Black Like Me | 
|  | | | Title: | Black Like Me | | Author: | John Howard Griffin | | Publisher: | NAL Trade | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 06 May, 2003 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0451208641 / 9780451208644 | | List Price: | $14.00 | | You Save: | $2.80 | | Amazon Price: | $11.20 | |
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Product Description
In the Deep South of the 1950s, journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross the color 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. His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity-that in this new millennium still has something important to say to every American.
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Customer Reviews:
• Black Like Me: One Of The Best Books I Have Ever Read 13 January, 2008
This book is the account of a white man, named John Howard Griffin, who turned himself black to study the real extent of racism. It starts out with his experiences in New Orleans as a black man. He knew about some of the things that are done to black people, but didn't know the full extent of how much white people try to degrade the sense of value or self-worth of all black people. He experiences having to walk miles ot get a drink of water, working for hours and having just eough money to eat that day, and the whites attempts at lowering all black's self worth, including the "hate stare." However, New orleans is relatively nice for Bkacks. When he reads that in Mississippi there was a lynching case the FBI had found tons of evidence for and the White grand jury wouldn't even open the packet of evidence. The mississippe folks claimed they had wonderful relationships with the Negros. Griffin had even met some of them before, and talked about there relationships with the Negros. He saw a whole new side of them when he went as a black man. He was horrified at how inhumanely people could treat other people and shares very insightful thoughts ion what racism was really like.
I would highly reccomend this book for someone to read, although it's not for younger children. it''s more for tenns and audults. It has a plethora of large words that some with smallish vocabularies might not understand. Otherwise this is one of the best boos I have ever read and I highly reccomend you read it.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2IB5BBN79MS0S
• Proof That Something Relatively Minor Can Pack A Punch 12 October, 2008
'Black Like Me' by John Howard Griffin was bombastic when it was first published in the early 1960s. It brazenly articulated the differences on how people, in particular the author, are treated in the Deep South based on the color of their skin. The author had his skin darkened through chemicals and ultraviolet light. He traveled from New Orleans to Atlanta by road (mostly bus) and chronicles how people looked at him differently just because he was black. For a white man he found the experience utterly appalling. It was also staggering how various white men approached the author to discuss very crude sexual matters, thinking that African-Americans are only of any value based on their sexual prowess.
This book should easily be considered five stars by most reviewers. However the book is flawed. The author is not a particularly fine writer; he has a tendency to ramble. And I feel the author has taken some journalist liberties. I wanted more of the facts about people, what they look like, what they said and did, etc. But the author seems to be inconsistent; sometimes he wants to lecture us on racism, other times he delivers a documentary on his travels.
Bottom line: an important and very shocking read. Recommended.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A29NUB3P6YIWZG
• Oh Wow This Is Unforgettable! 16 November, 2008
This book was recommended to me, and i bought it and it sat on my shelf for a time. I got it down the other day and started reading and could not put it down. It was amazing.
I was brought back to so many memories of the deep south and the attitudes, (that still are now today) prevailing in that time.
I admire this man's courage so much. I despaired at the attitudes the white people had tword him. The look, the tone of voice, the lonliness.
When he looks into the mirror for the first time, he is greeted by, himself yet a stranger.
To walk in another man's shoes is indeed a gift of God, and to be able to have compassion for that experiance is great.
This will be one of my fave. books along with Watership Down and several others i have read over and over again.
This would be a book you could read over again and get more and more from.
Amazing book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A22019GDU7OVFG
• Constructing Race, The Artifice Of Being Other 13 July, 2008
Before there was comic "Soul Man" etc., there was this 50's investigative memoir about a white male 'passing' as a black man to 'experience' black culture. Also, try Philip Roth's "The Stain" movie and book based on a real life BM passing for WM.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A211B4FGZXPXLF
• The Color " Black" 07 December, 2008
Honestly before reading this I use to get mad that there was so much racism around and that I thought that as a mixed woman I had it bad because I had two different colors in me. After reading this you will change your view.
Its starts off that John Griffin decides that he wants to know what it's like to be black and goes to get surgery on his skin color. The doctor doesn't think it will happen but tries it anyway and soon John's skin begins to get darker. He then decides to see what the average white man will do since his color and the opposite of his and turns out to be very disappointed. He tries to by a train ticket in the middle of the book and the things that the people say to him made me shiver. He travels to Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia and still nothing changed. After he collects his data on this mischief he starts to write about it for the newspaper and gradually things changed. You must read this book to find out what really happens. It will make you view our world a different way and make you think about every time you had called someone something mean or were racist towards them. When the book first came out in 1964 there was nothing but controversy about wither they should ban the book or not. Personally Im glad they didn't or I would've never known what respect was. If you haven't read this book yet you should it will teach you a lot about the past and make you appreciate the future.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A17X9FVB5QDW8C
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