Black Like Me PDF

Preview

Summary

Download Black Like Me PDF

Description

BLACK LIKE ME

SUMMARY AND ANALISIS

Page 1 of 28

CONTEXT John Howard Griffin was born on June 16, 1920, in Dallas, Texas. When he traveled to France as a teenager to attend school, Griffin was shocked to discover that the French did not share in the white-supremacist racial attitudes of many Texans. As a result, Griffin was forced to confront his own ingrained assumptions about race, and quickly became committed to the cause of ending racism and achieving racial equality in America. Griffin finished high school in 1938, and remained in France to study medicine and music theory. When World War II broke out, Griffin fought with the underground French Resistance, and then joined the U.S. Army from 1942–1945. He sustained a concussion in battle toward the end the war, and, suddenly and unexpectedly, the injury caused him to lose his sight while walking down a street in Paris. In 1947, the blinded Griffin returned to America, where he moved in with his parents in Midland, Texas. In 1952, he married, and established his own residence on a ranch near Mansfield. A practicing Catholic, Griffin combined his moral commitment to the cause of racial justice with a burgeoning career as a writer. He began to write on racial themes for newspapers and magazines, and published a memoir, The Devil Rides Outside, about his religious experiences at a French abbey. In 1957, Griffin's eyesight returned as suddenly as it had left him. After more than a decade of living with blindness, Griffin used his newly recovered sight to redouble his efforts as a writer and humanitarian. In 1959, Griffin, disheartened by the climate of racial conflict in America, decided to take a relatively extreme measure in order to understand what life was like for black Americans: he would undergo medical treatment to change the color of his skin and pose as a black man. Griffin lived as a black man for nearly two months, during which time he traveled extensively throughout the South, experiencing white racial prejudice and black solidarity firsthand. These experiences became the basis for Black Like Me, a memoir of his experiences as a black man. Griffin's memoir explores themes of racism, segregation, and the human capacity for love amid the turbulent climate of black society in the late 1950s. Griffin experiences everything from the difficulty of finding a restroom in New Orleans to the uplifting atmosphere of Montgomery, Alabama in the era of Martin Luther King, Jr. Published at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, a time of enormous transition in American race relations, Black Like Me proved to be by far Griffin's most successful and controversial book, igniting a firestorm of public reaction that led to his being burned in effigy on the main street of his hometown. Faced with persecution from white hate groups and open hostility from many people throughout the South, Griffin moved his family to Mexico for several years before eventually returning to Texas. Griffin died of diabetes in 1980, after a life dedicated to improving conditions in black communities across the United States. Today he is remembered chiefly for Black Like Me, but he is also notable

BLACK LIKE ME

SUMMARY AND ANALISIS

Page 2 of 28

for his humanitarian work: Griffin's decades-long effort to create dialogue between white communities and black communities throughout the South led to his receiving the National Council of Negro Women Award in 1960, and the Pope John XIII Pacen in Terris Peace and Freedom Award in 1964.

SUMMARY John Howard Griffin, the author and main character of Black Like Me, is a middle-aged white man living in Mansfield, Texas in 1959. Deeply committed to the cause of racial justice and frustrated by his inability as a white man to understand the black experience, Griffin decides to take a radical step: he decides to undergo medical treatment to change the color of his skin and temporarily become a black man. After securing the support of his wife and of George Levitan, the editor of a black-oriented magazine called Sepia which will fund Griffin's experience in return for an article about it, Griffin sets out for New Orleans to begin his life as a black man. He finds a contact in the black community, a soft-spoken, articulate shoe-shiner named Sterling Williams, and begins a dermatological regimen of exposure to ultraviolet light, oral medication, and skin dyes. Eventually, Griffin looks in the mirror and sees a black man looking back. He briefly panics, feeling that he has lost his identity, and then he sets out to explore the black community. Griffin expects to find prejudice, oppression, and hardship, but he is shocked at the extent of it: everywhere he goes, he experiences difficulties and insults. The word "nigger" seems to echo from every street corner. It is impossible to find a job, or even a restroom that blacks are allowed to use. Clerks refuse to cash his checks, and a white bully nearly attacks him before he chases the man away. After several traumatic days in New Orleans, Griffin decides to travel into the Deep South of Mississippi and Alabama, which are reputed to be even worse for blacks. (In Mississippi, a grand jury has just refused to indict a lynch mob that murdered a black man before he could stand trial.) In Mississippi, he is disheartened and exhausted, so he calls a white friend named P.D. East, a newspaperman who is ferociously opposed to racism. He spends a day with East, during which time they discuss the way racial prejudice has been incorporated into the South's legal code by bigoted writers and politicians. Eventually, a rejuvenated Griffin leaves for a long hitchhiking trip throughout Alabama and Mississippi. In general, Griffin finds that conditions for blacks are appalling, and that black communities seem run-down and defeated. He even notices a look of defeat and hopelessness on his own face, after only a few weeks as a black man. In Montgomery, however, the black community is charged with determination and energy by the example of one of its leaders, a preacher named Marin Luther King, Jr. Blacks in Montgomery have begun practicing passive resistance, a nonviolent form of refusing to comply with racist laws and rules. Griffin, again depressed and weary of life as a black man, briefly stops taking his medication and lightens his skin back to his normal color. He begins

BLACK LIKE ME

SUMMARY AND ANALISIS

Page 3 of 28

alternating back and forth between races, visiting a place first as a black man and then as a white man. He notices immediately that when he is a white man, whites treat him with respect and blacks treat him with suspicious fear; when he is a black man, blacks treat him with generosity and warmth, while whites treat him with hostility and contempt. Griffin concludes that the races do not understand one another at all, and that a tolerant dialogue is needed to bridge the terrible gap separating them. In Atlanta, Griffin conducts a long series of interviews with black leaders before returning to New Orleans to make a photographic record of his time there. He then goes off his medication entirely, permanently returning his skin color to white. He returns home to his family and writes his article, which is published in March 1960. After the article appears, Griffin is called on to do interviews with prominent television shows and newsmagazines. The story of his amazing experience quickly spreads around the world, and he receives a flood of congratulatory mail. In Mansfield, however, the prevalent attitude is that of racism, and Griffin and his family become the subject of hateful reprisals. An effigy of Griffin, painted half white and half black, is burned on Main Street; a cross is burned in a Negro schoolyard; threats are made against Griffin, including one to castrate him. By August, things are so bad that he has decided to move his family to Mexico. Before he goes, he has a talk with a little black boy, to whom he explains that racism is a result of social conditioning, not any inherent quality within blacks or whites. He issues a plea for tolerance and understanding between the races, fearing that, if the current conflict is sustained, it will explode in an outbreak of terrible viole

CHARACTERS John Howard Griffin - The narrator, author, and protagonist of Black Like Me, and in some ways its only significant character, Griffin is a middle-aged white Southerner with a passionate commitment to the cause of racial justice in the year 1959. In order to understand what life is like for black Americans, Griffin undergoes medical therapy to darken his skin color, then poses as a black man for nearly two months. He publishes his experiences with prejudice and racism in the journal Sepia, leading to a firestorm of public controversy; he is eventually forced to move his family to Mexico to end the threat of violent reprisals from racist whites in his hometown in Texas. P.D. East - The editor of a newspaper in a small Mississippi town. Like Griffin, East is a passionate advocate for racial equality in America. East's family is ostracized as a result of his stance, and his newspaper is a financial disaster. But he is an inspiration to Griffin, who sees him as a sign of goodness flourishing amid the evil of racism and segregation.

SUMMARY AND ANALISIS

BLACK LIKE ME

Page 4 of 28

Sterling Williams - A soft-spoken, articulate black man who shines shoes for a living. Williams is Griffin's contact in the black society of New Orleans, and first helps him make the transition from being a white man to being a black man. George Levitan - The owner of Sepia magazine, who warns Griffin of the dangers he will face if he goes through with his plan to pose as a black man. Adele Jackson - The editor of Sepia magazine, who warns Griffin of the dangers he will face if he goes through with his plan to pose as a black man. Sam Gandy - The dean of Dillard College, which Griffin visits during his stay with East. Christophe - A well-dressed black man who rides on Griffin's bus during his trip through Mississippi; Christophe is fawning toward the white passengers, and cynical and condescending toward the blacks with whom he is forced to sit. Don Rutledge - The white photographer who photographs Griffin in New Orleans, coming to terms

with

his

own

social

and

racial

preconceptions

in

the

process.

October 28–November 1, 1959 John Howard Griffin is a middle-aged newspaper columnist and former rancher living in Texas in 1959. Writing in his diary, Griffin, a white man, recounts how he hit upon the startling idea to change his skin color and attempt to experience life as a black man. Deeply preoccupied by the growing racial conflict in the United States, Griffin reads a troubling report about the rise in the suicide rate among American Negroes. He realizes that, as a white man, it is virtually impossible for him to understand what life is like for blacks, especially in the South. Committed to the social cause of black Americans and desperate to understand their situation, Griffin thinks that his only hope of obtaining insight is to transform himself into one of them—an idea that frightens him as much as it attracts him. Griffin travels to Fort Worth to discuss his idea with his friend George Levitan, the editor of Sepia, a magazine devoted to Negro issues. He tells Levitan that he wants to change his skin color and become a black man for a short period of time, in an attempt to bridge the racial divide that prevents blacks and whites from understanding one another. Griffin hopes that Levitan will fund his project in exchange for being allowed to publish excerpts from the book he plans to write about his experience. Levitan is shocked by the idea, as is Adele Jackson, his editorial director. They warn him against the social repercussions to which he will subject himself if he goes through with his scheme. They say he risks everything from his family being ostracized by the community to outright violence perpetrated by racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. Despite the risks, Griffin is insistent that he wants to go through with his plan, and Levitan finally agrees to fund the transformation.

BLACK LIKE ME

SUMMARY AND ANALISIS

Page 5 of 28

Griffin returns home, where he tells his wife about his idea to temporarily change his skin color. Though she is shocked by his plan, she recognizes the strength of his convictions, and she agrees to care for their three children while he is living out his experiment. As night falls, Griffin sits in his office in the barn, fighting against a powerful sense of fear. He decides that after he undergoes the change in skin color, he will keep the same identity: he will not pretend to be anyone other than John Howard Griffin, the writer. This will allow him to gauge the responses of whites, and to see whether they will be able to treat him as anything other than an anonymous black man. He suspects that they will not. Griffin informs the FBI about his plan. One FBI agent is skeptical and warns him that if he becomes a Negro, he can only expect to be treated as a Negro. Griffin travels to New Orleans, where he will undergo dermatological treatment to change his skin color. He wanders contemplatively through the white French Quarter section of town, observing the high standard of living among New Orleans whites, and wonders what he will find in the black part of town, where he will live after the treatment. He remembers a time in his life when he was temporarily blind, and thinks that, in a sense, his eyesight is still faulty, because he cannot see the city with the eyes of a black man. Griffin treats himself to an opulent candlelit dinner in an outdoor restaurant, thinking of how he would be treated as a black man in a restaurant such as this. He calls a friend, and tells him that he is in New Orleans on a secret assignment. The friend offers to let him stay at his house while he is in New Orleans, and Griffin decides to do so, at least while he is undergoing the treatment. Black Like Me, which is written in the form of John Howard Griffin's diary, is not a novel, but it is not a real diary, either. The book chronicles Griffin's real experiences—in 1959, he really underwent skin therapy to transform himself into a black man temporarily—but he did not keep a diary as he was going through them. Instead, Griffin wrote his "diary" only after he had resumed life as a white man, thinking that a diary narrative would be the most direct and personal form he could employ to tell his powerful story to the world. What this means for the reader of Black Like Me is that, though it is very important to remember that the story is not fictional, it is also important to remember that it is a story. That is, rather than being a merely personal record of events and experiences designed only to be read by Griffin himself, Black Like Me is written very much with a reader in mind—Griffin consciously sculpts his narration in such a way as to interest, move, and enthrall his readers, and ultimately to persuade them of the crucial importance of the social cause of tolerance and racial justice. When studying Black Like Me, then, it is important to be mindful of how Griffin tells his story so as to draw the reader into it, and to try to ascertain Griffin's intentions in framing his story as he does. For instance, the scene in this section in which Griffin sits in his barn office and looks forward

BLACK LIKE ME

SUMMARY AND ANALISIS

Page 6 of 28

anxiously to his future as a black man is full of evocative description and naked emotional declaration. Griffin tries to bring the reader fully into his experience by sketching a scene as palpable to the senses as anything one would find in a novel. Sensory evocation is one of Griffin's main techniques for bringing the reader into his story. Another technique he uses is to give his story a definite narrative shape, emphasizing rising action and moments of climax. In this section, for instance, Griffin gradually builds tension by first introducing his idea to become a black man, then emphasizing his increasing awareness of all the dangers that his plan will involve, bringing the reader into his nervous anticipation. He also ensures that the reader will see his plan as a noble search for truth, as he saw it, rather than as a mere eccentricity. To create this atmosphere, Griffin often employs the dialogue of secondary characters: for instance, his wife clearly states her belief that, despite the dangers involved for the family, Griffin's plan is brave and important. By the same token, Griffin uses George Levitan and Adele Jackson, in the Sepia office scene, to make the point about the dangers Griffin will face as a white man posing as a black man in 1959. For those who read Black Like Me without having lived through the era of the Civil Rights movement, one of the most difficult things about the book is simply coming to terms with its setting—the nuances of its climate, as well as the era's open, public racial intolerance, can be somewhat alienating to a younger reader. It is important to pay careful attention to the details of the novel's setting in order to immerse oneself in it. In this section, for instance, we are given a sense of the gap between black America and white America by the fact that Griffin seems to learn more about blacks by reading newspaper articles than by actually speaking to or observing any of them. Moreover, the volatility of the era is implied by the danger that Griffin's plan will lead to violent reprisals by white hate groups. Finally, Griffin conveys the sense that, though most whites seem to be either too intolerant or too frightened to oppose racism, there are still a number of good white men and women, even in the South. George Levitan is one such man, a white man who has dedicated his life to the cause of blacks. Throughout the novel, the theme of good surviving even when surrounded by evil is extremely important: rather than writing an angry attack on the injustices he saw in the system, Griffin instead chose to emphasize the redemptive possibilities of love, kindness, and tolerance, implying that goodwill and positive emotions, rather than anger and violence, are the most effective catalysts of social change.

November 2–8, 1959 After an extensive search, Griffin finds a dermatologist who is willing to help him change his skin color. The doctor consults several colleagues, and they settle on a method of ultraviolet radiation

BLACK LIKE ME

SUMMARY AND ANALISIS

Page 7 of 28

combined with oral medication designed to darken his skin pigmentation. The dermatologist says that this method could take as long as three months. Griffin says that this is too slow, and insists on accelerating the treatment. After he begins the treatment, Griffin has a conversation with the friend at whose home he is staying. The friend is an enlightened white man opposed to racism, but Griffin still decides not to tell him about his plan. He simply warns him that his secret journalistic assignment could require him to vanish, without saying goodbye, at any time. Alone, Griffin wanders through the teeming, impoverished black section of New Orleans, trying to determine how best to enter this intimidating world once the process of his transformation is complete. He feels that he will need a contact, a Negro who is willing to help him assimilate into black culture—but he is not sure how he will find one. The medical procedure Griffin is undergoing is neither tested nor safe and he experiences painful side effects to the ultraviolet light and to the medication. After four days, he has bouts of intense nausea and acute anxiety. His discomfort heightens when the dermatologist reveals his own latent racism in his conversations with Griffin. The doctor insists that lighter-skinned Negroes are more moral and more trustworthy than darker-skinned ones. He also claims ...