Black Like Me

Is a memoir about a John Howard Griffin experiences of Racism in the deep south of  Louisiana .  Griffin is well to do white man who wants to know what it is like to be black in the south. So he undergoes an experiment that gives him the appearance of an African-American. So his doctor gives him treatments and he shaves his head bald. The process an transformation gives the author a different look  at life. When he was white, life seems much easier, but know he constantly faces obstacles because he is simple black.  Simple things like walking down a street a night become events that stressful. He has to sit behind the bus and experiences of the tight-nit community of blacks. How they all seem to look out for each other.

At one point  he is even asked crude sexual questions from a white guy about blacks.  He find s Black life much more harder, jobs that he obtains are labor and not well paying. H e also sees how America at the time hides or runs away from race relations and discrimination.  Griffin  realizes that being black was already one strike, now add being poor or unable to get a quality education hold them back. then he goes on to state even if a black does make to college and graduate he is still viewed as a second-class citizen.  He mentions how can anyone expect to use a degree in a world where they are judged by their appearance rather than their character. He is told that darker Negroes are more prone to criminality, scheming, and other bad characteristics. While lighter ones are more docile, intelligent,and trustful.


Griffin experiences as a black greatly forces him to evaluate how can race issues be stopped, and the rest of the book he criticizes how racism was a serious issue. That it is not just the "North is good and the South is Bad" and that blacks and whites live in totally different worlds.

 I think its is a good book and just about anyone can gain something from it.