At the age of thirty-nine, he decided to attempt a radical experiment aimed toward exploring the world of black Americans. "All the courtesies in the world do not cover up the one vital and massive discourtesy-that the Negro is treated not even as a second-class citizen, but as a tenth-class one."īy 1959, Griffin was increasingly dismayed with the slow progress in ending racial discrimination (treating groups of people differently) in the nation, particularly in the South. The gross unfairness of such prejudiced attitudes toward black Americans led Griffin to dedicate his life to combating racial prejudice. He learned that the French did not have the same racial attitudes as Americans. For a short time during his youth, Griffin lived and attended school in France. Griffin was born in Dallas, Texas, and raised in a region where local laws, referred to as Jim Crow Laws, enforced separation of whites and people of color in almost all aspects of life.
Despite being well-dressed and articulate, Griffin fails to find a job during his journey as a black man through the American South. Though fully expecting differences, Griffin found the extent of differences shocking. Through this exceptional experiment, his true story highlights just how separate the two worlds of whites and blacks actually were in 1959-living in different parts of towns, held to different rules of behavior, and enjoying different educational and job opportunities. Griffin temporarily transformed himself into a black man for almost two months. In the book Black Like Me, white author John Howard Griffin dramatically describes the crushing effects of racism on people's lives in the United States.
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