Similarities Between Black Like Me And A Patch Of Blue

During the civil rights era, tensions between races were at an all time high.

These tensions can be seen in John Howard Griffin’s autobiography, Black Like Me, and Guy Green’s screenplay, A Patch of Blue; yet while there are many historical and cultural similarities between the two works, there are also large dissimilarities.

A Patch of Blue was originally a screenplay written in 1959 called Be Ready With Bells by Elizabeth Keta (Kringas). Born Elizabeth McDonald, Keta based her story after thinking deeply about the “intolerance and prejudice [against African Americans] for many years”, and “decided to tell the story through the mind of a blind person” ("Elizabeth Kata"; Kringas). Keta’s screenplay was adapted into the movie, A Patch of Blue,

by Guy Green in 1964 (Kringas). A Patch of Blue has an unusual plot for a film that was released during the late civil rights era. The main characters are Elizabeth Hartman and Sidney Poitier. Elizabeth Hartman plays a blind woman named Selina D'Arcey; she is poor, caucasian, and uneducated. Sidney Poitier plays Gordon Ralfe, a well off, intelligent African American man. It was not the norm to see a black man portrayed so intelligently in the media. However, during the late civil rights era, the situation changed. The late civil rights era was called the “Golden Age”. This is a “term to label that period in the history of a nation, movement, artistic medium or the like during which its greatest achievements were realized. It is not an absolute term since it does not intend to describe the best possible epoch. That being the case, there can be no doubt that for African Americans in television, the last half of the 1960s was a Golden Age” (MacDonald). In the case of A Patch of Blue, this was one of the first works that came out of the “Golden Age”.
Black Like Me is an autobiography written by John Howard Griffin.

Mr. Griffin was a “white American author who temporarily altered the pigment of his skin in order to experience firsthand the life of a black man in the South” (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Black Like Me depicts the hardships blacks in the south had to endure. In one incident, Griffin was being stalked by a young, white man as he walked to his next destination: “I’m going to get you, Mr. No-Hair. I’m after you. There ain’t no place you go I won’t get you. If it takes all night, I’ll get you - so count on it” (Griffin 68). In the events of this terrifying encounter, Mr. Griffin tried to get help from a white couple, but the couple would not help him. In the end, he found a safe haven, but this shows what any black human had to deal with during this period of time from random whites in the south. Towards the end of his experiment and after so many encounters such as this, Griffin began to falter and lose his faith in

humanity:
Then I heard myself say what I have heard them say so many times. “It’s not right. It’s
just not right”. Then the onrush of revulsion, the momentary flash of blind hatred against
the whites who were somehow responsible for all of this, the old bewilderment of
wondering, “Why do they do it? Why do they keep us like this? What are they gaining?
What evil has taken them?” (The Negroes say, “What sickness has taken them?”) My
revulsion turned to grief that my own people could give the hate stare, could shrivel
men’s souls, could deprive humans of rights they unhesitatingly accord their livestock
(Griffin 114).
All of these questions were being asked during the civil rights era, but Black Like Me publicized them. In this quote, John Howard Griffin experiences an overwhelming amount of emotion when the reality of the extent to which blacks were oppressed hits him. He begins to find the situation unbearable and thus begins to lose faith in humanity. Through this quote and book, Griffin gave all African Americans a better chance at equality through his detailed experiences recorded in this autobiography.
While Griffin points out many great points, it should be noted that Mr.

Griffin dyed his skin to appear as a black man, but he was still a white man on the inside. Moreover, Griffin could leave the abyss whenever he pleased, whereas a true African American would be stuck in this world of racism until the day he or she died. Tim Stanley, a historian and columnist for The Telegraph, provides his insight on how Griffin could never truly understand the difficulty of life as a black man: “A white man disguised as black could not understand the insecurities and resentments that came with hundreds of years of inherited slavery – nor did he have the right to lecture black people on the need for love and reconciliation. White people had a role to play in civil rights, but it had to be as allies rather than leaders. The movement needed to be for black people, by black people” (Stanley). Thus, Griffin’s difference in reality in comparison to a black man’s has not gone unnoticed. Moreover, Griffin did not experience a lynching or a civil rights march as a black man. He was not a black man when Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American boy, was lynched after a white woman said she was offended by him. Additionally, John Howard Griffin was not a black man when 600 people marched 54 miles from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama (The First March From Selma”). As for A Patch of Blue, Sidney Poitier is a black man who grew up dealing with the struggles of racism. However, A Patch of Blue

is just a story being acted out; the movie is fiction, just an ideal. When looking at A Patch of Blue and Black Like Me, there are two main similarities, but one main difference. Both the book and movie depict blacks in a good way as well as show the difficulties blacks went through all while maintaining poise. However, Black Like Me is a real life account that tells the unfiltered experiences of the author in disguise, while A Patch of Blue is merely a made up story.
In regards for the historical accuracy of the works, Black Like Me is a true account of what happened to John Howard Griffin during his travels as a black man; thus, Black Like Me is historically accurate. As for A Patch of Blue, the movie is an accurate depiction of how African Americans were treated during this era. While Sidney Poitier is a leading character, this was very new for the time period. It was “not until the 1960s, when blacks succeeded in shaking off some of the yoke of inequality, did the popular media begin to take them a little more seriously” (Patterson 32). Before this time, “racial conflicts in particular polarized American life ” (Patterson 8). In one scene in A Patch of Blue, Selina’s mother, Rose-Ann, attempts to enlist park’s patrons to help her get Selina back from Gordon. This scene shows how awful of a person Rose-Ann is for being racist towards such a nice young man, and, justly, no patrons will help her. In fact, the patrons all look at her as if she is crazy. The main difficulty with this scene is that while nice, it may not have been what would have actually happened had this been a real event. However, this scene does show how people should act, so for the Golden Age it was a great movie to depict how the world was beginning to change.
In conclusion, A Patch of Blue and Black Like Me are eye opening works. Each work show the struggles African Americans in the 1960s had to go through, and each work shows this in uniquely different ways. Both the movie and autobiography have their flaws, but both were big steps in the right direction away from racism.