for a time near the Mississippi line, I am assured that the book is in no way an exaggeration. While much has changed, not enough has changed.
The book has some crude and profane language, but an edited version would lack the necessary impact. I've just learned of a recent hardcover edition which restores deleted passages with photos by Don Rutledge of Griffin as a black man and of some locations where his experiment was conducted.