Black Like Me /

Black Like Me is a non-fiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin first published in 1961. Griffin was a white native of Mansfield, Texas and the book describes his six-week experience travelling on Greyhound buses (occasionally hitchhiking) throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia passing as a black man. Sepia Magazine financed the project in exchange for the right to print the account first as a series of articles. Griffin kept a journal of his experiences; the 188-page diary was the genesis of the book. In 1959, at the time of the book's writing, race relations were particularly strained in America; Griffin's aim was to explain the difficulties facing black people in certain areas. Under the care of a doctor, Griffin artificially darkened his skin to pass as a black man. In 1964, a film version of Black Like Me starring James Whitmore was produced, although it ended up being a bust. Robert Bonazzi subsequently published the book Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the Story of Black Like Me. The title of the book is taken from the last line of the Langston Hughes poem "Dream Variations": In the autumn of 1959, John