John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me

John Howard Griffin’s book Black Like Me is the story of a white journalist who sets out on a journey to find out what it’s like to live as a black man in the southern parts of the United States. John’s story takes place in 1959 when black people were not allowed to use the same bathrooms as white people and black people might have to walk all the way across town just to get a drink of water. Griffin sets out on the journey in order to really find out what it’s like to be black in America at this time. In the book, Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin really focuses on finding out what it is like to be a black man in America. Griffin really focuses on the South because things were much worse there than in the North because after slavery was abolished many people in the South believed that black Americans didn’t deserve equality. “Although slavery was officially abolished by the 13th Amendment in 1865, economic and cultural exploitation; everyday violence including lynching, rape, physical attack, and other forms of mob violence; political disenfranchisement; and almost total segregation in the South and the North continued into recent times. We have had over 350 years of economic and cultural enrichment of the white community at the expense of African Americans. The effects of that exploitation are in the present.” …show more content…
Black Like Me gives us as readers a great and purposeful look into John Howard Griffin’s experiment showing us the true struggles of a black American. Griffin speaks about the double binds that all black Americans face. For example, you can’t speak to or look at a white woman, but if you don’t show her any respect you may considered dangerous and some white man might have to come set you straight. At that time in many white American’s eyes nothing a black man could ever do would be