Dear White Folks - great piece in Ebony

[malaise]

116. When I was a young girl I remember reading a classic book called

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin - it blew my brains.

John Howard Griffin, a 39-year old white journalist of Sepia Magazine, changed his skin color and stayed for seven weeks in Deep South, USA among the black population. The year was 1959 prior to the Washington March and passing of the major civil rights bill in 1964.

When published in 1961, this book caused a major controversy: Mr. Griffin was persecuted by his whites by betraying their own race. Remember that at that time, Deep South states, e.g., Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia were still in racial segregation. The discrimination worked both ways, blacks stay away from whites and vice versa. I have read a number of books on this and still remember two: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou but this one, being a non-fiction, brought a totally different impact. That scene when Mr. Griffin first looked at his face on the mirror as a black man brought a deep insight on the discrimination he did not know existed even inside himself. He did not like the person staring back at him: black and bald.

Mr. Griffin died in 1980 at the age of 60. He left a legacy that generations will be benefiting from: the lessons from the astounding experiment culled in this truly beautiful classic book - Black Like Me.