Black Like Me

Black Like Me is a book by John Howard Griffin published in 1961.

Griffin was a white man from Mansfield, TX who darkened his skin under the supervision of a doctor in order to chronicle his experiences as a "black" man in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. He encountered many of the same acts of discrimination experienced by black people at the time (like giving up his bus seat to white people), and wrote of the "hate stare" he received from whites. During Griffin's six weeks of traveling in Greyhound buses, he came to believe that disadvantaged people commit crimes in order to ease their pain. In turn, those who afflict the pain hate the disadvantaged even more.

After the book was released, Griffin was vilified, threatened with death, and hung in effigy in his hometown. But the book catapulted him to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement, and gained him international respect as an human rights activist.

In 1964 a film version of the book was produced.