Look around, sisters and brothers, the Global Village arrived while we were out to lunch or napping through re-runs of starving children on the death channel. Look inward to the Great Spirit and know that the reality of human nature has been—and will always be—universal. Black Like Me means Human Like Us.
John Howard Griffin and Black Like Me
John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) received the following awards for his humanitarian work: The Journey Into Shame series in Sepia magazine was recognized in 1960 by the National Council of Negro Women; the annual Ainsfield-Wolf Award from Saturday Review went to Black Like Me in 1962; Griffin shared the Pacem in Terris Award with President John F. Kennedy in 1963; he received the Christian Culture Award from Assumption University of Windsor, Ontario in 1968; and in 1980 he was given the Kenneth David Kaunda Award for Humanism from the Pan African Association.
Black Like Me has remained available in English since being published in 1961. It has been translated into 16 languages, selling over 12 million copies worldwide. It was first published by Houghton Mifflin in cloth, then reprinted in 1962 as a Signet mass paperback from New American Library. Houghton Mifflin published a second cloth edition that included Griffin’s “Epilogue” in 1976 and Signet/Penguin issued a new paperback in 1977. In 1996, a 35th Anniversary Edition appeared (with an Afterword by Robert Bonazzi); and in 2009 Penguin published a 50th Anniversary Edition (with a new Afterword by Bonazzi).
The first Wings Press publication of the Griffin Estate Edition of Black Like Me appeared in 2004, the first cloth edition since 1976. The second printing of 2006 includes the first index to the American classic. This Ebook is based on the 2006 edition, but with a revised Afterword and updated Notes.
Notes
The following notes on the works and authors cited in the Afterword, in order of their first appearance:
The Mohandas Gandhi’s quote is from Gandhi on Non-Violence (edited by Thomas Merton, New Directions, 1965); Ralph Ellison’s quote is from Invisible Man (Random House, 1952).
“The Intrinsic Other” was written in French in 1996 and anthologized in Building Peace (edited by Dominique Pire). Its first US publication was in The John Howard Griffin Reader (edited by Bradford Daniel, Houghton Mifflin, 1968). The essay was reprinted in Encounters With the Other: A Personal Journey (edited by Robert Bonazzi, Latitudes Press, 1997); that edition also included a personal essay by Griffin on Chief John Vutha.
Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision (Orbis Books, 2004) was published 40 years after it was written. Several chapters had appeared in The John Howard Griffin Reader.
Griffin’s Handbook for Darkness was produced by the Lighthouse for the Blind in 1949, both as an English-language text and in a Braille edition.
The Devil Rides Outside was published by Smiths, Inc. of Fort Worth, Texas in 1952. It was an alternate selection of the Book of the Month Club. The 1954 paperback from Pocket Books was banned in Detroit. It was submitted as a test case and adjudicated as “not pornographic” by the United States Supreme Court in a landmark case (Butler v. Michigan) in 1957. This case established the precedent that no book could be censored merely on the basis of “objectionable” words or passages, but had to be considered in terms of its entire text.
Nuni, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1956. Street of the Seven Angels was published by Wings Press in 2003, 40 years after Griffin had completed it.
“Racist Sins of Christians” was first published in 1963 by Sign magazine as a cover story; it was reprinted in The John Howard Griffin Reader.
“Dialogue with Father August Thompson” first appeared in Ramparts magazine as a cover story in 1963; it was reprinted in The John Howard Griffin Reader and Encounters With the Other: A Personal Journey.
Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was written in April 1963 in response to a statement by eight white Alabama clergymen, calling for a cessation to the civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham. The text has been reprinted in 40 languages since.
Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America was written by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton (Knopf, 1967).
The Church and the Black Man included Griffin’s texts and photographs, a manifesto by the Black Priests Caucus, and a diskette with speeches by Reverend Albert B. Cleage and Father James Groppi (Pflaum, 1969). A French edition by Brouwer appeared in 1970.
A Time To Be Human was published in 1977 by Macmillan (US/ Canada), and by Collier in the UK that same year.
Acknowledgments
Heartfelt thanks to those who have contributed to this ongoing project: Especially to Don Rutledge, whose Black Like Me photographs are included in Light: The Photojournalism of Don Rutledge (Baptist History and Heritage Society/Field Publishing, 2006), and to the late Studs Terkel, who interviewed Griffin five times and wrote of him in American Dreams: Lost and Found (Pantheon, 1980).
Continued appreciation to the four children of Elizabeth Griffin-Bonazzi (1935-2000) and John Howard Griffin, for they are the Griffin Estate: Susan, John, Gregory and Amanda; also to Barry Griffin for his efforts toward making a new feature film about Griffin’s life.
Deep thanks to friends Daniel L. Robertson, Michael Power and Paul Christensen for textual insights; to Brother Patrick Hart and Father August Thompson, for spiritual support; and to Joanna Marston Co-Director of the Rosica Colin Agency for intelligent guidance.
Thanks also to new friends: Morgan Atkinson, a filmmaker at work on the first Griffin documentary; to editor Rudolf F. Rau for sharp editorial suggestions; and to Kamala Platt for creating the first-ever index to this American classic.
Long term appreciation to Robert Ellsberg, editor and publisher of Orbis Books, for directing Griffin volumes into print—Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision (2004) and Follow the Ecstasy: The Hermitage Years of Thomas Merton (1993)—and for editing Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me (1997).
Last but not least, Bryce Milligan, publisher of Wings Press, who has designed several versions of Black Like Me, as well as editions of Griffin’s novel, Street of the Seven Angels in 2003, and Available Light: Exile in Mexico in 2008. Without my old poet- friend, these last two titles would never have seen the light of day.
Index
Note: Pages cited refer to the printed edition, not to the ebook.
A
Alabama 96–131
Birmingham bombing 189
Mobile 85, 95–103
Montgomery 107, 118, 121–27
Selma 119–20, 189
Alinski, Saul (see Civil Rights Movement leaders)
American Dream 144
Atlanta, Georgia 131–32, 134, 139, 142
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 141, 189
Atlanta Negro Voters League 144
B
Baldwin, James 224
Black history 204 (see also Negro)
Black Power 226–28, and
Black Liberation Movement 227
Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America 226, 237
Carmichael, Stokely (Kwame Turé) and Charles V. Hamilton (authors) 226–27, 237
Griffin as ally-observer 196
Bonazzi, Robert 213–238
(Man in the Mirror) 149, 156
Boyle, Sarah Patton 182, 185
C
Carmichael, Stokely (see Black Power)
Carver, George Washington 127
Catholic church 20–21, 31–33, 51, 220–22
(on race) 56, 58–59, 225 and
Griffin’s protection of 163, 225
Griffin’s The Church and the Black Man 226, 237
Jesuits 82
Jude, St. 38
Merton, Thomas 225, 237
New Orleans 33
Murphy, Father J. Stanley 225
Thompson, Father August 225
Trappists 135–38
censorship of books 229–30
charity
St. Augustine on 96
> Mohandas Gandhi on 226
Chicago 204, 225, children (and racism) 13, 14, 79, 82, 93–96, 110, 112–15, 173–74, (Bonazzi, 216, 229)
citizenship (denied Blacks) 122
second class 46
civil disobedience 226–228
Civil Rights Bill (of 1964) 189, 226
Civil Rights Movement leaders (see also Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Alinski, Saul 205
Cleage, Albert (Black theologian) 207–08, 225, 227
Davis, A.L. Reverend 33
Farmer, James 194, 205
Gregory, Dick 185–86, 191, 194–195
Groppi, Father James 205
Wilkins, Roy 194, 205
Young, Whitney 185, 194
Coates, Paul 160–61
Creole 7, 20
cultural stereotypes 215, 217, 231, 234
D
Davis, A.L. Reverend 33
debt (in the South) 109, 204
desegregation, bus 23, 54 (see also segregation)
despair 197
dignity 24, 121
(and food) 28–29, 111, 152
discrimination (also see prejudice) and
“alienating souls” 225
buses 51–53, 131–34 (see also desegregation)
cabs 65
check-cashing 50–51
food 7, 28–31, 86, 107–08, (“white meal”) 124
housing 20, 191–92
individualism 47
internalized 43
job 39, 41–42, 101, 190
military men and lack of 54 (soldiers’ responsibilities 122)
parks 44–45
press 190
restaurants 43–44, 46–47, 86, 100, 107–08, 124,
restrooms 20–21, 24, 46–47, 61–63, 86–87 (as sanctuary from, 133)
The South 125 (and The North) 162, 224–25
taxes, 76, 122, and beach privileges denied 84, 190
voting 80–81
water 26, 31
distance (between races) 124–25, 174–75
Dryades St. (see Louisianna, New Orleans)
E
East, P. D. (see press) economic injustice 41–42, 190
effigy 154, 167–68, 223
Eighth Generation, The 115
Ellison, Ralph (Invisible Man) 213, (censorship of, 229), 237
ethnicity 57–58
fairness and
Mayor Morrison 17
Mayor Hartsfield 144
Farmer, James (see Civil Rights Movement leaders)
F
FBI 6, 48, 63
fear 12–13, 37, 66, 73, 121–24, 186–87, 213, 225 and
courage to die in civil rights struggle 185–86
Griffin’s own 215
“knee-knocking courage” 186
“self-power” 105
white fear of “intermingling” 122
rumor-mongering 197–99
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (see press)
For Men of Good Will (Robert Guste, New Orleans priest) 82, 137
G
Gandhi, Mohandas 121, 213, 226, 237
Garroway, Dave (see press)
Geismar, Maxwell 74
Georgia 133
Atlanta 131–32, 134, 139, 142
Griffin, Governor of 133
Global Village 234
Golden, Harry (see press)
Gregory, Dick (see Civil Rights Movement leaders)
Griffin, Elizabeth Holland (wife) v, 5, 69, 120, 148, 221–22, 238
Griffin, John Howard and
Army Air Force 219–20
“Beyond Otherness” 233, 234
blindness 6–7 (Handbook forDarkness) 221–22, 226 (Scattered Shadows) 221, 236
childhood and youth experience 217–218 (with Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit) 111
The Church and the Black Man 226, 229
Griffin, John Howard (continued)
The Devil Rides Outside 236 (and Supreme court case 221)
Encounters With the Other 236
France 217–219
Humanitarian awards 235
“The Intrinsic Other” 236
lectures 216
Negro Griffin 127
Nuni 221, 236
“Racist Sins of Christians” 225, 237
Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision 221, 236–37
Street of the Seven Angels 221
A Time to be Human 230, 237
writer recognized 34, 235
Groppi, Father James 205
H
Halsell, Grace (Soul Sister) 224
Hamer, Fannie Lou 228
Harding, Vincent and Rosemarie (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) 229, 237
Hattiesburg (see Mississippi)
hospitality, Black 97–99, 109–17
Hughes, Langston xi, 231
humor, 77, 112
gallows 73, 74
I
improvement
financing 141–42
housing 142–43
integration 226
J
Jackson, Adelle 5, 6
Jews xi, xiii, 73, 77
Johnson, President Lyndon B. (social justice, civil rights and redwoods 196)
Jones, Penn (Jr.) 160–61, 168
justice 223 (and peace 171)
Equal for all 211
Plato on 53
Southern (white man’s) 48–49, 75, 109, 131, 175
K
Kansas, Wichita 196–97
Kerner Commission 195
King, Coretta Scott 229
King, Martin Luther 121, 142, 144, 181–82, 185–86, 194–95, 201–05, 224–26, 229 (Beloved Community 230) (“Letter From A Birmingham Jail” 226, 238)
Kozol, Jonathan 216, 236
217
Ku Klux Klan 73, 129, 138, 140, 141, 187
L
Latin 56
Latin Americans 28
Lee, Harper 229
legalized injustice 76
Levitan, George 4, 6, 159, 163
Levy, Gladys and Harold 156
Lewis, Ted 155
lived experience 197 (blackness as 231–32)
loneliness 12, 15–18, 79
Louisiana
New Orleans 145–147 and Claiborne 45
French Quarter 10, 22, 24, 26, 31, 43, 70–71
inequalities 81
Lake Pontchartrain 54
Negro sections 8 (South
Rampart / Dryades St) 8, 9, 14, 20, 31, 35, 40, 43, 50
lynching
Parker case 47–49 63–64 (FBI 48, 63), (Pearl River Grand Jury 48, 64), (Griffin 223)
M
Mansfield (see Texas)
marijuana 56
Maritain, Jacques ix, 51, 96, 137–39, and Scholasticism and Politics, 137
Mays, Benjamin 135, 140–43, 189
McGill, Ralph 77. 140–41, 189
media (see press)
Merton, Thomas 225, 237
Mexico (Morelia as rufuge for Griffin’s family) 173, 223 (Mexican) xi
Miami Republican Convention 1968, 200–201
missionaries (Black) 119–20
Mississippi 49, 54, 59–60, 62-, 81
Biloxi 81, 84–96
Hattiesburg 51–52, 60, 64, 69, 72–79
Libertyville murder of Mr. Lewis Allen 186–87
Poplarsville 63–64
Mobile (see Alabama)
Montgomery (see Alabama)
Moral conversion 42
music 70–71, 145, 173
ballad (Mack Parker) 67
blues 55, 66–67
music (continued)
jazz 7, 67
jukebox 19, 66, 68
N
Negro (see also Black) white treatment toward 28
Negro cafés 20, 22, 26, 32–35, 38, 40, 100, 152, (drugstore 67)
Negro Civic leaders, 144
Alexander, T. M. (businessman) 134, 145
community indebtedness of 142
freedoms 75, 182
; Gayle, Mr. 33
McLendon, F. Earl 143
New Orleans leaders 33–34
Walden, A.T. (Attorney) 144
Williams, Reverend Samuel 144 “Negro-ness” 26, (as racist construction 42)
New Orleans (see Louisiana)
night as comfort xi, 231
nightmare (recurring) 117, 138
nonviolent resistance 117, 121, 138, 182 226, 228 and outside agitators 200
O
Other 215–17, 219, 221, 233–34
P
patriotism (distortions of) 79
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (see press)
prejudice 232–234 (see also discrimination and white supremacy) and art 47
beatings 66
Black discussion of/ attitudes on 9–10, 22, 26, 33, 40–43, 45–46, 63, 67–68, 201–208, 217
buses 21–22, 45–46, 61–63
communism 42, 43, 183, 200–01
courtesy 51, 151 (white 28, 33, 46) (Black 40)
dermatologist’s 9–11
education 41, 93–94, 115–16, 128, 141–143, 217–18
Black Like Me Page 23