Black Like Me, Written by John Howard Griffen

Black Like Me

Written by John Howard Griffen

Awards:
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (1962)

Grades: 7-12

John Howard Griffen took special pills and light treatment to make his skin dark so he could pass for a "Negro" in 1959. His transformation was complete on October 28, 1959. He had his eyes opened to the way the Negro community was treated by the white people. How segregation worked and how the black community felt. He walked in their shoes. Mr. Griffen became friends with a shoe polisher and confided in him. The shoe man helped him out by showing him some of the right and wrong ways to do things. Mr. Griffen only spent 6 weeks traveling through New Orleans and Mississippi. He then published his book a year later. Mr. Griffin had to take his family and leave his hometown. They were threatened with everything from being tar and feathered to death. Even the people who sheltered them were threatened. The Griffen family eventually had to go into hiding but, he never stopped speaking out for civil rights.