Griffin was a native of Mansfield, Texas, who had his skin temporarily darkened to pass as a black man. Whether or not it’s true that Griffin has succeeded to convey the African American experience, though, it’s clear that what he really wants to communicate is that racism “destroy” “souls” and “bodies”-a message that transcends whether or not he has successfully portrayed what it’s like to be black in America. Black Like Me, first published in 1961, is a nonfiction book by journalist John Howard Griffin recounting his journey in the Deep South of the United States, at a time when African-Americans lived under racial segregation. Of course, this claim is rather bold and will be put to the test in the following pages. At the same time, though, he does claim that he has captured “what it is like to be a Negro in a land where we keep the Negro down” (it’s worth noting here that “Negro” was a widely accepted term when Griffin was writing this book). By saying that this text might not “cover all the questions,” Griffin acknowledges that racism and discrimination are very complex, nuanced subjects. Griffin’s decision to open Black Like Me with the sentence, “This may not be all of it” is important, since it addresses the fact that one person’s experience-and especially a white man’s-cannot necessarily create an all-encompassing portrait of racism and bigotry.
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