Analysis Of Black Like Me By John Howard Griffin

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin tells the story of racial prejudice of blacks during the 1960s. As the main character of the book, Griffin is very dedicated to raise racial justice. However, as a white man, he is unable to understand the experience of blacks, so he undergoes a medical treatment to change the pigment of his skin. Funded by George Levitan, the editor of a black-oriented magazine called Sepia, he leaves his family and sets out to New Orleans to begin life as a black man.

Once Griffin arrives at New Orleans in early November, he sets up a consultation with a dermatologist to darken his skin. After his transformation, Griffin panics after looking in a mirror, feeling a lost of identity. Griffin also meets Sterling Williams,

first as a white man, and then later as a black man. He entrusts Sterling with his secret, hoping he would help him through this experiment. As Griffin wonders through the city, he expects the racial prejudice and hardships, but not to the extent that he actually experiences. Griffin faces many problems such as insults and the inability to find a job or even a bathroom he is allowed to use. However, Griffin meets many influential black leaders in the community and discusses with them how to make black lives better.

After several hopeless days in New Orleans, Griffin decides to travel to Mississippi, which is said to be far worse for blacks than the current state he was in.

Mississippi had recently had an unfair trial where a black man was lynched by a mob, but the mob was not found guilty even though there was enough evidence against them. During his stay in Mississippi, Griffin realizes how much more cruel the Deep South is to the blacks. In New Orleans, whites were at least courteous to the blacks’ faces, whereas in Mississippi, they were blatantly racist and hateful. Eventually, Griffin arrives back to New Orleans after a couple days. From there he gets a ticket to a more coastal town in Mississippi and decides to hitchhike his way to Mobile, Alabama. Griffin stays three days in Mobile with an elderly man, where each day he had to go out of his way to find a place to eat, drink, or use the restroom. Soon, he decides to hitchhike to Montgomery, Alabama. He meets a young black man who works at a sawmill. The sawmill worker generously gives Griffin a meal and a place to sleep despite his own problems of a large family suffering through

poverty.

The next day Griffin arrives in Montgomery, where Griffin could sense the change of atmosphere. In Montgomery under the influence of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., the blacks were more united with a sense of determination and passive resistance. The city was eerily calm, but Griffin could sense the fear on both sides. It was so strange that he resorted to staying in his room for the majority of the time.

From the three weeks as a black man, Griffin has become deflated from the prejudice and hatred, so he decides to transition back into the white society.

As a white man, he could now dine wherever he pleased, smile at women and not be threatened, and enjoy all the small privileges that every white man takes for granted. Although Griffin feels a sense of liberation, he feels no joy because all he could think about was the other side of the story. Griffin starts going back and forth between being black and white. As a white man, Griffin receives warm smiles from the whites, but receives hateful stares from the blacks showcasing that racism went both

ways.

On the train ride to Georgia, Griffin witnesses more racial prejudice, causing him to immediately change back into a white man and stay at a monastery as a temporary escape. Griffin finds the monastery as a very peaceful and restorative environment with no hatred or prejudice. Griffin talks to one monk about racism. The monk and Griffin agree that although some bigots use religious arguments to back up their points, there is nothing in the Bible that justifies racism. Eventually, Griffin leaves the monastery to work on some more stories on Atlanta for Sepia. He interviews many black leaders, which filled Griffin with hope that racial segregation can be solved. A week later, Griffin finally flies home to New Orleans as a white man to rejoin his family.
In January, Griffin meets with Levitan, the owner of Sepia magazine, and the editorial director, Mrs. Jackson. Although Sepia magazine paid for Griffin’s trip, and Griffin promised he would publish articles about it in the magazine, Levitan gives him one last chance to back out. Once his story is made public, Griffin may be in danger from retaliation by angry whites. Griffin decides he must run the articles in any case. Sepia magazine is widely read by Southern blacks, and Griffin’s articles will send a message that the world cares about their problem.