Black Like Me Essay Research Paper John free essay sample

Black Like Me Essay, Research Paper John Howard Griffin was a journalist and a specializer on race issues. After publication, he became a taking advocator in the Civil Rights Movement and did much to advance consciousness of the racial state of affairss and base on balls legislative assembly. He was in-between aged and populating in Mansfield, Texas at the clip of publication in 1960. His desire to cognize if Southern Whites were racialist against the Negro population of the Deep South, or if they truly judged people based on the single # 8217 ; s personality as they said they prompted him to traverse the colour line and write Black Like Me. Since communicating between the white and African American races did non be, neither race truly knew what it was like for the other. Due to this, Griffin felt the lone manner to cognize the truth was to go a black adult male and travel through the South. His trip was financed by the internationally distributed Negro magazine Sepia in exchange for the right to publish extracts from the finished merchandise. After three hebdomads in the Deep South as a black adult male John Howard Griffin produced a 188-page diary covering his passage into the black race, his travels and experiences in the South, the displacement back into white society, and the reaction of those he cognize anterior his experonce the book was published and released. John Howard Griffin began this novel as a white adult male on October 28, 1959 and became a black adult male ( with the aid of a celebrated skin doctor ) on November 7. He entered black society in New Orleans through his contact Sterling, a shoe radiance male child that he had met in the yearss prior to the medicine taking full consequence. Griffin stayed with Sterling at the radiance base for a few yearss to go assimilated into the society and to larn more about the attitude and mentality of the common black adult male. After one hebdomad of seeking to happen work other than humble labour, he left to go throughout the Southern provinces of Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. November 14, the twenty-four hours he decided to go forth, was the twenty-four hours after the Mississippi jury refused to indict or see the grounds in the Mack Parker kidnap-lynch slaying instance. He decided to travel into the bosom of Mississippi, the Southern province most feared by inkinesss of that clip, merely to see if it truly did hold the # 8220 ; fantastic relationship # 8221 ; with their Blacks that they said they did. What he found in Hattiesburg was tenseness in the province so evident and thick that it scared him to decease. One of the grounds for this could be attributed to the Parker instance determination because the test took topographic point non far from Hattiesburg. He knew it was a menace to his life if he remained because he was non a true Negro and did non cognize the proper manner to carry on himself in the present state of affairs. Griffin requested that one of his friends help him go forth the province as shortly as possible. P.D. East, Griffin # 8217 ; s friend, was more than willing to assist his friend out of the unsafe state of affairs that he had gotten himself into and back to New Orleans. From New Orleans, traveled to Biloxi, Mississippi and began catch boosting toward Mobile, Alabama. Griffin found that work forces would non pick him up in the twenty-four hours about every bit frequently as they would at dark. One of the grounds being that the darkness of dark is a protection of kinds and the white work forces would allow their defences down. Besides, they would non hold to be afraid of person they knew seeing them with a Negro in their auto. But the chief ground was of the stereotypes many of these work forces had of Negroes, that they were more sexually active, knew more about sex, had larger genital organ, and fewer ethical motives and hence would discourse these things with them. Many of the Whites that offered Griffin drives would go angry and allow him out when he would non discourse his sex life with them. One adult male was amazed to happen a Negro who spoke intelligently and tried to explicate the false beliefs behind the stereotypes and what the job with Negro society was. Many Negroes he encountered on his journey through the Deep South were really sort and opened their Black Marias and places to him. One illustration of this is when Griffin asked an aged Black where he might happen housing, the adult male offered to portion his ain bed with him. Another case was when Griffin was stranded someplace between Mobile and Montgomery and a black adult male offered him lodging at his place. The adult male # 8217 ; s place was a two-room hovel that housed six members of his household, but he accepted John into his place and refused any money for the problem stating that # 8220 ; he # 8217 ; d brought more than he # 8217 ; d taken. # 8221 ; In Montgomery, Alabama, Griffin decided it was clip for him to reenter white society, but he besides wanted to derive a cognition of the country as a black adult male. So, he devised the technique of covering an country as a black and so returning the undermentioned twenty-four hours as a white. What he found was, as a black he would have the # 8220 ; hatred stare # 8221 ; from Whites and be treated with every courtesy by the black community. As a white, it would be the exact face-to-face, he would acquire the # 8220 ; hatred stare # 8221 ; from inkinesss and be treated wondrous by the same people who despised him the old twenty-four hours. After a few yearss of cranking across the colour line, Griffin decided that he had adequate stuff from his diary to make a book and adequate experience as a black adult male so he reverted for good into white society. Traversing over into the white universe was fazing to Griffin, if merely because of the manner he was treated by the same people who despised him antecedently due to his pigmentation. The sudden ability to walk into any constitution and non be refused service was besides a daze after holding to hunt for common comfortss yearss earlier. After returning to his hometown of Mansfield, Texas Griffin was non widely accepted back into the community he one time knew. Many of the occupants of the metropolis were racialists, hence they considered him one of the # 8216 ; niggers. # 8217 ; The racialists even went every bit far as to hang Griffin in image from the town # 8217 ; s halt visible radiation one forenoon. This prompted him and his household to go forth the country until the state of affairs well calmed down. Griffin was interviewed by assorted telecasting and wireless hosts as good as magazine and correspondents after the book was made populace. His chief aim was to educate the populace of the state of affairs in the South and people couldn # 8217 ; t assist but hear about it. Wether or non they accepted the information was non up to Griffin, but he did his best to do the cognition available. This book relates to American history because it takes the reader into the Deep South before the Civil Rights Movements took clasp and shows what it was like to be black. In the Preface, the writer states # 8220 ; I could have been a Jew in Germany, a Mexican in a figure of provinces, or a member of any # 8216 ; inferior # 8217 ; group. Merely the inside informations would hold differed. The narrative would be the same. # 8221 ; The inside informations he mentioned were he being black and in the South, and the narrative is of hatred and racism directed toward him and others like him on history of those inside informations. The history he related showed America and the universe that race dealingss in the South was non the reasonably image it was painted as. Alternatively, he showed the day-to-day battle of the inkinesss to last. Griffin # 8217 ; s prejudice is that white Southern Americans of that period were racist toward the African American population. The lone thing altered from before he entered New Orleans to after was his visual aspect. He dyed his tegument a really dark brown and shaved his caput, his vesture, address forms, and mentions had non changed and every inquiry was answered truthfully. If people did justice others by their qualities and makings, his clip in the Deep South should hold been reasonably uneventful. Alternatively, there were day-to-day pursuits to happen rest-room installations, eating houses, shops, and assorted other # 8216 ; comfortss # 8217 ; that he took advantage of before he crossed the colour line. During his stay in New Orleans, inkinesss were forced to utilize specific installations designated for them and they were normally few and far between. Other than the Greyhound station or other public edifices that inkinesss were allowed to come in, there were no installations that were at par with the 1s the Whites had entree to. His now black tegument besides prevented him from come ining any shop and buying something to imbibe, alternatively he would hold to happen a Negro Cafe. These Cafes were non about every bit legion as the many topographic points the lowliest white could get a drink. The colour of his 31e