Black Like Me

by John Howard Griffin

emotional 12–13, 212, 215

  employment 39, 41–42 (& education 42, 127) (see also job discrimination)

  School Board 144

  Griffin’s 211, 232

  harassment 35–38 (by police 45, by bus driver 45–46)

  hate stare 51–53, 66–68, 117, 118, 120, 122, 126, 216. 231 218

  prejudice (continued)

  “observing self ” of author 34, 67, 69, 215

  passing over 9, 13, 123–26

  skin color 10, 33–34, 179–180, 216, 225

  southern 217

  walking 39, 44–46, 151

  white women 21–22, 52, 60, 69, 124–25, 150

  press and

  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 140, 189

  Black Like Me reception 224, 229

  Black Press (not read by whites) 190

  Black Star 139

  Coates, Paul (T.V. interview) 160

  East, P.D. (white, liberal, newspaperman) 72–81 (and harassment 74–77, 187–189

  Fort Worth Star-Telegram 154, 166–68, 170

  Garroway, Dave 161–62, 223

  Golden, Harry 163

  Hall, Benn Sepia’s PR person 163

  Jackson, Adelle Mrs, (Sepia’s editorial director) 5–6

  Levitan, George (Sepia owner) 4–6, 159, 163

  Lewis, Ted (interview) 155

  Look (Ralph McGill - civil rights won misrepresentation 189)

  The Louisiana Weekly, Negro newspaper 48–49

  The Magnolia Jungle (P.D. East autobiography) 74, 77

  Newsweek 235

  The Petal Paper 74–77 (and citizens’ councils) 76

  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 235–36

  progressive newspaper men 140

  Radio-Television Française 165–66

  Ramparts (radical Catholic magazine) 225

  Reader’s Digest 34

  Rutledge, Dan, photographer q.v.

  Sepia international Negro magazine 4–6, 155, 223, 235–36

  Sign (mainstream Catholic monthly) 225

  press (continued)

  Southern attitudes 74–77

  Sprigle, Ray 235–36

  Terkel, Studs ix-x, 231, 239

  Time Magazine 161, 163, 235

  Wallace, Mike 155, 163–65, 224

  progressive intellectuals

  economists 142

  professors 206

  social sciences 42

  students 40, 189, 206, 216, 228

  Puerto Rican 11

  R

  racial epithets 33, 38, 46, 64, 67, 74, 77, 174

  racism, (see also discrimination, prejudice and white supremacy)

  Burke, Edmund on, 217

  institutionalized 42, 217, 228,

  in North 224–25

  on racial hatred 216

  reports and statistics on 159

  racists (religiocity of) 42, 138 (sexual perversions of 103–106)

  reverse racism as false analogy 227

  Rutledge, Don (photographer) 134, 144, 145, 238 (photo section 149–156)

  salaciousness and

  “democratic” 28

  rape 94, 103–05

  S

  salacious restroom notices 82–83 “verbal pornography” 87–95

  Savage Inequalities (Jonathan Kozol) 216, 236

  segregation 25, 44–45, 52–53, 171, 224 1954

  Decision 75

  buses 54

  Selma (see Alabama)

  sensuality (as escape 19)

  male perspective (and sex) 15, 114 “racial purity” 104 (and “race-mixing” 42–43) (see also salaciousness)

  sex

  as escape from racism 19, 47, 70

  false accusations toward anti-racists (woman “rap” against priests and indecent exposure) 183–185

  Smith, Lillian 183 (Strange Fruit) 111

  “southern traitors” 77 219

  “southern traitors” 77

  Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 227

  T

  terrorism 49

  Terkel, Studs (see press)

  Texas

  Dallas 6, 168–69, 217

  Fort Worth 4, 166–68

  Mansfield 148, 154, 161, 165, 167, 170, 221, 223

  Midlothian 168 “thinking white” 232

  Thompson, Fr. August 225

  Thoreau, Henry David 226

  threats against Griffin and family 169–71 (telephone) 161, 223

  Traitor, southern 76–77

  Turner, Decherd (see universities)

  Tuskegee Institute 127, 128, 131

  U

  universities

  Atlanta 143 (and Pres. Rufus E. Clement) 144

  Black 206 (and Black Press 190) Dillard 40, 45 (and Dean Sam Gandy 78–82)

  Morehouse 140

  Radcliffe (Justice Curtis Bok speech 171–172)

  Spelman 143, 145

  Southern Methodist University (Perkins School of Theology) 169 (Decherd Turner 168–70)

  Tuskegee 127–28 (and Carver, George Washington 127)

  V

  Vutha, John (Grand Chief of the Solomons) 219–20

  W

  Wallace, Mike (see press)

  Washington D.C., March 189, 201

  white supremacy 46–47, 140, 192- and alcohol 128–130

  arms 199–200

  anthropology 115

  Black solidarity and friendship as buffer against 18, 53, 63, 59

  Black unity 33

  democracy 49

  genocide 196, 200, (and sterilization 207)

  history of in Epilogue “What’s Happened Since Black Like Me” 179–208

  white supremacy (continued)

  hostility toward anti-racist whites 74–77, 167–73, 182–84

  interracial communication 190–95

  media 94

  mob rule 49

  paternalism 131

  Nazis 179, 219

  police raids 199–200

  racial violence 105–06

  racist poison 125

  religion 42, 74–75, 138, 224

  sawmill worker 109

  sexual attitudes 91–92, 103–06 (warnings 65–66)

  sexual morality constructions 115

  stereotypes (forced 180–81)

  (cultural 232)

  “trash element” 116

  truth and comfort 7

  violence as false accusation 195

  White Citizen’s Councils 76, 138, 140, 141

  white contempt 128–29

  white lag in understanding 205–06

  white misrepresentations of civil rights 189

  white “outsider” 84–85

  white proprietors 19, (cabs 65) white solicitation 103 (and democratic treatment 28) white youth 118, 119

  writing (paralysis 69)

  wife (see Elizabeth Holland Griffin)

  Williams, Sterling 10, 23–31, 46–50, 147, 152–53 and

  Negro women 39, 53, 236, 111 (widow 26–27)

  Williams, Dr. Samuel 144

  Wilkins, Roy (see Civil Rights Movement leaders)

  Y

  YMCA 31–33, 35, 39, 44, 134

  Young, Whitney (see Civil Rights Movement leaders)

  Colophon

  The Wings Press cloth edition of Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin, is printed on 70 pound non-acidic Arbor paper, containing fifty percent post-consumer recycled fiber, by Edwards Brothers, Inc. of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Text and interior titles were set in a contemporary version of Classic Bodoni, originally designed by the 18th century Italian typographer and punchcutter, Giambattista Bodoni, press director for the Duke of Parma. This edition of Black Like Me was designed by Bryce Milligan.

  Wings Press was founded in 1975 by J. Whitebird and Joseph F. Lomax as “an informal association of artists and cultural mythol- ogists dedicated to the preservation of the literature of the nation of Texas.” The publisher/ editor since 1995, Bryce Milligan, is honored to carry on and expand that mission to include the finest in American writing.

  Special
ebook added content:

  2006 brochure from

  Lewis & Clark College,

  Special Collections,

  celebrating the 45th anniversary

  of the publication of Black Like Me.

  Exhibit curated by Jerry Harp

  A Tribute to John Howard Griffin

  For the 45th Anniversary of Black Like Me

  An Exhibit at the Aubrey Watzek Library

  Lewis & Clark College

  Portland, Oregon

  January - April 2006

  Critical Praise for Black Like Me:

  Winner of the Saturday Review Anisfield-Wolfe Award, 1962

  Pacem in terris Award (shared with John F. Kennedy), 1963

  Christian Culture Gold Medal (Canada), 1966

  Pan African Association Award for Humanism, 1980

  - Cyril Connolly, Sunday Times of London

  Some actions are so absolutely simple and right that they amount to genius. Black Like Me was an act of genius on the part of Mr. Griffin.

  - Dan Wakefield, New York Times Book Review

  Griffin’s fully detailed journal of this odyssey is a brief, unsettling, and essential document of contemporary American life.

  - San Francisco Chronicle

  Black Like Me is essential reading as a basic text for study of this great contemporary social problem. It is a social document of the first order, providing material absolutely unavailable elsewhere with such authenticity that it cannot be dismissed.

  - New York Herald Tribune

  His new book may serve as a corrective to the blindness of many of his countrymen.

  - Newsweek

  With this book, John Howard Griffin easily takes rank as probably the country’s most venturesome student of race relations. It is a piercing and memorable document.

  - Saturxay Review of Literature

  Black Like Me is a moving and troubling book written by an accomplished novelist. It is a scathing indictment of our society.

  - Dallas Morning News

  A stinging indictment of thoughtless, needless inhumanity. No one can read it without suffering.

  - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  One of the deepest, most penetrating documents yet set down on the racial question.

  - Detroit News

  Black Like Me is gentle in tone, but it is more powerful and compelling than a sociological report, more penetrating than most scientific studies. It has the ring of authenticity.

  - Commonweal

  This is the pilgrimage par excellence of our time; the story of an incarnation made by one man, in deep reverence for the Divine Humanity that is daily insulted, buffeted, scourged, beaten and bled in every black man whites insult. Mr. Griffin’s heroic charity and courage are a glory for the church.

  - Publishers Weekly

  A shocker - the report of a white man who darkened his skin and lived as a Negro in the South to see the racial problem at first hand. This book will generate emotion.

  - St. Petersburg Times

  This is a shocking book, growing from the shock experienced by a white man who had the courage to find out for himself what it was like to be treated as a Negro. This is the human story … a book about simple justice. It suggests that any white man who thinks the Negro in the South is secure and contented should try being one.

  - Negro Digest

  It is an appalling report of man’s inhumanity - institutionalized and sactioned - to his fellow man. And, while it can only succeed in approximating the true horror of the Negro’s situation, the book should be must reading for all whites and for those numerous Negroes who like to pretend all’s right with the world.

  - Cleveland Plain Dealer

  Griffin’s theory is that much of the trouble in the South results from the fact that the public is not informed on the race question. Naturally our young people wonder what this visual social pattern we call the American way of life is all about. It seems to me that we should look upon this comedy of color with critical eyes.

  — The Washington Post, 2007

  What remains most important about “Black Like Me” is the force of the shock Griffin felt when he learned, in the most intimate ways, what it was — and for many still is — like to be black in America.…

  Overall, though, the portrait that Griffin paints of the South is gloomy. Everywhere he went, “the criterion is nothing but the color of skin. My experience proved that. [Whites] judged me by no other quality. My skin was dark. That was sufficient reason for them to deny me those rights and freedoms without which life loses its significance and becomes a matter of little more than animal survival.” He became depressed, and his face lapsed into “the strained, disconsolate expression that is written on the countenance of so many Southern Negroes.” He “decided to try to pass back into white society” and scrubbed off the stain; immediately “I was once more a first-class citizen.” The knowledge gave him little joy.

  A few months later, as his story became public, he was hanged in effigy in the Texas town where he lived with his wife and four children. They moved to Mexico for a while, then to Fort Worth. For the rest of his life he was an outspoken advocate of civil rights who had, as much as or more than any other white person in the country, earned his stripes. His influence is felt to this day through this remarkable book.

  — The Washington Post, 2007